Twitter thought that the brightly flashing Vine ad it posted on its website could attract viewers. The social network instead received the ire and complaints of an epilepsy charity.
The epilepsy support group Epilepsy Action posted a tweet on Friday saying that the ad, which consists of six seconds of flashing video, is dangerous to individuals with photosensitive epilepsy.
The #DiscoverMusic campaign was intended to promote new artists and aims to attract musicians to Twitter, pitching that the social network could be a good means for artists to promote their latest tracks.
The advert is marked by a looping clip of bright and flashing colors, which could potentially cause seizures in individuals who have photosensitive epilepsy.
The charity said that there are 65 million people diagnosed with the condition worldwide and given the extensive presence of Twitter online, the ad poses a serious problem.
The Epilepsy Foundation says that seizures can occur in about 3 percent of individuals with epilepsy due to quick changing visual patterns such as flashing lights. An episode of Japanese TV show Pokemon that was shown in 1997, for instance, blared strobe lights and this reportedly caused hundreds of Japanese viewer to suffer seizures.
Less than an hour after Epilepsy Action tweeted the risks posed by Twitter UK's Discover Music vines, a representative of the social network said that the company already took down the ads. The ad, however, had already ran 18 hours before it was taken down.
Simon Wigglesworth, deputy chief executive of Epilepsy Action, told BBC that the risk taken by Twitter can be viewed as irresponsible given that it is a big corporation. He added that the first seizure can often occur out of nowhere.
The Advertising Standards Agency regulations require that marketing messages including those that advertise features of the operator's website should not include visual effects that may affect individuals with photosensitive epilepsy.
It is not clear whether or not Twitter and Vine have policies in place for screening content that could harm photosensitive individuals.
The incident is not the first time that Epilepsy Action took action against potentially dangerous media content. In 2012, the charity raised concern over the flashing video content of an Olympic TV promotion that showed a logo rippled with color after people said that it caused them to suffer seizures. The move prompted the promoters to edit the piece.
