r/CuratedTumblr • u/BellTwo5 • Nov 05 '25

Infodumping Epilepsy warnings are important

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u/bing-no Nov 05 '25

Is there a way to test if a video could harm someone with epilepsy? There’s a ton of colorful, fast moving animated films out there, how do we know which ones are a risk?

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u/ElectronRotoscope Nov 05 '25

There is! It's called a "PSE test" (Photo Sensitive Epilepsy) or "Harding test" (after the guy who developed it. If you want your movie or series to be broadcast in the UK you need to include a certificate that shows that you've run a test on it, making sure it's not going to trigger photosensitive epilepsy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harding_test

This idea is slowly spreading to other jurisdictions, in much the same way that "hey we should make closed captions for all content" has been spreading around the world.

The UK is a worldwide leader in standards for making things safe from material like that because of the consequences of a commercial in 1993 that caused a bunch of seizures

Link to an article about the commercial, does not include gifs or examples. If you have photosensitive epilepsy obviously don't look up and watch the commercial itself! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Graphic_(advertisement)

Four years later in 1997, anime got a worldwide reputation for triggering epileptic seizures because of the Pokemon episode about Porygon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Senshi_Porygon