julian assange

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Julian Assange’s Twitter account is gone—and no one knows why (updated)

The account does not appear to have been suspended.

 

Phillip Tracy

Tech

Posted on Dec 25, 2017   Updated on May 22, 2021, 6:58 am CDT

The Twitter account of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has vanished—and no one has any idea why.

According to screenshots on the Internet Archive, Assange’s account went down sometime between 7pm and 8pm ET on Sunday. His Twitter page now shows “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist,” suggesting the account was taken down, not suspended. If an account is suspended, visitors are redirected to a “This account has been suspended” page.

The latest cached pages show @JulianAssange’s last tweet was on Dec. 22—a photo that includes his own quote, “A knowledgeable public, is an empowered public, is a free public.” Interestingly, the main Twitter account for Wikileaks, the controversial nonprofit transparency organization, is still standing. His cat’s Instagram account “embassycat” is also live but hasn’t been updated since March.

None of the accounts give any hint why Assange would leave the platform. There is a chance his account was deleted by a third party without his permission, like how @realdonaldtrump was taken down by a former Twitter employee for 11 minutes earlier this year.

Social media is flooded with speculation as to why the account was taken down. Many users have mistakenly suggested the account was suspended, while others believe Assange is preparing to make another big announcement.

https://twitter.com/jbro_1776/status/945144869823176704

Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012. If he leaves, he will be arrested for breaching bail conditions from five years ago. He also faces extradition to the United States for publishing 750,000 classified and sensitive documents leaked by Chelsea Manning. Additionally, he faces extradition to Sweden for questioning over rape allegations, though the investigation into the charges was recently dropped.

We have reached out to Twitter and will update this article if we learn more.

Update 1:38pm CT: His Twitter account has returned, and he’s been tweeting.

https://twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/945303512430333952

The U.S. Navy also sent out a tweet on Monday morning with Assange’s name.

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*First Published: Dec 25, 2017, 9:12 am CST