In a Christmas Day mystery, the official Twitter account of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was deleted.
And while the internet was rife with conspiracy theories about Twitter disabling the account, it initially appeared that the account was disabled externally between midnight and 1 a.m. GMT, according to Gizmodo.
According to an archived version of his @Julian Assange Twitter account, his most recent tweet was posted on December 22: “A knowledgeable public, is an empowered public, is a free public.”
Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012 to avoid extradition to avoid a rape accusation from Swedish prosecutors, has long used the social media site to communicate WikiLeaks plans.
The WikiLeaks Twitter handle as well as one associated with his cat, @EmbassyCat, are still functional on the site.
Twitter has not responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.
https://twitter.com/SueCFlorida/status/945163504562135040
Still, the internet being the internet, many speculated darkly about Assange’s disappearance from one of his favorite online media.
https://twitter.com/DellaGates_1237/status/945138355788046336
https://twitter.com/Larrypolya22/status/945157868571037697
https://twitter.com/OpWolverines/status/945150308270796801