Twitter Briefly Removes Julian Assange's Account

Twitter Suspended Government

Julian Assange’s Twitter account was suddenly removed early in the day on Christmas, 2017, without comment or explanation from either Assange or Twitter. It was shortly reinstated just as mysteriously as it had been removed.

While this was happening, the official Twitter account for the US Navy strangely tweeted out “Julian Assange”, quickly deleted the tweet a few minutes later, and issued the following statement:

This morning, an inadvertent keystroke by an authorized user of the U.S. Navy Office of Information’s Digitial Media Engagement Team caused the trending term “Julian Assange” to be tweeted from the Navy’s official Twitter account (@USNavy). (1/2)

– U.S. Navy (@USNavy) 25 Dec 2017

Project Veritas published a report a few weeks later primarily about Twitter’s shadow banning practices and political bias. However, within the investigative report, a Twitter engineer suggests to Project Veritas journalists that Assange’s account could have been removed due to pressure from the US government.

Sources / Relevant Material

  1. New York Post "Julian Assange's Twitter account mysteriously disappears" by Mark Moore (25 Dec 2017)
  2. Twitter @USNavy 945327761811476481