WikiLeaks announced Monday morning that Julian Assange’s Internet connection was cut by a “state party” – a chilling hit to freedom of speech that comes amid the company’s release of numerous messages painting presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton in a poor light.
Social media, meanwhile, jumped to theorize that the Internet cut, which was preceded by strange coded tweets from WikiLeaks, meant Assange had actually died.
WikiLeaks tweeted news of the downed link, along with a message that appropriate remedies have been taken.
The Twitter message from WikiLeaks read:
“Julian Assange’s internet link has been intentionally severed by a state party. We have activated the appropriate contingency plans.”
As Fox News reported, the announcement followed three other strange messages on the WikiLeaks Twitter feed that read like this:
“pre-commitment 1: John Kerry 4bb96075acadc3d80b5ac872874c3037a386f4f595fe99e687439aabd0219809
6:08 PM – 16 Oct 2016
“pre-commitment 2: Ecuador
eae5c9b064ed649ba468f0800abf8b56ae5cfe355b93b1ce90a1b92a48a9ab72
6:23 PM – 16 Oct 2016
“pre-commitment 3: UK FCO f33a6de5c627e3270ed3e02f62cd0c857467a780cf6123d2172d80d02a072f74
6:25 PM – 16 Oct 2016”
Gizmodo suggested the 64-character codes possibly meant Assange had died. Reddit and Twitter posters chatted similarly, saying the numbers actually were a “dead man’s switch” trigger, set in place in case Assange died. WikiLeaks, meanwhile, hasn’t tweeted further explanation.
