Julian Assange's twitter account restored after going offline for a couple of hours

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's twitter account @JulianAssange has been restored after mysteriously disappearing for a few hours. Users who tried to search for Assange’s account between 5.30 am and 6.30 am Indian time on Monday got the message “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!”.

Assange’s account was down long enough to draw a good deal speculation that it may have been pulled for a specific reason. Assange did not explain the disappearance of his Twitter handle in any of the tweets he posted after the account was back online. Also, neither Twitter nor WikiLeaks explained the reason behind the disappearance of Assange's Twitter account.

CBS news reports that another unverified account claiming to be Assange popped up in his absence, suggesting the original had been pulled ahead of a blockbuster Wikileaks release. That one account has since been suspended by the social networking service.

It is not yet clear whether Assange himself deactivated his account or Twitter did so. Trying to access accounts suspended by Twitter normally shows the message “Account suspended”. It is however speculated that Twitter intentionally deleted his account as a part of the social media platform's recent activity against imposters and to curb fake news.