Ecuador’s foremost pain in the arse can finally stop tweeting in the third person as @Wikileaks, as he’s been doing since 2008. Lets give a hearty (if perplexed) congrats to Julian Assange for “joining” Twitter.
Image: AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth
Our publisher @JulianAssange has activated his personal account and made his first tweet today. See @JulianAssange
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 14, 2017
How did the Wikileaks founder introduce himself to this brave new digital world? By paraphrasing Mark Twain to address “Day Assange Killed”, a conspiracy theory suggesting that he’d been killed by the CIA after Wikileaks posted some cryptic strings of numbers and letters. Did I mention that that notion dates back to mid-October, and Wikileaks did nothing to dispel those rumours at the time?
Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated (in a curious plot) https://t.co/S7Nd9SIXIw pic.twitter.com/KpDzLbokxH
— Julian Assange (@julianassange) February 14, 2017
That’s the final nail in the Day Assange Killed coffin, so to speak. Assange made some questionable decisions when writing his bio though:
Refugee; Picking the lock to the chain that enslaves mankind — ignorance. No war without lies no peace without truth. Viva el Ecuador!
At a time when the United States is attempting to turn away actual refugees, that’s a pretty bold label to claim for one’s self, especially when his situation would be more accurately (if less succinctly) described as “not a refugee, just fleeing a rape investigation in Sweden“. And positing himself as a cure to ignorance when Wikileaks is, at best, a palliative, is also strange since the whistleblowing organisation not only helped birth the Pizzagate conspiracy, it actively fanned the flames.
In short, Assange is alive and still very much a jackarse. But the question remains: What has become of his cat?
Image: AP Photo/Matt Dunham
Meow twice, sweet kitty, if you’re being hauled off to a CIA black site in a pet carrier.