Is this the beginning of an epic Twitter battle? Yesterday Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder currently holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy, tweeted Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey with a complaint. “This is absurd,” he said, posting a screengrab of a message: “A request to verify this account has been reviewed and denied.”
For those unfamiliar with social media, this means that Assange was hoping to gain a blue tick, which would distinguish him from copycats or Twitter plebs. “We’ve been trying to verify this account since early October,” he moaned.
The decision to deny his request could be the latest crackdown on controversial comments: alt-Right tool Milo Yiannopoulos, rapper Azealia Banks and SNL writer Katie Rich have all fallen foul of Twitter regs.
Assange set up the account in 2011, reactivated it in February, and has 109,000 followers. But this raises questions: the embassy cut Assange’s net access over accusations that he leaked anti-Hillary info during the US election. Has his ban been rescinded, or did frequent visitor Pamela Anderson drop off a dongle?
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