Late on Christmas Eve Julian Assange's official Twitter account appears to have been deleted. It's initially unclear if the disappearance was a ban or if Assange simply deleted his own account. But it does not appear to simply be a glitch. According to The Daily Beast, a second account popped up shortly after claiming to be a back up alternate to the official @JulianAssange. It accused Twitter of deleting Assange's account to silence him ahead of a major story. But that account has also now been removed.

You can see a cached version of the original account here, but there are no obvious clues as to why the account went quiet.

We've reached out to both Wikileaks and Twitter for more information. We'll update the story if and when we hear back.

Update: Assange's account is back up, but there's still no explanation from him, Wikileaks or Twitter.