Twitter Suspends ‘ZeroHedge’ for Coronavirus Doxxing

• Twitter suspended ZeroHedge Friday afternoon. It’s not the first time ZeroHedge has run afoul of major platforms’ rules.
• The popular markets-focused blog with a contrarian streak has 673K followers. But they won’t be reading any new ZeroHedge tweets today.
• Followers suspect a tweet about a coronavirus conspiracy theory triggered the suspension. But it’s more likely a recent doxxing.

Twitter suspended the pro-Trump market news website ZeroHedge Friday. Followers discovered the website’s timeline had disappeared. An account suspension announcement, and link to Twitter’s rules were in its place.

Source: Twitter

Not ZeroHedge’s First Suspension

The website’s followers were shocked, but not surprised at the suspension. It’s hardly ZeroHedge’s first run-in with major social media and news platforms.

Facebook banned the website in March last year. But they reversed the ban the next day and said it was “a mistake.” Zerohedge said it was thrilled with the outpouring of support online during the 24 hours it was banned.

Coronavirus Conspiracy Theory Tweet Blamed

On the #ZeroHedge hashtag, someone pointed out the last update from the website was coronavirus related. The tweet linked to a ZeroHedge post headlined:

Coronavirus Contains “HIV Insertions”, Stoking Fears Over Artificially Created Bioweapon

The article features a conspiracy theory that the Wuhan coronavirus was manufactured in a lab. In other words, that it’s a biological weapon. But it expands on the theory with claims that there are genetic similarities between the virus and HIV.

Source: Twitter

It’s a disturbing conspiracy theory, but it’s unconfirmed.

ZeroHedge Doxxed A Chinese Scientist

On Wednesday, ZeroHedge published a post headlined:

Is This The Man Behind The Global Coronavirus Pandemic?

It accused a Chinese scientist of creating the coronavirus as a biological weapon. And it published his picture, name, email address and telephone number.

Then encouraged readers to pay him a visit.

Something tells us, if anyone wants to find out what really caused the coronavirus pandemic that has infected thousands of people in China and around the globe, they should probably pay […] a visit.

Or at least start with an email: […] can be reached at […], and his phone# is […].

The article is still upon ZeroHedge’s website at the time of publication. It’s probably no coincidence that BuzzFeed reported the doxxing two hours before Twitter suspended ZeroHedge’s account.

Last modified: February 1, 2020 12:48 AM UTC

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