@YourAnonNews Account Suspended by Twitter for Linking to Leaked Personal Details of Missouri Governor

The most popular Twitter account associated with the Anonymous movement was suspended for several hours for apparently posting personal information about Governor Jay Nixon in the wake of the shooting of black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri a couple of weeks ago.

Late on Tuesday evening, 19 August, the Twitter account @YourAnonNews (YAN), which has over 1.3 million followers, was taken offline.

Initially reports suggested that the reason for the removal was because the account had published graphic images of the death of American journalist James Foley.

However another prominent Anonymous account - @YourAnonCentral - claims that the reason the account was suspended was because of its posting of personal information about Governor of Missouri Jay Nixon in the wake of what was seen as heavy-handed police response to protestors in Ferguson following the controversial shooting of Michael Brown.

On Tuesday the personal information of Governor Nixon was published on text-sharing website Pastebin and this was linked to by YAN. Twitter does not comment on individual account suspensions so would not say why the account was taken offline.

IBTimes UK has contacted those in charge of YAN to clarify if this was the reason given for its suspension but at the time of publication, has recevied no response.

Within a couple of hours, the @YourAnonNews account was reinstated by Twitter, though those in charge say the suspension did cause problems with their followers/following count, though that appears to have also been corrected now.

Westboro Baptist Church

This is not the first time the account has been suspended. In December 2012 @YourAnonNews was also temporarily suspended for publishing personal details of Shirley Phelps-Roper, a spokesperson for the Westboro Baptist Church.

The @YourAnonNews Twitter account is the most high-profile account associated with the hacktivist movement, and is operated around the clock by a team of volunteers. Earlier this year details of acrimonious in-fighting among those in charge of the group leaked, including accusations that one of the members stole over £20,000 from a fundraising campaign to build an official website.

The online movement Anonymous has been very vocal in raising the profile of what happened in Ferguson on Saturday, 9 August when 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot dead by Officer Darren Wilson while apparently kneeling down with his hands in the air.

Using Twitter it helped raise awareness of the protestors which started in the wake of the shooting and the subsequent police reaction to peaceful protests.

However another Anonymous-affiliated account - @YourAnonMessage - was suspended after it erroneously identified an officer involved in the shooting before the Ferguson Police Department finally named Officer Wilson.