Have you seen the mysterious video featuring a countdown clock purporting to belong to Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old “person of interest” in the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City last week? The video went viral on YouTube on Monday, gaining attention on sites such as: hacker news. But it’s completely fake.
Mangione was reportedly in possession of a “manifesto” and a ghost gun when he was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday. He was charged with five counts, including possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery, giving a false name to authorities and possession of criminal instruments, according to a criminal complaint. posted online. However, Mangione has not been charged or named as a suspect in Thompson’s murder, even though the internet has labeled him as a suspect.
A video appearing to be from a YouTube account associated with Mangione was published on Monday. It started with the words “Truth” and “If you see this, I’m already under arrest.” It had a countdown clock that first counted from 5 to 1, then switched to 60, and counted down from there to zero.
The lower right corner contained the word “Soon” and the date December 11 flashed briefly and disappeared again within a second. It ended with the words, “Everything is on schedule, please be patient.” Goodbye for now. “
Want to know what the video actually looks like? check it hereassuming YouTube doesn’t remove this too. We promise we are not trying to deceive anyone by doing so. But after missing out on the misinformation spread, it might be interesting to find out what all the fuss is about.
This account was created in January 2024, so there’s a good chance that someone has set up an account of sorts. dead man’s switch— They schedule the video to be released sometime in the future, with the intention of stopping the automatic release if they don’t get arrested (or killed, or whatever the scenario is). However, YouTube confirmed to Gizmodo that it’s not real.
“We shut down the channel in question because it violated our impersonation policy, which prohibits content intended to impersonate someone else on YouTube,” a spokesperson for the video platform told Gizmodo in an email Monday.
“Following widespread coverage of Luigi Mangione’s arrest, the channel’s metadata has been updated, including updating the channel name and handle,” the spokesperson continued. “Additionally, in accordance with Creator Responsibility Guidelines, we terminated three other channels owned by the suspect.”
The spokesperson also noted that these accounts had been dormant for several months. Who is actually behind the video? It remains unclear. But our funds are in things related to cryptocurrencies. who knows?