WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed on Monday that financial problems might lead to the closure of the notorious secret-spilling site at the end of this year.
“If WikiLeaks does not find a way to remove this blockade, we will simply not be able to continue by the turn of the New Year,” he said.
WikiLeaks said in a statement on Monday that it would stop publishing for the moment in order to focus on making money – explaining that the blockade imposed by financial companies including Visa, MasterCard, Western Union and PayPal left it with no choice.
The statement said that in order to ensure survival, WikiLeaks must “aggressively fundraise in order to fight back against this blockade and its proponents.”
US-based financial companies pulled the plug on WikiLeaks shortly after it began publishing some 250,000 US State Department cables last year. The group says the restrictions starved it of nearly all its revenue.