Twitter suspends YourAnonNews account [Update: It's back]

It looks like Twitter might be getting more active in suspending accounts on the social network that it feels violates the company's terms of service. Earlier today, Twitter shut down @YourAnonNews's page, which has been used in the past by members of the Anonymous hacker group to post their various announcements.

While Twitter has not commented publicly on why they decided to shut down YourAnonNews, RT.com speculates that it was due to the current cyberwar that the hacker group, using that Twitter page, was waging against the Westboro Baptist Church. The activist church had pledged to hold protests during the funerals of the children that were shot and killed last week in the school shootings of Newtown, Connecticut.

That plan got Anonymous mad, and Ars Technica reports that the YourAnonNews Twitter account started to post the phone numbers and mailing addresses of some members of the church. Anonymous has also claimed responsibility for other actions against the Westboro Baptist Church, including hacking into their website and Twitter page. It even claimed that it hacked into the PC of the church's spokesperson Shirley Phelps-Roper and put a gay porn image on her desktop.

The big question: Will Anonymous go after Twitter for suspending one of its biggest accounts? That remains to be seen but there's already a backup account, YANBackUp, that was apparently set up just in case YourAnonNews got shut down.

Update: The YourAnonNews Twitter account is now back online:

A picture… a picture can get you suspend #RightToLink RT @yanbackup: Why @youranonnews got suspend, from @twitter: twitter.com/YANBackUp/stat…
— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) December 19, 2012