In the aftermath of the arrest of Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a chilling video featuring a countdown clock that purported to be for him went viral on YouTube, and got attention on sites like Hacker News. The YouTube video, which appeared to be associated with Mangione, opened with the words “The Truth” and “If you see this, I’m already under arrest.” The video featured a countdown clock that first counted from 5 to 1, and then flipped to 60 and counted down all the way to zero from there.
In the lower right corner, one could see the word “Soon”. The same corner also briefly flashed the date December 11 before it quickly disappeared. It finally ended with the words “All is scheduled, be patient. Bye for now.”
Was the video real or fake?
YouTube confirmed to Gizmodo that the video was not real. It is possible that the account, which was created in January 2024, was being handled by someone else pretending to be Mangione.
“We terminated the channel in question for violating our policies covering impersonation, which prohibit content intended to impersonate another person on YouTube,” a spokesperson for YouTube told the outlet.
“The channel’s metadata was updated following widespread reporting of Luigi Mangione’s arrest, including updates made to the channel name and handle,” the spokesperson added. “Additionally, we terminated 3 other channels owned by the suspect, per our Creator Responsibility Guidelines.” The spokesperson also said that these accounts had been dormant for several months.
The video and information about it were also widely shared on other social media platforms, including X. One X post by the account DramaAlert shared the video with the caption, “Luigi Mangione reportedly scheduled a YouTube video titled 'The Truth' before his arrest.”
{{/usCountry}}The video and information about it were also widely shared on other social media platforms, including X. One X post by the account DramaAlert shared the video with the caption, “Luigi Mangione reportedly scheduled a YouTube video titled 'The Truth' before his arrest.”
{{/usCountry}}However, a community note below the post now reads, “The video is from a YouTube account that was created today and is acting as Luigi by using pictures from his X account. The Youtube account name also does not match Luigi's X handle. This video was fabricated and not posted by Luigi himself.”