[deekayw0n]

from http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/worlds-largest-mu... ... including snippet here because the story has changed a few times:

UPDATE, 11:59 p.m. Eastern: Ars has received a response from the operator of What.cd's Twitter account. The respondent would only identify him or herself as "an administrator" of the former site, but the person alleges that the torrent site's operation was shut down by its administrators, not a police or government force.

"The facts are pretty skimpy right now," What.cd's representative says. "We have no official confirmation that servers were seized, but all available evidence does support that, so we are operating as if it is true." That being said, what.cd's administrators are confident that its major database of user information was not seized by French authorities: "The site was operational until we shut it down."

That shutdown decision was made by What.cd's operators out of heightened precaution, as opposed to being forced by an authority to do so, the representative tells Ars. That person also noted that issues with the site's IRC server match up with information gleaned from today's Zataz report.

"I wouldn't be surprised to see some other site try to fill the void, but for now, we have no plans to try to return," the What.cd administrator says.