On its website, Zero Hedge's pseudonymous author "Tyler Durden" said he received a notification from Twitter that he had violated "our rules against abuse and harassment."

Earlier on Friday, BuzzFeed reported that the Zero Hedge website shared the name and personal information of a scientist who it said may have knowledge about the source of the virus, whose details then spread across the internet.

In a piece titled 'Is This The Man Behind The Global Coronavirus Pandemic?', Durden included a picture of a scientist at Wuhan's Institute of Virology and suggested users could pay him "a visit" to find out more about what caused the outbreak.

"Something tells us, if anyone wants to find out what really caused the coronavirus pandemic that has infected thousands of people in China and around the globe, they should probably" contact him, the report said.

Since being founded in the depths of the financial crisis, Zero Hedge has built a dedicated following by serving up a mix of hardcore financial analysis and populist political commentary.