Hillary Clinton plagiarized a popular internet joke calling upon Donald Trump to delete his Twitter account, a Washington Free Beacon analysis reveals.
When the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee asked her Republican counterpart to remove his account from the popular social networking site, she was retweeted more than 400,000 times. (Retweeting is the popular practice of forwarding a tweet to one's followers.)
Delete your account. https://t.co/Oa92sncRQY
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 9, 2016
The content of Clinton's tweet was not original, however. An exhaustive analysis by the Free Beacon has found that thousands of Twitter users have previously asked the Republican nominee to "delete" his account.
@realDonaldTrump Delete your account, you idiot fuck.
— Benjamen #NEVERTRUMP (@gSe7eN) April 3, 2016
@realDonaldTrump delete your account
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) March 23, 2016
@realDonaldTrump delete your account
— Lee McVeigh (@LeeMcVeigh) April 2, 2016
Please exercise your First Amendment right to delete your account @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/Phoz05JY9P
— Pogington Jones (@Pogington) March 12, 2016
.@realDonaldTrump Delete your account. pic.twitter.com/c8xL3yMNQA
— Tom (@BoreGuru) February 21, 2016
@realDonaldTrump delete your account
— James Wheeldon (@wheeldon) June 26, 2015
.@realDonaldTrump "Delete your account" - Gandhi
— Simon Maloy (@SimonMaloy) May 12, 2015
Dear @realDonaldTrump If you do not delete your account soon, you will be next and I will be waiting for you at the airport. #JustineSacco
— Outside TM (@justinmettew) December 21, 2013
@realDonaldTrump I wish I could delete your twitter account, stupid bitch.
— Masc4Masc...ara? (@BeingBlkStacey) October 23, 2012
Clinton's plagiarism comes as "emoji art" from the Democratic strategist Laura Olin has been stolen by numerous Twitter users, according to the Washington Post. "Not by just anyone, mind you," the Post reported. "In the hours after Olin’s tweet *celebrating a great moment for women* [sic] went viral, it was apparently lifted, without credit, by a series of men. Many of them were themselves journalists or political operatives; several have since deleted their tweets after followers objected."
"They [the men who appropriated her original work] apparently had zero appreciation of the irony," an Olin told the Post in an interview conducted via Twitter.
@HillaryClinton Please feel respond to me to me via direct message at your earliest convenience. Cordially yours, @matthewwalther
— Matthew Walther (@matthewwalther) June 10, 2016
Hillary Clinton did not respond to requests for comment on her use of social media made using social media.