Flowers lay around a bronze statue of a gorilla and her baby outside the Cincinnati Zoo’s Gorilla World exhibit days after a 3-year-old boy fell into the moat and officials were forced to kill Harambe, a 17-year-old Western lowland silverback gorilla June 2, 2016 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
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Communications director Michelle Curley confirmed that the zoo deleted its Twitter account Monday but did not provide any additional details, CNN reported.
The deactivation of Cincinnati Zoo’s Twitter account comes just days after zoo director Thane Maynard’s own Twitter account was apparently hacked on Saturday night. The 450-pound gorilla dragged the boy around the enclosure before a zoo worker shot the animal. Our zoo family is still healing.
If want to give meaning to Harambe’s life, Maynard said, there are certainly better ways, such as donating to the conservation effort.
While some people may argue that the zoo is overreacting to harmless jokes, on the other hand, some of the internet’s responses to Harambe’s death have invoked insidious racist attacks against celebrities such as actress Leslie Jones and Australian ex-soccer player Adam Goodes.
Social media users trying to visit the Cincinnati Zoo’s Twitter account on Tuesday were redirected to a page that says: “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist”.
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A variety of Harambe jokes were posted from Maynard’s account, most of which included hashtags such as #AnimalRights #JusticeForHarambe and the infamous #*****OutForHarambe.
