This photo of an Australian politician went viral after he tried to get it removed from the Internet

Australia's minister of immigration, Peter Dutton, and his team wanted an unflattering photo of him removed from Twitter.

Instead, he ended up becoming the internet's latest meme.

The original photo, taken by photojournalist Alex Ellinghausen, was posted to Twitter by journalist Stephanie Peatling. 

The photo was taken at a press conference where the minister was discussing the ongoing refugee crisis in Australia after two recent events where refugees reportedly lit themselves on fire.

Once the photo of the minister surfaced, his press office requested it be taken down. Peatling, a senior writer at The Age, explained the request on the Live Budget Blog.

"Keen observers would have noticed that I tweeted some of Alex's photos from the press conference as they came in," she wrote. "Mr Dutton's office felt it was 'unflattering' and demanded to know why I had tweeted it. [...] After one of those conversations where both parties say the same thing over and over again, I agreed I would take it off Twitter so long as I could say they asked me to do so."

She also tweeted about the request, as did other reporters like Dave Donovan, the managing editor of the Independent Australia:

Dutton and his office's request proved futile, serving to merely encourage people to spread the picture around. On the subreddit Photoshop Battles, Redditors got ahold of the picture and Photoshopped their own creative versions.

User SirReginaldTheDumb subbed Dutton in for Tim "the toolman" Taylor's neighbor Wilson:

Redditor Senpai_Has_Noticed_U switched Frank from "House of Cards" out for Dutton:

And the user Animal-Kingdom superimposed Dutton's face on the "Citizen Kane" slow-clap:

Twitter commentators also joined in, calling Dutton's priorities into question:

And poking some fun at the minister.

We reached out to Dutton and his team for comment, neither had responded at the time of this post.

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