Comparisons to Joseph Stalin, Nazi Germany and the Troubles in Northern Ireland were quickly replaced by images of a doddering Grandpa Simpson just hours after the strategy was announced on Friday morning. By 3pm, Operation Fortitude was no more. But before the cancellation, even before the press conference cancellation an hour earlier, there was Twitter's swift and biting reaction to the Operation Fortitude announcement itself. Twitter users were quick to damn the operation was racial profiling by another name.

Despite the ABF's confusing clarification that it would not be stopping people at random, or "does not target on the basis of race, religion, or ethnicity", Twitter was not convinced. The ABF and Victorian Police would have had their work cut out for them had they started their patrolling on Friday.

Hundreds protesters reportedly assembled at Flinders Street Station and outside the building where the planned press conference was to take place reportedly within an hour of the announcement. #BorderFarce became the catch cry on Twitter. By 2.30pm personnel of the ABF - the force that had been cast as the iron fist of a police state on Twitter not two hours earlier - were trapped inside the press conference building by the swelling crowd outside.

As news spread that the Victorian Police had pulled its support from the joint operation, so did the memes.