The man behind the parody @TheTweetOfGod Twitter account is ending it, he has announced.
David Javerbaum worked on The Daily Show as a writer and producer for 11 years and since leaving has written books, plays and worked on other major TV shows.
His satirical "voice of God" Twitter account – which contains strong language and uses jokes many Christians find offensive – has more than 2 million followers. It was founded in 2010 to publicise his novel, The Last Testament: A Memoir, now a Broadway play entitled An Act of God.
His last tweet was the single word "justice" in responce to the death of Chief Justice Antonin Scalia.
In an interview with The Frame, Javerbaum said the account had "been taking up too much of my time and energy and mental agility. And I have other things that I want to do in my life and I just have to, at a certain point, just cut that cord."
He said the trigger for his decision was the hacking of the account on Valentine's Day.
"The Twitter account got hacked. God got hacked, which wasn't surprising. There were a number of obscene messages put up there briefly and then removed."
He said one of the reasons for leaving was the nature of Twitter, in which posts have to be 140 characters or less.
"And also working on Twitter for a long time, it just miniaturizes the way you think, because that's the medium. You're a miniaturist. And if I'm going to work on other things that require anything longer — ie anything else in the world — I need to stop doing that."
Javerbaum also referred to Stephen Fry's decision to leave Twitter after he was criticised for a friend's costume.
"Stephen Fry is one of my huge heroes. And he just had enough of Twitter. He had told a joke — a very harmless joke in his opinion and in my opinion too — and just got a lot of grief and just said, You know what, this is not worth it. I don't like the cesspool Twitter has become."
