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The rogue government Twitter account, AltUSNatParkService<\/a>,\u00a0which claimed it was being run by current park rangers<\/a>, says it has now handed off control of its Twitter account to \u201cseveral activists and journalists who believe they can continue in the same spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n The move has led some to question if the account was, in fact, ever operated by disgruntled government employees in the first place and, if it was, whether or not it\u00a0just squandered the power the account held to serve as a means of resisting the Trump administration.<\/p>\n As such, we are handing control of this account over to several activists journalists who believe they can continue in the same spirit.<\/p>\n \u2014 AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 26, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n If you haven\u2019t been following closely, the saga of the rogue government Twitter accounts can be a little confusing.<\/p>\n This week,\u00a0the Trump administration\u00a0issued gag orders affecting several government agencies<\/a>, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service. The orders\u00a0limited the agencies\u2019 ability to communicate with the public, including through social media postings.<\/p>\n These climate tweets by @BadlandsNPS<\/a> have now been deleted. pic.twitter.com\/FR1ejcMall<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Nathan Rott (@NathanRott) January 24, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n But one official National Park Service account, @BadlandsNPS<\/a>\u00a0(Badlands Nat\u2019l Park), seemed to be taking a stand against the new administration. The account was tweeting facts about climate change, apparently\u00a0in defiance of President Trump\u2019s position on the matter.<\/p>\n When those tweets\u00a0were later deleted, the public cried that government censorship was at hand.<\/p>\n The National Park Service, however, issued a statement<\/a> that explained the tweets had been posted by a former employee who was not supposed to be authorized to use the park\u2019s account:<\/p>\n \u201cThe park was not told to remove the tweets but chose to do so when they realized their account had been compromised. At this time, National Park Service social media managers are encouraged to continue the use of Twitter to post information relating to public safety and park information, with the exception of content related to national policy issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Not everyone bought this explanation, naturally.<\/p>\n Soon thereafter, rogue government Twitter accounts representing the oppressed agencies started to appear.<\/p>\n The first and most infamous was @AltNatParkSer<\/a> (AltUSNatParkService), which tweeted defiantly: \u201cCan\u2019t wait for President Trump to call us FAKE\u00a0NEWS. You can take our official twitter, but you\u2019ll never take our free time!\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Can’t wait for President Trump to call us FAKE NEWS. <\/p>\n You can take our official twitter, but you’ll never take our free time!<\/p>\n \u2014 AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The account claimed to be run by park rangers, but said they couldn\u2019t identify themselves.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026we do not feel it is safe or in the public interest to identify ourselves. We have been advised of this by [several] journalists,\u201d the account tweeted<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n The whole thing\u00a0makes for a good\u00a0story, and one which it\u2019s all too easy to envision: people who have dedicated their lives to protecting the earth, forced into silence by their government, leaving them no choice but to anonymously begin tweeting the truth.<\/p>\n What an honour. We’re touched! #resist<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/AiYp3mhBqs<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Yet, there has never been proof that @AltNatParkSer was ever run by disgruntled government employees. Journalists tried, and failed, to confirm this. And now, the account says it has handed itself off to \u201cactivists and journalists,\u201d which just\u00a0seems\u00a0odd.<\/p>\n First of all, if\u00a0these employees felt so strongly about defying Trump, why ditch the account now that it has worldwide attention? Wouldn\u2019t that have been\u00a0the end goal? \u00a0And who are these \u201creporters\u201d supposedly working with<\/em> the activists instead of just covering\u00a0them?<\/p>\n And why does an account that\u2019s now supposedly\u00a0run by \u201cformer scientists\u201d need to employ journalists for fact-checking? Are scientists capable of that? Isn\u2019t factual information\u00a0the point of science?<\/p>\n Several of us are environmental activists and two are journalists [our FACT checkers]. All of us are former scientists.<\/p>\n \u2014 AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 26, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n There are a lot of questions here, and still too few answers.<\/p>\n For what it\u2019s worth, the\u00a0account claims they had\u00a0grown fearful of criminal prosecution,<\/a> because they\u00a0were using the NPA\u2019s official logo.<\/p>\n One aspect we’ve had to consider over the past few days are legal ramifications, such as criminal prosecution for the use of the NPA’s logo.<\/p>\n \u2014 AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 26, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n It\u2019s just as reasonable, though, to assume that the original account holders were fearful that they\u00a0may end up being\u00a0exposed as mere\u00a0activists, not\u00a0defiant\u00a0government workers.<\/p>\n After all, the account never verified itself through Twitter or any other trusted third-party \u2013 such as through one of these\u00a0supposed\u00a0\u201cjournalist\u201d partners, or a trusted, independent organization like EFF, as was\u00a0suggested<\/a>\u00a0by VICE\u2019s Motherboard.<\/p>\n And when pressed about its lack of verification, it got a little snippy:<\/p>\n Being “unverified” by Twitter does NOT discredit any scientist \/ journalist who wants to work privately outside the office #PrivacyIsARight<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/lvLBDlQxRN<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 26, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Despite the\u00a0lack of proof, many took the account at its word because its existence fits a certain narrative.<\/p>\n To further confuse the matter, the popularity of @AltNatParkSer prompted a wave of other \u201cAlt\u201d government accounts\u00a0to appear.<\/p>\n Suddenly we had\u00a0@BadHombreNPS<\/a>, @AltMtRainierNPS<\/a>, @RogueNASA<\/a>, @AltForestServ<\/a>, @AltHHS<\/a>, @Alt_FDA<\/a>,\u00a0@ActualEPAFacts<\/a>, @AltUSDA<\/a>,\u00a0@AlternativeNWS<\/a>, and others to track.<\/p>\n Some of these also claim to be run by government employees, while others explicitly said\u00a0they are\u00a0not. Others say they\u2019re operated by a combination of employees and activists, and some say nothing about their creators at all.<\/p>\n 2 days without a post on our main social accounts. We would like to bring you great news about food drugs but\u2026<\/p>\n \u2014 AltFDA (@alt_fda) January 25, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Account maintained by civil servants. We don’t care about political party in control. We care about protecting lives and property, always.<\/p>\n \u2014 AltNWS (@AlternativeNWS) January 26, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Some are now\u00a0downplaying any \u201cofficial\u201d affiliation, or\u00a0saying\u00a0they\u2019re going to change their logo from their (illegally used<\/a>) official one. In fact, @AltMtRainierNPS just asked Twitter if doing so would help it\u00a0get verified. (Twitter didn\u2019t respond.)<\/p>\n Another, @AlternativeNWS, says it\u2019s also trying to hand off its account to non-government people for \u201csafety.\u201d<\/p>\n We are working to setup additional social media accounts, but will take time. Already looking to shift account to non-gov people for safety.<\/p>\n \u2014 AltNWS (@AlternativeNWS) January 27, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n As these accounts are supposedly transferred, many Twitter users<\/a> are<\/a> thanking<\/a> them<\/a> for being so \u201cbrave<\/a>,\u201d \u201cstrong<\/a>,\u201d and defiant<\/a>. Unfortunately, we have no proof that any government employees ever actually took a stand. We only have the anonymous account\u2019s word, and we\u2019re being asked to believe on faith.<\/p>\n While the spirit of resistance is certainly understandable, the emergence of \u201crogue government Twitter\u201d has only\u00a0led to a lot of confusion.<\/p>\n It\u00a0doesn\u2019t help the resistance to further blur the line between truth and fact. It doesn\u2019t help if\u00a0the media reports an anonymous Twitter account\u2019s story as being fact, when\u00a0the source isn\u2019t verified.<\/p>\n And it doesn\u2019t help for their now to be a plethora of government-esque accounts being run by a range of unidentified parties tweeting things they want everyone to believe are facts.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/ZdIKImK1C5s\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The rogue government Twitter account, AltUSNatParkService,\u00a0which claimed it was being run by current park rangers, says it has now handed off control of its Twitter account to \u201cseveral activists and <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-3141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n
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