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The Government’s Social Media Propaganda Machine

By Larry O'Connor

Lost in the hysterical overreaction to the Trump Administration ordering government agencies to suspend Twitter and Facebook communications until the new administration’s policies could be fully laid out is the disturbing fact that the U.S. government appears to have a social media footprint any teenage girl would envy.

A quick observation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Facebook presence shows that there’s a whole lot of energy and money being spent right now to “engage” the public:

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And the EPA’s Kardashian-like social media obsession isn’t confined to Facebook. In fact, beyond the 34 Facebook pages the EPA also maintains, “37 Twitter accounts, nine blogs, three discussion forums, 55 widgets, one YouTube channel, Pinterest, Instagram, Flickr, Storify, Medium, and their Web site,” according to the Independence Institute.

How many employees and how much money does it take to maintain 34 Facebook pages, 37 Twitter accounts, nine blogs, and all the other opportunities to blitz the Internet with the EPA’s agenda? And this is just one agency. Over at the USDA you’ll be pleased to know there are no fewer than 29 separate Twitter accounts to maintain and manage:

Over at Education it’s the same story.

And what has the EPA doing with all of those outlets? As the New York Times reported in December of 2015, they were illegally propagandizing on behalf of the Obama administration:

The Environmental Protection Agency engaged in “covert propaganda” and violated federal law when it blitzed social media to urge the public to back an Obama administration rule intended to better protect the nation’s streams and surface waters, congressional auditors have concluded. The ruling by the Government Accountability Office, which opened its investigation after a report on the agency’s practices in The New York Times, drew a bright line for federal agencies experimenting with social media about the perils of going too far to push a cause. Federal laws prohibit agencies from engaging in lobbying and propaganda.

Which puts the Trump administration’s so-called “gag order” on social media communications until current policies could be reviewed in a somewhat different light, wouldn’t you say? But the media is in love with the notion that Trump is looking to install some sort of fascist dictate on government agencies.

Which brings us to Thursday’s story du jour on the valiant stand-off between scientists determined to speak truth to power:

Employees from more than a dozen U.S. government agencies have established a network of unofficial “rogue” Twitter feeds in defiance of what they see as attempts by President Donald Trump to muzzle federal climate change research and other science. Seizing on Trump’s favorite mode of discourse, scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and other bureaus have privately launched Twitter accounts – borrowing names and logos of their agencies – to protest restrictions they view as censorship and provide unfettered platforms for information the new administration has curtailed.


The “Alt National Park Service” account already has over one million Twitter followers. This dwarfs the actual, official NPS Twitter account which only has 382,000 followers. Which sort of proves an important point, doesn’t it? A clever idea and an entrepreneurial spirit will always win out over a regulated, government-controlled bureaucracy. Especially in a battle of ideas and wit. So instead of wasting millions of dollars on personnel and infrastructure to maintain a leviathan of social media propaganda outlets, perhaps the U.S. government should be in the business of carrying out its constitutional responsibilities and leave the tweeting to the Kardashians… and the president, of course.

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