Park Service banned from Twitter over Trump crowd size comments

The National Park Service got itself in hot water with America’s most tweeting president Friday for using the avian social network to contrast “Hope and Change” with “Make America Great Again.”


Using the social network, the government agency retweeted, or forwarded, and then deleted tweets with side-by-side photos comparing the teeming crowds of January 2009 with the large but not as packed crowds that came out to see Trump sworn in as president.

Many critics of the new president used the agency’s spreading these photos to crack wise. The new Trump administration did not take it well.

National Park employees received an email late on inauguration day telling them that that all bureaus had been ordered to “immediately cease use of government Twitter accounts until further notice.”

Even those parks that “use Twitter as part of their crisis communications plans” would have to “alter their contingency plans to accommodate this requirement.”

Parks employees were asked to ensure that “all scheduled posts are deleted” and to make sure that “automated cross-platform social media connections to your Twitter accounts are severed.”

“The expectation,” the message informed them, “is that there will be absolutely no posts on Twitter.”

Though this “Twitter stand down” meant the Park Service “will cease use of Twitter immediately” this did not translate into the “need to suspend or delete government accounts until directed.”

One park ranger told the website Gizmodo that “unofficial word on the employee Facebook page is that it was because of those two [retweets],” and suggested that it could have been an accident.

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