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UPDATED: "Unofficial" National Park Service Twitter Accounts Challenge Trump Administration

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Published Date

January 25, 2017

Editor's note: This update cites another unofficial NPS Twitter feed, and outlines how the NPS Arrowhead logo can be used.

This national park Twitter feed ain't rogue. It might better be viewed as "the resistance."

After a former employee at Badlands National Park in South Dakota fed a short series of climate-change related tweets that were quickly taken down, a collection of active National Park Service employees has banded together to launch AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) on Twitter, a feed those behind it bill as, "The Unofficial 'Resistance' team of U.S. National Park Service. Not taxpayer subsidised! Come for rugged scenery, fossil beds, 89 million acres of landscape."

Among the initial tweets were:

Can't wait for President Trump to call us FAKE NEWS. You can take our official twitter, but you'll never take our free time!

All Americans should review .@NASA's Images of Change to see how climate change is affecting our planet http://climate.nasa.gov/images-of-change?id=594#594-three-gorges-dam-bri...

We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We'll fight climate change denial

This account should not have to exist & we are sorry for any problems we are causing our colleagues.  But we didn't start this. #resist

These four tweets were quickly removed from Badlands National Park's twitter feed on Tuesday.

The account quickly gained more than 440,000 followers.

As to the Badlands situation, that park's Twitter feed on Tuesday contained three climate-change related tweets and one noting the Park Service's mandate to preserve landscapes and their natural resources.

"Several tweets posted on the Badlands National Park's Twitter account today were posted by a former employee who was not currently authorized to use the park's account. The park was not told to remove the tweets but chose to do so when they realized that their account had been compromised," a Park Service official said. "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."

Another Twitter channel with a similar bent, NatlParksUnderground (@NatParkUndrgrnd) also has surfaced. Among its initial tweets was one that said, "We encourage all agencies under the gag order of the Trump administration to go #underground, get the info out, and resist, resist, #resist."

National Park Service officials in Washington declined to comment on the two sites. However, the first might run into trouble for its use of the NPS Arrowhead logo.

Agency regulations specific that, "(U)nder no circumstances is the Arrowhead symbol to be employed in any manner which would malign or denigrate the NPS or its employees. No reproduction of the symbol is permitted which in any way changes the wording or design elements found therein. The use of the symbol on souvenirs or other items or merchandise presented for sale to the public by private enterprise operating either within or outside of areas of the National Park System will not be authorized. The symbol will not be authorized for use in a manner that would imply endorsement by the Service of a product, service, or enterprise which the Service has no authority to endorse."

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Comments

Keep the faith!! Thank you!!!'n


Viva la resistance


Awesome - love it!


There are some brave people out there!  Excellent!


Not surprising you folks would endorse the theft of government assets. 


This is getting ridiculous.  This administration is coming off like a bunch of clowns, and it's getting hard to take them seriously. 


Theft of government assets? Pound sand. It is a PRIVATE endeavor.


I think that's awesome!  I think it's even more awesome that their following has doubled since I started following them this morning.  And for you grumblers out there, I guess you are glad that the administration (and I use that term loosely) wants to dumb us all down and keep us in the dark by actively closing down sites and banning information that would help us make our own decisions.   Maybe there will be an altEPA twitter site out there soon.  Next, they'll be telling people it's ok to spray graffitti in the national parks (alt art) and it's just fine to step off the well-maintained park trails (alt hiking paths) because there are no such things as fragile ecosystems and even if there are, what effect would they have on us anyway if they were to be destroyed.


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