National Park Service Banned From Tweeting After Anti-Trump Retweets

The National Park service retweeted some sick Donald Trump burns, noting how, uh, lightly attended his inauguration was compared to Barack Obama’s in 2009. But now, the NPS has been ordered by its Washington support office to “immediately cease use of government Twitter accounts until further notice,” according to an internal email obtained by Gizmodo.

The NPS later removed the retweets, but one NPS account has already noted it will cease tweeting.

Here’s the email sent to National Park employees earlier today:

All:

We have received direction from the Department through [the Washington Support Office] that directs all [Department of Interior] bureaus to immediately cease use of government Twitter accounts until further notice.

PWR parks that use Twitter as part of their crisis communications plans need to alter their contingency plans to accommodate this requirement. Please ensure all scheduled posts are deleted and automated cross-platform social media connections to your twitter accounts are severed. The expectation is that there will be absolutely no posts to Twitter.

In summary, this Twitter stand down means we will cease use of Twitter immediately. However, there is no need to suspend or delete government accounts until directed.

This does not affect use of other approved social media platforms. We expect further guidance to come next week and we will share accordingly.

Thanks for your help!

One Park Ranger tells Gizmodo “Unofficial word on the employee facebook page is that it was because of those two [retweets] (which might have been an accident).”

Hail to our glorious new leader!