Despite theories that the Badlands National Parks Twitter account had gone rogue on the Trump administration in posting tweets about climate change, a National Park Service official told TPM Wednesday that the tweets came from a former employee who still had access to the park’s Twitter account.
“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 official said in an emailed statement to TPM. “The park was not told to remove the tweets but chose to do so when they realized that their account had been compromised.”
The viral tweets made headlines on their own but made even bigger waves when they were deleted a few hours later. They stood out in the wake of reports that the Trump administration had ordered the National Parks Service account to stop tweeting after it retweeted some unflattering tweets about President Trump and the size of his inauguration crowd.
The deletion of the Badlands’ tweets even prompted a new Twitter account, AltUSNatParkService, which does not appear to be affiliated with the National Parks Service in any way.
What do we want?
Peer-reviewed Science
When do we want it?
Yesterday, please!— AltUSNatParkService (@AltNatParkSer) January 25, 2017
Though the tweets were apparently not posted by a current park service employee, the statement from the NPS official went on to say that the parks’ social media manager may post general information about parks, but are to refrain from posting about policy.
“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,” the statement read.
