Someone at the National Park Service is obviously not happy about Trump's inauguration
Today's peaceful inauguration of President Donald J. Trump won't stop disgruntled government employees from passive aggressively using Twitter.
Though today is supposed to represent a calm transition of power, at least one branch of the government decided to flex its social media presence and point out some negative aspects about the incoming administration.
The National Park Service, the government agency that manages all U.S. national parks, or at least the person running its Twitter account, decided not to take Trump's oath of office lying down. Though not directly tweeting anything, after the official swearing in, the account retweeted two tweets that carried a definite partisan bias, pretty unusual for a government agency.
The first retweet shared by the agency was an Esquire article detailing the fact that civil rights, climate change and healthcare issues no longer appear on the White House's website. The second retweet was from New York Times correspondent Binyamin Applbaum's showing two pictures comparing the size of Trump's inaugural crowd versus Obama's in 2009.
It wasn't long before the media, particularly the correspondent who was retweeted, found something unusual in the agency's social media usage.
Looks like the Trump administration hasn't taken control of the @NatlParkService Twitter feed just yet. pic.twitter.com/dCKGHoW0cU
— Binyamin Appelbaum (@BCAppelbaum) January 20, 2017
So, the National Park Service just retweeted a pic of the small crowd for Trump's inauguration today compared to Obama's. pic.twitter.com/uI3t4kRvCN
— Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) January 20, 2017
And it wasn't long before people started praising the agency's civil disobedience.
National Park Service twitter shade also makes me happy. https://t.co/hCnU5CiAyI
— Mike Sandmel (@mikeysandmel) January 20, 2017
I love the National Park Service. https://t.co/gxn72UGhUF
— Joel Housman (@joelhousman) January 20, 2017
In the #ParksandRec timeline, Leslie Knope works at the National Park Service in 2017, right? #InaugurationDay https://t.co/aPSd6XwQr5
— Bill Kuchman (@billkuchman) January 20, 2017
The retweets were eventually deleted from the account.
On Friday evening, Gizmodo reported the National Park Service had been banned from tweeting from its accounts. In a leaked email obtained by the publication, it informed the agency's staff to “immediately cease use of government Twitter accounts until further notice."
Mashable has reached out for comment from the National Park Service and will update this story with any further information.
Updated: Saturday, Jan. 21, 12 a.m.
