Federal employees from more than a dozen U.S. departments are tweeting climate change and other scientific information under unofficial Twitter accounts in a move against the climate-skeptical Trump administration, says Reuters.
“Seizing on Trump’s favorite mode of discourse, scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and other bureaus have privately launched Twitter accounts — borrowing names and logos of their agencies — to protest restrictions they view as censorship and provide unfettered platforms for information the new administration has curtailed,” says Reuters.
The rogue tweets started after climate-change related tweets were deleted from the official Twitter feed of Badlands National Park in South Dakota. A park service official said that a former employee had crafted the tweets without permission and that current employees were encouraged to steer clear of national policy issues on social media. Other federal staffers then began tweeting from alternative Twitter accounts like @RogueNASA and @AltNatParkService.
“Many of their messages carried Twitter hashtags #resist or #resistance,” says Reuters.
Meanwhile, after opposition from high-ranking EPA staff members, the Trump Administration has backed off plans to erase the agency’s climate change page on its website, reports The Washington Post, based on information from EPA staff.
“Management was pushing back as far up the chain as we could get to say this was not an acceptable move and to delay it,” said one employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, because federal employees are currently under a gag order to limit contact with the press.