COLLEGE PARK, Maryland — President Donald Trump’s direction that the Interior Department temporarily cease social media communication put the brakes this week on a set of popular accounts managed by America’s National Park Service sites, though some were tweeting again Friday.
The audience for Park Service tweets is large. A Capital News Service analysis of Park Service Twitter accounts found 1.1 million Twitter followers for the agency’s 243 accounts maintained on the Park Service’s official Twitter list, not including accounts for intra-park programs and non-park agency offices. Units designated as National Parks tend to have the largest followings, with historic sites and memorials generally lagging behind.
Recent administration activity has placed higher interest on the parks’ accounts, including that of Badlands National Park in South Dakota, which made headlines when a former employee tweeted facts about climate change that were soon deleted, according to the park.