The U.S. Department of Interior was ordered to suspend operations of its Twitter accounts Friday after one account shared two tweets that were unflattering toward President Donald Trump’s incoming administration.
The National Park Service retweeted a post that compared the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration to the larger crowd at former President Barack Obama’s 2009 ceremony. A second shared tweet referenced the removal of certain issues from the White House website during the transition.
Both tweets have since been removed from the National Park Service twitter feed, and the organization apologized for sharing them.
“All bureaus and the department have been directed by incoming administration to shut down Twitter platforms immediately until further notice,” said an email sent to Park Service employees Friday, according to the Washington Post.
Social media managers were directed to shut down the Twitter accounts “until further directed,” citing an “urgent directive.”
“We regret the mistaken RTs from our account yesterday and look forward to continuing to share the beauty and history of our parks with you,” the National Park Service posted on Twitter on Saturday morning, suggesting the suspension might have been lifted.
National Park Service spokesman Thomas Crosson told the Post that it is against agency policy to estimate crowd size at events due to potential inaccuracies. He declined to comment on the Twitter suspension.
