User:Jthlau94/sandbox2

Twistance

Formation	January 2017 (2017-01)
Type	Social movement
Location	International (mostly in the United States)
Key people	Alice Stollmeyer, Various digital media advocates around the world
Website	Twitstance

Twistance

The Twistance was a term created by Europe-based Digital Advocacy Consultant Alice Stollmeyer to describe the Twitter Resistance against Donald Trump. Using the popular social media platform, various accounts have been created since the beginning of President Donald Trump's presidency in an effort to an underground resistance against Trump's policies. Federal agencies, high-level government personnel, and Donald Trump have been parodied through the various accounts. The Twistance members have been compiled into two lists on Twitter, labelled "Twistance" and "Twistance 2", and are collectively known as "AltGov" or Alternate Government.

Creation of the Twistance

Twistance accounts first appeared when Donald Trump issued a gag order on various federal organizations, like the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency. Within hours of his inauguration, employees from the EPA and the departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services confirmed that they had received notices from the new administration, instructing them to remove web pages or limit how they communicated to the public, including the use of social media. These restrictions were viewed as proof that Trump, a climate change skeptic, wanted to remove any federally backed research that showed fossil fuel emissions and other activities were contributing to global warming.

In January 2017, Alice Stollmeyer compiled all of the accounts in a Twitter list, coining the title "Twistance." All of the Twistance accounts claim that they are not the official accounts of the agencies that they represent labelling themselves with words like, "Parody," or "Not affiliated with," in order to avoid prosecution. Many of these Twitter accounts parody the usage of "Alternate Facts" and "Fake News, and use hashtags like #resist or #resistance in their messages.

Users behind the accounts

Twitter users formed alternate accounts parodying the agencies that were placed under the gag order. Other users followed suit and quickly created alternate accounts for other government agencies, claiming that Donald Trump had activated the gag order before any of the organizations were prepared. The first of these accounts were claimed to have been made by employees of various U.S. government agencies, becoming a part of a "rogue" network of Twitter feeds, in order to counteract Trump's actions to silence climate change awareness. This claim has not yet been verified.

While the content creators behind most of the alternative twitter accounts remain anonymous, in March 2017, the Intercept published an article that revealed personal information about the users. Some of the accounts were controlled by federal employees who worked for the Environment Protection Agency, the Department of Labor, and the Interior Department. Other accounts were revealed to have been run by an employee of Boeing, a union member, an ex-military contractor from the National Security Agency, and a student of the arts.

The premise of the alternate accounts' activism stems from the assumption that the users behind the account cannot be identified for fear of workplace consequences. Although some of the accounts have tweeted the truth, some of the accounts have used their followings to sell merchandise.

Environmental Protection Agency

History

The Environment Protection Agency was among the first of the U.S. government agencies that were targeted under the gag order that the Trump Administration had ordered within hours of Donald Trump's inauguration. The ban ranged from document release to Twitter posts. EPA employees were told that they were unable to update their various official social media accounts and were warned that any contact with the media would be heavily vetted.

Internal Memo

In an internal memo sent in the EPA, the agency placed strict rules on external communication, including blog messages, social media, press releases, and posting content on the agency website. Webinars were also under review, along with incoming media requests. There was to be no new content placed on any website, with "clean up where essential" to be done. List servers for email were also under review, with explicit instruction that only critical emails be sent as the messages could be shared to the press.

Conflicts with the Order

The communication ban goes against the scientific integrity policies of the EPA. According to the EPA's integrity policy, the EPA is made to "promote scientific and ethical standards," which involves communicating with the public. The integrity policy also states that it "prohibits all EPA employees, including scientists, managers, and other agency leadership, from suppressing, altering, or otherwise impeding the timely release of scientific findings or conclusions."

Alternative Twitter Accounts

Within hours of the ban, alternative EPA twitter accounts were among the first to be created on the social networking site. These accounts were made with the idea of promoting facts on climate change for the general population, which would be impossible under the gag order.

Within the Environment Protection Agency resistance group, accounts like "ungaggedEPA" and "Stuff EPA Would Say" have been formed. UngaggedEPA's goal is to ensure that the work of the EPA is not silenced by the Trump Administration, while continuing to share information that protects the land, air, and water that is shared, similar to the EPA's own mission.

Most of the EPA's alternative accounts share a common goal of "flooding the web with real climate facts" and saying things that the EPA is "unable to tell you."

Other accounts that are focused on the EPA have also parodied the current administrator, Scott Pruitt, under the account @RogueEPAstaff. The alternative EPA accounts, @ActualEPAFacts and @altUSEPA, each have over hundreds of thousands of followers.

Of the alternate EPA accounts, only the Rogue EPA Staff account has been proven to be under the control of a Environmental Protection Agency member. The administrator created the account after seeing the Badlands National Park climate tweets. In an interview with the Intercept, the administrator talked about the change in atmosphere in the department. The administrator said that the account was his way of speaking out against the direction of the Trump Administration.

Impact of the Gag Order

With the gag order in place, the EPA was ordered to freeze all of its grant programs, which includes air quality monitoring, education, research funding, and industrial redevelopment. Due to the gag order, EPA staff were ordered not to discuss this with anyone outside of the agency. According to an anonymous Hill source, these actions were viewed as unusual. It was not known where the freeze will be temporary or permanent. In reaction to the freeze, around 60 hackers, scientist, archivists, and librarians joined forces and downloaded hundreds of government webpages and data sets, intent on preserving the information. The group chose pages from the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that they feared would be deleted, altered, or altogether removed from the internet.

In February 2017, the ban on social media was lifted temporarily to welcome the appointment of the new EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt. Since Pruitt's confirmation, most of the EPA's tweets and social media posts have been quotes from either Pruitt or Donald Trump. While the EPA had previously promoted the previous administrator, Gina McCarthy, it was a lower amount of publicity.

National Parks Services

History

In January 2017, after the Trump administration had placed a gag order on the Environmental Protection Agency, a former employee who retained access to the official Badlands National Park's Twitter account mass-tweeted a series of facts about climate change, going against the Trump Administration's notice of prohibiting communication with the public, including the use of social media. The official Badlands National Park Twitter account was also noted to have tweeted climate change facts previously during Trump's inauguration, using sources from an U.S. Navy report. The National Parks Service Twitter account had also tweeted pictures comparing Trump and Obama's inauguration turnouts, which have since been deleted, following an apology from the NPSfor the "mistaken RTs."

As a result of public outcry about the gag order on the Environmental Protection Agency, the tweets became a rallying point for Trump protestors, creating the hashtag "#Badasslands," and gained a large following on Twitter. On the afternoon of the same day, the tweets had been deleted. According to an anonymous National Park Service official, the tweets were posted by a former employee who was not currently authorized to use the park's account. The park was not told to remove the tweets but chose to do so when they realized that their account had been compromised. The agency was encouraged to post public safety and park information only and to stay away from national policy topics.

However, the series of tweets have been viewed as one of the first attempts to use Twitter as a form of resistance against Donald Trump. The tweets became popular on social media and contributed to use of Twitter in resisting the Trump Administration. By the end of the day, unofficial resistance, or rogue, Twitter accounts had been created, using the logos of the government agencies they claimed to represent.

Alternative Accounts

Within the National Park Services, the first alternative Twitter account created used "@AltUSNatParkService," as its original handle before switching to "Not Alt World." The original users of the account claimed to be government employees who did not identify themselves under fear of threats from Trump supporters. Currently, the account is claimed to controlled by non-government activists , although it is uncertain whether the users are actual National Park Employees, as the account had been in use 2015 and previously tweeted about the British general election. Many of the tweets are derived from the same style the former Badlands National Park employee had used, referencing facts about climate change.

More alternative accounts for other national parks have since been created like @AltYosemiteNPS and @AltYellowstoneNatPar for Yosemite National Park and Yellowstone National Park, respectively. Badlands National Park has also garnered a new alternate account, @AltBadlandsNatPark.

Other official park incidents

Other official National Park twitter accounts have also appeared to show misalignment with Trump's views.

When Badlands National Parks original series of tweets were deleted, Golden Gate National Park and Redwood National Forest both tweeted facts about climate change.

On January 25, Death Valley National Park tweeted about the use of Japanese internment camps during the Second World War around the same time Trump released tougher immigration screening for Muslim refugees.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Rogue NASA

Rogue NASA or "@rogueNASA" is the Twitter handle of a group of unidentified NASA scientists who identify themselves as the unofficial resistance within NASA against U.S. President Donald Trump. The account was created in late January 2017 and currently has more than 900,000 followers. Rogue NASA is a part of the "twistance" of various U.S. Government agencies that have been created in response to the scientific claims made by Trump. Rogue NASA is also joined by other Twistance groups from NASA like @ResistanceNASA and @Alt_Nasa.

History

Prior to Trump's inauguration, there were reports that the administration was trying to limit the information that was coming from various government organizations that were involved with environmental issues, in order to deter opposing views. According to an article in the New York Times, the Trump Administration had cleansed any mention of climate change from the White House State and Department websites and ordered a halt on federal grant spending of at least four agencies . The agencies were also ordered not to send out news releases, create social media posts, blog entries, or official website content, and to contact senior officials before communicating with the media. In response to the various reports of agencies being barred from communicating with the public or media, the director of NASA's Earth science division, Michael Frielich spoke in a town hall meeting during the 97th Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society, stating that the Trump Administration had not made any changes to NASA's Earth Science division's programs. Presently, NASA's climate change website remains online and provides the current levels of carbon dioxide, global temperature, arctic ice minimum, land ice, and sea level .

Rogue NASA was formed in fear that the Trump Administration would also place similar restrictions on NASA. The group's ethos is to filter through Donald Trump's claims on the Twitter, as a way of protesting what the group deemed as censorship, and provide facts that are not approved by the Trump Administration. The account states that it is an unofficial account in its biography and encourages followers to follow official NASA accounts. It acknowledges that NASA has not been instructed to stop sharing information about science and climate change, but has also promised to inform their followers if those instructions are passed down. Tweets from the account have touched upon issues like various environmental topics, space, President Donald Trump, former President Barack Obama, and other Twitstance accounts.

Rogue NASA also has attracted support from various factions. A Rogue NASA administrator told Reuters that the alternative site was used be agency scientists and supporters. Most notably, a graphic designer from Nova Scotia designed the logo that the group is currently using. The designer, James White, decided that he created the logo for Rogue NASA as a way to bring attention to the "grim and ominous" direction that he felt the world was heading towards. The logo is also being used to sell T-shirts, pins, and patches to help raise money for science education. As of January 31, 2017, all of the proceeds will be going towards two science-based groups: Black Girls Code, a group focusing on young and pre-teen girls of colour and establishing an interest in technology, and FIRST, a youth program that attracts those in the field of science, technology, and engineering.

Other Alternative Accounts

There are multiple unofficial accounts for NASA. Many of them feature "rogue" in their name, paying homage to the Rebel Alliance of the Star Wars franchise. While Rogue NASA remains the most popular, NASAGoneRogue and NASARogueOne have gained a following on Twitter. Other accounts like Resistance_Nasa and Alt_Nasa has also contributed to the cause.

Alternative Government Departments

Alternative accounts usually come from various science and health agencies, like the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Weather Service. Other agencies that have not been explicitly targeted by the Trump Administration have had alternative accounts created on Twitter. Some of them are listed below:

Bureau of Land Management

The Alt_BLM Twitter account was created by a scientist within the Bureau of Land Management. The scientists had secret conversations with colleagues about the new presidential administration and how it could affect BLM staff. While the Bureau of Land Management did not seem like an target, the work that the organization does could be threatened by the Trump administration's view of environmental science.

BLM balances the conservation of nature and the profit to be made from extracting from acres of public land. It decides what is to be preserved and what should be turned into fossil fuels, timber, and minerals.

The scientist concluded that an alternative outlet was needed after consultation with various colleagues from around the country. In January 2017, the Alt_BLM Twitter was created.

The scientist's identity remains hidden, though his work credentials have been confirmed by the advocacy director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Department of Labor

The alternate account for the Department of Labor, Alt_Labor has been labelled as one of the most obnoxious accounts of the Alternative government. The account is run by a duo, an employee from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and another from an union.

The former is the most notable of the two users, tweeting out GIFs and drunken obscenities, while the latter posts statistics about the American labor economy.

The BLS employee had originally started an account for BLS in preparation for possible trouble with the Trump administration, but later received access to the Alt_Labor account after the original owner became fed up with his messages. The BLS employee started the account out of concerns over Trump's preference to alternative facts, hoping that his agency could remain accountable for the statistics they provided. He calls Alt_Labor a "backup defense."

The union employee joined forces with him after she became frustrated with the lack of information found on the Twitter feed. She became to send him article suggestions, after which he asked her to help him run the account as his associate.

Defense Intelligence Agency

The alternate twitter account for the Defense Intelligence Agency, AltDIA, is not run by an government employee, but an Boeing employee instead. The Boeing employee stated in an interview that through his connections to the DIA, the Department of Defense, and the military, he could use his connections to disseminate information from his network.

The account was created out of the worries that Trump would force Boeing's business model towards a reliance on defense industry and weapons sales contracts.

National Security Agency

The National Security Agency's alternative counterpart, ALTNSA, is run by a former signals intelligence and counter-terrorism analyst who worked for the NSA during a 4 1/2 year deployment with the U.S. Marines. The user was disturbed in particular about the Muslim bans, saying that "the countries that had been banned had minimal to no terrorists who've attacked Americans on American soil."

The user has also contributed various articles about Trump and American politics on the blogging website, Medium.

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Alt FBI is controlled by 23-year-old photographer Miles Goscha of Sarasota, Florida. Goscha felt that the alternate and rogue accounts focused immensely on environmental issues, and didn't hold accountability for issues of criminal justice. Goscha also stated that "he doesn't have any special knowledge in that area, but hopes that visitors who see his page will become more informed."

Works Cited

Category: Social media Category: Digital media Category: Presidency of Donald Trump Category: Donald Trump Category: United States presidential administrations Category: 2010s in the United States