The National Park Service tweeted showing the difference between the 2009 Obama inauguration attendance and the 2017 Trump attendance. The administration didn’t like that, and was ordered to suspend all tweeting on government accounts. Here is the full article.

Here’s the email sent to National Park employees earlier today:

All:

We have received direction from the Department through [the Washington Support Office] that directs all [Department of Interior] bureaus to immediately cease use of government Twitter accounts until further notice.

PWR parks that use Twitter as part of their crisis communications plans need to alter their contingency plans to accommodate this requirement. Please ensure all scheduled posts are deleted and automated cross-platform social media connections to your twitter accounts are severed. The expectation is that there will be absolutely no posts to Twitter.

In summary, this Twitter stand down means we will cease use of Twitter immediately. However, there is no need to suspend or delete government accounts until directed.

This does not affect use of other approved social media platforms. We expect further guidance to come next week and we will share accordingly.

Thanks for your help!

Authoritarian regimes tend to squelch information that is adversarial or critical of them. It starts small, like this. In addition to suppressing opposition, they start creating “facts” that are not based on reality, including what we now call fake news, and they repeat them over and over again until the people take them as real. It’s all designed to make the administration look good and worthy of followership.

We have a word for that: Propaganda.

It didn’t take long to start.