Alt National Park Service
The Alt National Park Service is a coalition of progressive activists created in 2017 in response to restrictions on United States government agencies' social media activity imposed during the first presidency of Donald Trump. AltNPS is active on multiple social media platforms, including Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
Origin and growth
On January 20, 2017, the official Twitter account of the National Park Service retweeted messages that appeared to criticize US President Donald Trump, who had been inaugurated earlier that day. In response, the Trump administration ordered the Department of the Interior, which included NPS, to suspend all social media posting. Similar orders were given to other government agencies, including the United States Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Despite these orders, the official Twitter account for Badlands National Park posted several messages about climate change on January 24, which were subsequently deleted.Later on January 24, a previously existing Twitter account called AltUSNatParkService began tweeting criticisms of Trump and his administration, describing itself as "the Unofficial #Resistance team of U.S. National Park Service". The account's handle was changed to @NotAltWorld on January 27.
Following the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk and its subsequent rebranding as X, AltNPS announced on November 24, 2024, that it would no longer be posting to X, and that its "300+ members" were closing their personal X accounts.
In a post to Facebook on February 25, 2025, AltNPS said it had 160,000 "coalition members". As of mid-2025, their social media following included more than four million followers on Facebook and around 900,000 on Bluesky.