"ALT" accounts on Twitter for US government agencies may be fake

[Dan Robinson]

It has been revealed that the recently-lauded ALT accounts for the National Park Service, National Weather Service, NOAA and any others should be approached with skepticism. They are likely not from official sources nor even associated with the agencies.

Per this Twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/VORTEXJeff/status/824684184144936960

 

[rdale]

Many of those were known to be jokes right off the bat... I'm surprised Jeff fell for the original tweet.

 

[Jason Foster]

Well yeah, that is pretty obvious. There will be no vetting most likely either as those that may be employed under the Executive Branch wouldn't jeopardize their jobs over twitter accounts.

 

[Dan Robinson]

It's probably trivial for the government to find out who is responsible for these accounts. And I'd support that. Roger Edwards' blog puts it well:

http://stormeyes.org/wp/2017/01/alt-and-rogue-social-media-accounts-are-not-credible/

Judging from the responses to the tweets, the public has bought these accounts hook line and sinker - even though most of the weather enterprise may be wise to them.

 

[rdale]

Ehh - I don't think it would be easy at all. How would they find out?

 

[rdale]

There's no way @AlternativeNWS is really being run by NWS employees.. They didn't know Duluth was a real city, don't know what a co-op observer is, and struggle with even basic English use.

 

[Dan Robinson]

The operators of the "AlternativeNWS" Twitter have deleted the account citing "security concerns". But not before getting an article in the Washington Post.

 

[rdale]

Funny - I can't believe WaPo didn't vet that a bit before publishing...

 

[Devin Pitts]

Funny - I can't believe WaPo didn't vet that a bit before publishing...

It's been pretty standard practice for them to not vet anything before they run articles for the past couple years.