National Park Service suspends tweeting following questionable retweet

While Washington D.C. and the rest of the country was ringing in Inauguration Day with Pres. Trump becoming the 45th President of the United States, one government head was going about its own business.

In the midst of the inauguration celebrations Friday, the National Park Service retweeted two images comparing the attendance of the 2009 inauguration of Pres. Obama and the attendance of the 2017 inauguration of Pres. Trump. The tweet in question, seen below, was quickly spotted by many and captured the attention of the U.S. government.

The original tweet from user @BCAppelbaum was posted just about 30 minutes before Pres. Trump was officially sworn-in to office.

The tweets were removed from NPS Twitter account after several hours. According to Gizmodo, the U.S. government temporarily banned the National Park Service from tweeting around 7 p.m. Friday. 

Gizmodo later obtained an internal memo sent to NPS employees. In it, NPS employees were told the 'Washington Support Office directed all Department of Interior bureaus to immediately cease use of government Twitter until further notice.'

Read the message in full:

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!

The NPS Twitter account went silent until early Saturday morning.

"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," said the tweet.