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A Cold Wind Is Now Blowing Through Government Social Media

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
December 14, 2015
Filed under
A Cold Wind Is Now Blowing Through Government Social Media

B-326944, Environmental Protection Agency–Application of Publicity or Propaganda and Anti-Lobbying Provisions, December 14, 2015, GAO
“The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) violated publicity or propaganda and anti-lobbying provisions contained in appropriations acts with its use of certain social media platforms in association with its “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rulemaking in fiscal years 2014 and 2015. Specifically, EPA violated the publicity or propaganda prohibition though its use of a platform known as Thunderclap that allows a single message to be shared across multiple Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr accounts at the same time. EPA engaged in covert propaganda when the agency did not identify EPA’s role as the creator of the Thunderclap message to the target audience. The agency’s #DitchtheMyth and #CleanWaterRules social media campaigns did not implicate the publicity or propaganda prohibition. EPA also violated anti-lobbying provisions though its hyperlinks to certain external Web pages in an EPA blog post. Both of the external Web pages led to appeals to the public to contact Congress in support of the WOTUS rule, which taken in context, constituted appeals to contact Congress in opposition to pending legislation. EPA associated itself with these messages through its decision to include the hyperlinks in its blog post.”
E.P.A. Broke Law With Social Media Push for Water Rule, Auditor Finds, NY Times
“I can guarantee you that general counsels across the federal government are reading this report,” said Michael Eric Hertz, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York who has written on social media and the government.”

Dear NASA: Some Things Are More Important Than You, earlier post
“CRISPR was leading Pluto in the Science magazine poll until NASA decided to skew the results by using its 13.5 million follower Twitter account to tell people to vote for Pluto. No doubt the mission’s PI will be jumping up and down and crowing about how popular Pluto is when in fact NASA stuffed the ballot box.”
Keith’s note: On one hand NASA does a wonderful job of using multiple social media platforms to distribute information about what it does with taxpayer dollars. One the other hand it sometimes tries to tip the balance to affect the perception of what it does on non-NASA websites — as was the case with the “Breakthrough” poll in Science magazine. Congress wants NASA to explain itself yet it puts forbidding language in legislation to thwart them from doing so. That said, NASA is trying convince everyone that a mission to Mars without funding, an architecture, or a plan – is somehow real by using that #JourneyToMars hashtag in virtually everything it generates these days – even if there is no obvious connection to a mission to Mars.
This GAO ruling about whatever EPA was up to is bound to have an impact on NASA. In the end, however, I’m not sure it will be a positive impact.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

9 responses to “A Cold Wind Is Now Blowing Through Government Social Media”

  1. Michael Spencer says:
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    The GAO’s stance is proper. They are simply saying that agencies must identify themselves. Citizens should demand and expect no less.

    As to the #journeytomars, I was thinking about it this morning before looking at nasawatch, and about Keith’s fairly consistent drumbeat; usually he’s asking fair questions about exactly what NASA is doing with the tag (and everything else, I should mention).

    The trip to Mars- if we ever do it the NASA way, which I sincerely hope does not come to fruition- will be enormously, incredibly expensive, requiring significant, almost Apollo budget increases.

    This will not happen if Future NASA has the same public profile that it has now. The trip will require very wide public support over at least a decade or so, then more to support an outpost.

    Perhaps there’s someone on the top floor recognizing that a higher profile will require many years of consistent and insistent outreach? and the tag is an early step in that direction?

    Good a guess as any other.

    • muomega0 says:
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      “But the purpose of the publicity or propaganda prohibition is to ensure that the government identifies itself as the source of its communications.”

      Why not address the actual source of ALL types of misinformation, information and facts not just .gov?

      Technology could easily provide a link to the source with authentication. Or do all hastags need the source text?

      Hyperlink to source in () -or – Text added by source
      (NASA.gov)#JourneyToMars — #NASA.govJourneyToMars

      So how does adding the later without authentication help in any way, especially with the current delusional plan?

      (EPA.gov)#CleanWater
      “Congress is considering legislation to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from implementing the recent Clean Water Rule, despite the fact that 80% of Americans support this science-based decision.”

      #EPA.govBurningFossilFuel
      “The GOP wants lift the country’s export ban on energy and ignore the affects of the environment”

      • Neville Chamberlain says:
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        I don’t know which 80% of whom they polled but everyone that I know is 100% against EPA Clean Water Rule.

        • muomega0 says:
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          Only those who are polluters would actually oppose the rule. Environment vs make a buck continues…

        • david says:
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          The 80% is a highly publicized number based on a poll sponsored by the liberal tree hugging League of Conservation Voters.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        “Why not address the actual source of ALL types of misinformation, information and facts not just .gov?”

        A kind of GAO for the entire internet?

  2. John Thomas says:
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    Sounds like EPA did 2 things wrong. They lobbied for legislation which is illegal and they did not say they were behind it, perhaps because they knew it was illegal.

  3. sunman42 says:
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    With respect, Keith, I think this is getting exercised about issues that aren’t relevant to the GAO ruling: everyone I know at NASA has been educated that you can’t lobby Congress, or ask anyone else to, if you’re a federal employee, plain and simple.

    That said, I think we can all get exercised about how NASA does and doesn’t do well at its Space Act-required activity of informing the public about the results of its scientific and technical investigations.

  4. Daniel Woodard says:
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    I looked at the EPA tweet. It says that we need clean water. People could pass it on it if they wanted. There is no direction to lobby Congress. The original EPA message says clearly it is from the EPA.

    The GAO did not originate the complaint, essentially it concurred with an accusation made by Senator James Inhofe, whose largest single contributor is Koch Industries, which derives most of its profits from fossil fuels. http://www.opensecrets.org/

    US government agencies have issued some considerably more blatant propaganda since the turn of the century without any apparent objection from the GAO: http://media.eriposte.com/5