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by sqeaky 3439 days ago
This is surprisly reasonable compared to what I thought it was going to say when I heard about it first from others. The first I heard it was "A total media blackout" on the EPA and other departments.

This article just says, that buzzfeed says, that goverment employees can't post on Twitter and Facebook claiming their personal opinion is policy. Unless I misread something, let me know if I did, or if this article is just wrong.

Edit: Other sources indicate other kinds of communications are stopped also, it seems that it could be totally nefarious or just part of some kind of re-organization. Are scientific papers block or not? Everything seems confused, but the general tone seems to be hugely negative, what do know for certain?
3 comments
belovedeagle 3439 days ago
From what I can tell, there was a notice that public-facing communication be put on hold. Then EPA employees started howling that since peer reviewed articles are public, the administration had just ordered a gagging of all scientific endeavors. The administration put out a clarification that of course scientific articles weren't banned, upon which the media jumped on this as evidence that "aha! So you did ban science and now we made you back down!"

I'm no fan of Trump but this behavior by the left is absolutely idiotic.

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facetube 3439 days ago
Who is "the left"? Be specific.
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dashundchen 3439 days ago
It's more than a social media blackout, it's getting spun to exclude they're holding up EPA operations and grants, and restricting the publishing of Department of Ag research.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13477258

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nikdaheratik 3439 days ago
As far as private accounts go, there are already social media policies in place just as in most other large organisations. They already have policies that govern scientific papers as well and those haven't been overridden. The administration just doesn't know how to communicate what it wants (which is for no one to talk to the media without "their people" in place), and to make it worse they don't have a timetable on when their media people are in place because they don't have people who know what they are doing running the transition. This gives government employees who have their own agenda (and not necessarily left-vs-right wing either) the ability to control the message by leaking to the press.
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