Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Seventeen two nineteen, two hundred and twenty seven. General public,
Speaker 2: please disregard as this podcast as fighting battles on multiple fronts.
Speaker 2: This podcast is it could happen here, and I'm Garrison Davis.
Speaker 2: Last episode, I talked with Miowong about the trajectory of
Speaker 2: liberal conspiracy theories, specifically throughout the last ten years, from
Speaker 2: Russia Gate to Trump's staged assassination and twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: election denial. This resurgence of liberal conspiracism has been dubbed Bluanon.
Speaker 2: If you want more background on that, go listen to
Speaker 2: our previous episode. But this episode is about a new
Speaker 2: evolution of bluing on and possibly the most Qanani iteration
Speaker 2: we've seen yet. The Alt National Park Service, a social
Speaker 2: media engagement farming account that gained traction on Blue Sky
Speaker 2: and Facebook last February. In March admidst cuts to the
Speaker 2: Park Service from the Trump administration. This account gained followers
Speaker 2: by posing as a group of anti Trump dissidents from
Speaker 2: within the Park Service, and soon enough it inspired a
Speaker 2: collection of other alt government accounts like Alt CDC, Alt Nih,
Speaker 2: Alt Yellowstone, and Alt Noah. The original Alt National Park
Speaker 2: Service account basically never talks about the park Service itself,
Speaker 2: but during the first few months of Trump's second term,
Speaker 2: the account started going viral by posting sequences of random
Speaker 2: numbers as ostensibly coded messages to other hashtag resistance fighters,
Speaker 2: though the account has since experimented with, altered and refined
Speaker 2: their engagement strategies. To hear more about that and how
Speaker 2: Alt National Park Service fits into this trend of liberal
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories, I talked with someone who has spent the
Speaker 2: past few months documenting and writing about this account. The
Speaker 2: person who runs the alt Watcher account on Blue Sky
Speaker 2: and writes about their research on the blog Dispatches from
Speaker 2: the Online Void. So here's that interview.
Speaker 3: My name's Jack. I'm the user behind the account alt
Speaker 3: Watcher on Blue Sky, and I've been following the Alt
Speaker 3: National Park Service for about six months, just documenting what
Speaker 3: they do and how they steal from journalists and how
Speaker 3: they're driving a lot of people insane, including me.
Speaker 2: What is the Alt National Park Service or first, what
Speaker 2: does the Alt National Park Service claim to be?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's an important difference. The All National Park Service
Speaker 3: claims to be a loose affiliation of a non former
Speaker 3: parks employees that are either still employed by the Park
Speaker 3: Service and kind of working behind the scenes, or who
Speaker 3: were fired or laid off by the Trump administration and
Speaker 3: are now part of a nationwide coalition to resist the government.
Speaker 3: That's what they claim to be. What they really are
Speaker 3: is just a Facebook shit posting account. We're not sure
Speaker 3: if it's one person behind it or if it's a group.
Speaker 3: It's remarkably hard to find out anything about the person
Speaker 3: who is behind the account, who they are, where they are,
Speaker 3: and how they started this. But what they do most
Speaker 3: of the time is repost the work of journalists, directly
Speaker 3: plagiarize from news outlets, and post these vaguely conspiratorial things
Speaker 3: online to try to whip up engagement from their followers.
Speaker 2: I first became aware of this back in probably March
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty five, specifically when on Blue Sky they
Speaker 2: just started posting a lot of numbers. Yes, I was
Speaker 2: aware that this account was created, like in the aftermath
Speaker 2: of some some like Doge related cuts to the Park
Speaker 2: Service or like anti Dei, anti woke stuff, And then
Speaker 2: this account popped up claiming to be you know, like
Speaker 2: resistance from inside to people who watch politics like seriously
Speaker 2: for their jobs. Was very clear that this was not
Speaker 2: a legitimate organization, and then they just started posting numbers
Speaker 2: sequences of numbers along with other cryptic messages, and this
Speaker 2: like immediately starts hitting like the q Andon bells. Back
Speaker 2: in July of twenty twenty four, there's a Washington Post
Speaker 2: article about the Trump assassination conspiracy theories, but specifically it
Speaker 2: was it was a I think it was an opinion
Speaker 2: piece critical of terming liberal conspiracy.
Speaker 4: Theories as as quote unquote bleuing on.
Speaker 2: They said, quote the main similarity of QAnon and bluing
Speaker 2: on is that they rhyme. And for a while I
Speaker 2: kind of understood this criticism and agree with parts of it,
Speaker 2: because there was there was structural differences between some of
Speaker 2: how you know, liberals or like quote unquote the left
Speaker 2: engage in conspiratorial thinking, and like the function of chewing
Speaker 2: on the numbers think started to really mess with that
Speaker 2: analysis because then you started to see the actual like
Speaker 2: methodology and like the ideological function of q andon start
Speaker 2: to get replicated in what is most likely just like
Speaker 2: engagement farming, but for the people who are following this
Speaker 2: account and engaging with it, and like it becomes like
Speaker 2: an important part of their life and their their perception
Speaker 2: of like hashtag resistance. And I think that's where blue
Speaker 2: and on actually proved itself as a term, was in
Speaker 2: March of twenty five, I guess, let's talk about the numbers.
Speaker 3: You know what I would love I would love to
Speaker 3: talk about the numbers are also what stood out to me,
Speaker 3: and that is why I ended up making my account
Speaker 3: and diving into all this. During the pandemic, I got
Speaker 3: obsessed with quana, you know, as as just what is this?
Speaker 4: A lot of people did.
Speaker 3: A lot of people did, you know, Look, pandemic did
Speaker 3: a lot of crazy things to us. Some people learned
Speaker 3: to knit, some people got good at baking. I got
Speaker 3: really learning about q and on and I am. I'm
Speaker 3: a huge fan of the QAA podcast. I listened to
Speaker 3: that constantly, And as soon as I saw altonps post
Speaker 3: one of the numbers, I realized, I'm reading this in
Speaker 3: their que voice. Yeah, their their voice modulated voice that
Speaker 3: sounds like this whenever they would post. And I started
Speaker 3: reading all the numbers post that way, and just like
Speaker 3: you said, something clicked and I went, oh this is oh,
Speaker 3: I see what they're doing. Here. Yeah, and they've posted
Speaker 3: numbers many times. I've got my giant spreadsheet pulled up
Speaker 3: here and I think they've posted something like thirty numbers.
Speaker 3: It's been a while since they've done it. But the
Speaker 3: thing that really gave the game away from me was
Speaker 3: during one of these numbers posts, they posted some random
Speaker 3: number and then replied to themselves and said, for discussion,
Speaker 3: what do you think these numbers mean? And I said, oh,
Speaker 3: I see what's happening.
Speaker 4: Here, kind of giving away the game there exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: This is not a group of government insiders communicating with
Speaker 3: their coalition. This is the user behind a Facebook account
Speaker 3: realizing in real time that they've stumbled on like a
Speaker 3: gold mine for engagement. Yeah, oh, we can just do
Speaker 3: this and people will do the work for us, and
Speaker 3: we're just going to say that out.
Speaker 2: Loud and throughout. Like March and April, their count just
Speaker 2: like rocketed in popularity. Yes, I've not actually looked on
Speaker 2: their Facebook account. Besides, like the post that you've shared,
Speaker 2: I've only seen them on Blue Sky. What is the
Speaker 2: difference of their presence on Facebook versus like blue Sky
Speaker 2: Blue Sky.
Speaker 3: I think there at something like nine hundred k on
Speaker 3: Facebook the last time I checked, it was about four
Speaker 3: point three million.
Speaker 4: Geez.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they are a massive presence on Facebook, and they've
Speaker 3: been monetizing their posts recently. There have been sponsored content
Speaker 3: on Facebook leading to their page.
Speaker 2: This is where I think one of the differences from
Speaker 2: like how Q and unfunctioned and all National Park Service,
Speaker 2: because you know, Q was not monetizing posts on the.
Speaker 3: Chances I would have loved to see him try. That'd
Speaker 3: be really funny.
Speaker 2: I do not see like this account existing as like
Speaker 2: as a sort of operation to influence the political trajectory
Speaker 2: of the United States the same way that the qan
Speaker 2: on account at least evolved in that capacity. Even if
Speaker 2: it started off as like a shit posting thing exactly,
Speaker 2: it certainly evolved with more of a malicious intent. The
Speaker 2: people behind you know, Q posting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a big difference between them, is
Speaker 3: that this is straightforwardly an engagement far.
Speaker 2: Yeah, using some those tactics, especially like early on, but
Speaker 2: for a very simple reason, and that's that's making money
Speaker 2: on the Internet.
Speaker 4: Like everybody is trying to do it.
Speaker 2: It's just like internet hustle culture stuff with no grappling
Speaker 2: with like the consequences that has for like the psyche
Speaker 2: of people who engage with your contents.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and the psyche of people who engage with this
Speaker 3: content is really what keeps me coming back to this project,
Speaker 3: because that is the real harm I see here. Like
Speaker 3: the online drifters are a diamond, doesn't you know people
Speaker 3: who sell stuff online? It's everywhere, it's inescapable. What's unique
Speaker 3: about alt NPS is that they are trying to make
Speaker 3: money on convincing people that this is really you know,
Speaker 3: they're not just selling hashtag resist shirts or whatever. They're
Speaker 3: trying to get money out of people by convincing them
Speaker 3: that they really are part of a shadow resistance against
Speaker 3: against Trump, and that you can buy their shirts or
Speaker 3: you can straightforwardly just send them money for things like
Speaker 3: their all Junior Ranger program that they've said they're starting,
Speaker 3: and if you send them a dollar, you're helping fund
Speaker 3: that program. And it's totally real. And the fact that
Speaker 3: they didn't mention it for seven straight months after initially
Speaker 3: announcing it is something you definitely shouldn't worry about.
Speaker 2: Do you know what else you definitely shouldn't worry about?
Speaker 2: This short at break so they have face pushback for
Speaker 2: their numbers posting, but they have found a way to
Speaker 2: justify it publicly, to talk about like how they've framed
Speaker 2: the posting of just like four numbers, two numbers, and
Speaker 2: like the sort of like defense of the account that
Speaker 2: it plays.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was this maybe says something about me, But
Speaker 3: that was maybe the post that made me the angriest
Speaker 3: of anything they've done, because I have a deep seated
Speaker 3: reaction to feeling like one of the thinks I'm stupid,
Speaker 3: And all I could think is do you think I'm
Speaker 3: an idiot? When I saw their reaction to this, Because
Speaker 3: we are often criticized for the numbers we post online.
Speaker 3: We can't tell you everything. Sorry, And then they went
Speaker 3: on this big half explanation about stingrays and cell site simulators.
Speaker 2: Cell site simulators.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they didn't explain what those actually do. They
Speaker 3: did not explicitly claim they were being surveilled by one,
Speaker 3: and they didn't explain why the existence of stingrays and
Speaker 3: cell site simulators means that they should.
Speaker 2: Do all this on Facebook instead posting numbers does not
Speaker 2: bypass the security concerns posed by the presence of a
Speaker 2: cell site simulator. No, because you're still posting publicly on
Speaker 2: the Internet.
Speaker 4: That doesn't matter at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're pulling something the other of your asse that
Speaker 2: sounds technical, that's going to trick your average boomer And
Speaker 2: maybe you know three out of five gen X people
Speaker 2: who are scrolling Facebook slash Blue Sky and like that's
Speaker 2: all they need to do. But for anyone who knows
Speaker 2: what a cell site simulator is or how like internet
Speaker 2: communications works, it's very very clear that this is just
Speaker 2: like completely bullshit.
Speaker 3: It's completely bullshit because you're right that this is all
Speaker 3: they need to do. They just need to deflect. And
Speaker 3: I think that's what stood out to me about this
Speaker 3: post in particular, is that it showed me that the
Speaker 3: person or people behind all the time ps have a
Speaker 3: genuine level of pr skill. You know, they have a
Speaker 3: certain level of what I think is a real skill
Speaker 3: at deflection public relations and being able to spin what
Speaker 3: they're saying. You know, that's a genuine skill. It's a
Speaker 3: shame that it's being applied to this instead of, I mean,
Speaker 3: anything else, But that is a skill that they have
Speaker 3: that they're able to deploy in defense of their conspiratorial posting.
Speaker 2: The other thing that they post in relation to the
Speaker 2: numbers is there one time forward catchphrase general public can disregard?
Speaker 2: Don't I talk about the context of those posts.
Speaker 3: Yes, those were replies that they would make to the
Speaker 3: numbers posts, usually to the numbers posts, but occasionally to
Speaker 3: just some other cryptic thing they would post. They would
Speaker 3: post their numbers, say forty four, and then they would
Speaker 3: reply to themselves saying general public can disregard, or they'd
Speaker 3: say please disregard if you are a member of the
Speaker 3: general public. And there were a lot of people online
Speaker 3: who saw that and thought, oh, that must mean it's
Speaker 3: a code. It has to be real.
Speaker 2: They're engaged in some sort of like secret agent spy work,
Speaker 2: and this is very really important. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I would see a lot of people push
Speaker 3: back on any criticism that the account would get for
Speaker 3: this by saying things like, it's code for a reason.
Speaker 3: You know, guys, they're speaking in code. Don't try to
Speaker 3: crack the code. It's not for us, you know, this
Speaker 3: is for the coalition. And whenever anybody would say I
Speaker 3: don't think this is real, or like any of the
Speaker 3: things we've talked about about, why this doesn't make sense,
Speaker 3: they would instantly be accused of being a right wing
Speaker 3: infiltrator or a troll or a MAGA spy or something
Speaker 3: like that. You know, there can be no actual criticism
Speaker 3: of the account. There can only be infiltration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that does have more like Q overlap, I
Speaker 2: suppose absolutely.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's odd because like throughout through writing about all this
Speaker 2: like bluing on stuff. As much as this stuff is
Speaker 2: a legitimate problem, like which it is, it's just a
Speaker 2: symptom of a larger political problem in America, and the
Speaker 2: people engaged with it, if anything, are kind of victims
Speaker 2: as well as like perpetrators. And like this was the
Speaker 2: same thing with like Q and on, where like your
Speaker 2: average person engaged with it as bad as it is
Speaker 2: and some of the stuff that they might like say
Speaker 2: or do, I also just feel bad for the people involved.
Speaker 4: And it's this same thing with this.
Speaker 2: As annoying as this kind of like lib slop can be,
Speaker 2: the people who have to have to believe in something
Speaker 2: like this in order to like keep going, that is
Speaker 2: kind of like a tragedy in a way, and this
Speaker 2: is obviously is serving some important psychological function for them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I totally agree, And I think that's that sadness.
Speaker 3: I think is What keeps me wanting to engage with this.
Speaker 3: You know, when I look at this and I see
Speaker 3: alt NPS trying to get people to buy their T
Speaker 3: shirts or just farm engagement, that's not remarkable to me.
Speaker 3: That's normal. Yeah, that happens on the internet all the time.
Speaker 3: What keeps me coming back to wanting to fight this
Speaker 3: and wanting to document all this is the people I
Speaker 3: see in the replies. Yeah, the people who say that
Speaker 3: alt NPS brings them so much hope. It's what's keeping
Speaker 3: them from falling into despair. And it's not that I
Speaker 3: want to take that away from them, It's that I
Speaker 3: don't like that their need for that is being used.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is like a predatory mode of trying to
Speaker 2: capital that.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Yeah, the account is trying to capitalize on people's
Speaker 3: need for hope. You know, they need to believe that
Speaker 3: there is someone fighting for them because in a lot
Speaker 3: of ways, it doesn't feel like anyone is. You know,
Speaker 3: it feels like our politicians are ineffectual, our institutions are crumbling.
Speaker 3: We need someone to be there. We need ironically, we
Speaker 3: need patriots to be in control. Yeah, we need to
Speaker 3: trust the plan. There is an appeal to that, and
Speaker 3: I do understand that. I understand that these people are
Speaker 3: looking for a light in the darkness, and I really
Speaker 3: can't pretend that I'm not doing the same thing totally
Speaker 3: through my writing on this. I need something to cling to,
Speaker 3: and I can't blame anybody for feeling that way too.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's why I feel like your project, though,
Speaker 2: it comes from a much better and like healthier place,
Speaker 2: because you are looking at this like decline in nationwide
Speaker 2: American sanity and trying to do something about it, even
Speaker 2: if that's just a documentation, and then writing about it
Speaker 2: and trying to explain to people and like help help
Speaker 2: people understand where the psyche of the country is. And
Speaker 2: I think part of what makes me so interested in
Speaker 2: your project is that, like it reminds me a little
Speaker 2: bit of people who started studying qan on, you know,
Speaker 2: back in like twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: back when it's just this little, cute, small thing, and
Speaker 2: then you fast forward years later they realize they've actually
Speaker 2: done some extremely important like work documenting of phenomenon that
Speaker 2: is shaping the trajectory of our country.
Speaker 4: And I don't know.
Speaker 2: If alt National Park Service is going to evolve in
Speaker 2: the same way. But I think the slow embrace of
Speaker 2: this sort of conspirator worl thinking among decently sized like
Speaker 2: chunks of the democratic base, I think is very notable
Speaker 2: and work Like what you're doing, I think actually has
Speaker 2: a really important place in trying to like map where
Speaker 2: our country might might be headed.
Speaker 4: And yeah, in a few years it might.
Speaker 2: Somehow it might sturn out to be super important when
Speaker 2: the Libs finally do their own j six.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean, I to be honest, I would
Speaker 3: be very happy if this whole thing petered out. Sure,
Speaker 3: you know, I would be very happy if one day
Speaker 3: the account just stops posting and there is no years
Speaker 3: long continuation with this like there was was something like
Speaker 3: you or not, you know. But I do think ALTNPS
Speaker 3: is a part of a broader ecosystem of this blue
Speaker 3: and on world. And you know, I do agree with
Speaker 3: what you said earlier that bluanon is a phrase that
Speaker 3: I think does get overused. Yeah, that there are some
Speaker 3: things that are just normal people, you know, expressing their
Speaker 3: political opinions that kind of gets derided as oh blue
Speaker 3: and not, But it really is just people being normal
Speaker 3: or people being extremely online, but ALTENPS is a part
Speaker 3: of a bigger world of this sort of vaguely left
Speaker 3: wing conspiracism. You know, I'm seeing a lot of crossover
Speaker 3: between people who post in reply to all t enps
Speaker 3: and people who have this sort of mantra about Trump
Speaker 3: that he wasn't shot, he didn't win, he's on the list.
Speaker 3: And you see that exact phrase, you know, post it
Speaker 3: over and over and over again. It's in pictures, it's
Speaker 3: in memes, it's in people's posts. And I think all
Speaker 3: t NPS is a part of that. I think they're
Speaker 3: emblematic of that. Yeah, that you are not immune to
Speaker 3: conspiratorial think.
Speaker 2: We are not better than that now, and they're facilitating
Speaker 2: I think that mindset. I think liberals became so susceptible
Speaker 2: to it because they had this conception that they're immune
Speaker 2: to it, that that conspiracy thinking is something that only
Speaker 2: exists on the political right. Yes, that's for other people,
Speaker 2: And this is part.
Speaker 4: Of what I'm going to write about it.
Speaker 2: Like in general, but like the way that contessus reality
Speaker 2: was like sheared down so heavily during the first Rump administration,
Speaker 2: and like parts of the body of administration by people
Speaker 2: on the right that like, weakened this notion we have
Speaker 2: of Concetta's reality that then liberals kind of got blindsided
Speaker 2: by when events happened that were hard to understand or
Speaker 2: felt so surreal or like bombastic, that it allowed a
Speaker 2: split that was already there to grow into a pretty
Speaker 2: wide opening where you now believe that major historical events
Speaker 2: are fake and staged, that an election is stolen. And
Speaker 2: you're like, what, what does this remind you of?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: What, Yes, one of the things you're saying remind you
Speaker 2: of is in this part of why you're against the
Speaker 2: Trump movement in the first place.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think God help you if you ever
Speaker 3: try and point that out. Yeah, you know, to a
Speaker 3: lot of the people in these replies that just like, hey, guys,
Speaker 3: doesn't a lot of this smell a lot like you
Speaker 3: or not? You know, doesn't this sound a lot like
Speaker 3: the way people talked about the twenty twenty election? You know,
Speaker 3: doesn't this smell the same way? And that is when
Speaker 3: people in especially in all t NPS's replies, will go nuclear.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: There, I've seen some incredible dog biles in response people
Speaker 3: bringing this up, even if it's if it's anadyte you know,
Speaker 3: and even if it is just hey guys, just a reminder,
Speaker 3: I think this is something that we should you know,
Speaker 3: maybe I'll take with a grain of salt. People go nuts,
Speaker 3: you know. They they need to believe it needs to
Speaker 3: be real and it needs to be unquestioned and that
Speaker 3: there can be no good faith questioning of this idea.
Speaker 2: Do you know what else is an unquestioned truth that
Speaker 2: we have to go on one more ad break before
Speaker 2: we return to conclude our discussion on.
Speaker 4: The Alt National Park Service.
Speaker 2: It's easy to see how they reached just a certain
Speaker 2: like ceiling on how much they can just numbers post
Speaker 2: and have that be a reliable method of engagement that
Speaker 2: they've started to like experiment with with with different types
Speaker 2: of posting to see what makes people stick, who can
Speaker 2: help help with engagement over a long period of time
Speaker 2: instead of just like rocketing to like virality first but
Speaker 2: then having a stable audience. And now they're basically a
Speaker 2: news aggregator account but deceptively framing where they are getting
Speaker 2: their news from.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they are a news aggregator account with massive caveats.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, well, I mean I think most news aggregator
Speaker 2: accounts are actually bad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd agree.
Speaker 2: This is something we saw in twenty twenty, was how
Speaker 2: unreliable news aggregator accounts were and how much of a
Speaker 2: harm that they caused. And I see the current version
Speaker 2: of all National Park Service as kind of an extension
Speaker 2: of that taken to a slightly higher level.
Speaker 4: I suppose I'm.
Speaker 3: Obsessed with this, you know, I've said that a few times,
Speaker 3: but I've documented what I think is most of the
Speaker 3: times that they have posted a news article without attribution
Speaker 3: and either just described something where they could have or
Speaker 3: should have posted a link to an actual article, or
Speaker 3: more more often, just copy pasting sections of an article
Speaker 3: and reposting it as though they wrote it. You know,
Speaker 3: those are the ones that really get me. Those are
Speaker 3: the the aspects of their news aggregation where you say
Speaker 3: this is just plagiarism. You know, this is just you
Speaker 3: stealing verbatim from an article and acting as though you
Speaker 3: wrote it, because you want your audience to think that
Speaker 3: you are a government insider with all this inside information,
Speaker 3: and that information like that is coming first to you,
Speaker 3: not to the New York Times, not to CNN.
Speaker 2: Even though you're just posting sections of the New York
Speaker 2: Times and CNN.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean they took the first I think three
Speaker 3: paragraphs of an article from Wired and did it word
Speaker 3: for word, didn't link to Wired, didn't say where it
Speaker 3: came from, and implied that the information was being sent
Speaker 3: to the rangers of the All National Park Service instead
Speaker 3: of two journalists at Wired. This happens constantly, you know,
Speaker 3: and every time I think, well, they've been posting more
Speaker 3: links slately, they've been linking directly to actual sources of information.
Speaker 3: Every time I start thinking that, they do it again.
Speaker 3: You know, they steal another thing again, or they've started
Speaker 3: posting to court watcher or directly to government documents in
Speaker 3: what I'm thinking as an attempt to dodge accusations like
Speaker 3: the one I make. Somebody in my comments described it
Speaker 3: as the don't cite Wikipedia, cite Wikipedia's reference page problem.
Speaker 3: They're reading an article from NPR, and rather than just saying, hey,
Speaker 3: we've heard this in NPR, they're going to NPR's citation
Speaker 3: of the Department of Justice and linking directly to that
Speaker 3: instead to make it look like they're diligently watching government
Speaker 3: court records and posting them for our benefit the moment
Speaker 3: they come out, instead of just we saw this in
Speaker 3: the Washington Post.
Speaker 2: And they've been engaging this for like a few months
Speaker 2: now with this sort of behavior.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they've been doing that since January February. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they've also started claiming for a while, and then they
Speaker 3: stopped that. One of their sources they would list at
Speaker 3: the end of their posts was an unnamed official in
Speaker 3: whatever relevant government agency they were talking about. Our sources
Speaker 3: include this newspaper, this website, and an unnamed Department of
Speaker 3: Justice official, an unnamed Department of Education official. They suddenly
Speaker 3: stopped doing that as soon as they started. There was
Speaker 3: about a week or two where that was behind about
Speaker 3: every post.
Speaker 2: Anything else you want to add about either the existence
Speaker 2: of these like alt accounts, or like any other like
Speaker 2: aspect of this world you want to mention before we
Speaker 2: before we close up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do have two quick ones, and the first
Speaker 3: is that among the alt accounts that you see online,
Speaker 3: the Alt National Park Service is overwhelmingly the most malicious
Speaker 3: and the most harmful. You know, there are may be
Speaker 3: a couple others that get a little wild, that are
Speaker 3: maybe a little conspiratorial. I think Alt Noah has been
Speaker 3: kind of in the spotlight for that lately. But a
Speaker 3: lot of them, like ALT CDC, the ALT Forest Service,
Speaker 3: all these random little alt government agency accounts are pretty harmless,
Speaker 3: you know. They really are just posting links to news
Speaker 3: articles or given updates on their relevant agency. Allt Forest
Speaker 3: Service mostly talks about the Forest Service. Allt CDC mostly
Speaker 3: talks about the CDC. ALT NPS basically never talks about
Speaker 3: the National Park Service. I think I can count on
Speaker 3: one hand the times that they have said anything about
Speaker 3: the parks. There was a point when I think it
Speaker 3: was in the big beautiful budget bill where there were
Speaker 3: these massive cuts being proposed to the National Park Service,
Speaker 3: and they talked about the bill as a whole and
Speaker 3: didn't mention anything about the cuts of the Park Service.
Speaker 2: Well, you never know who's watching the communication channels, so
Speaker 2: you got to be careful. There's cell site simulators out there.
Speaker 3: There's cell site simulators out there. And then the second
Speaker 3: thing is that I'm always very careful in my writing
Speaker 3: and in my posts to emphasize that the people who
Speaker 3: followed this account are not the problem the account itself is.
Speaker 3: You know, I always want to make sure to have
Speaker 3: a lot of empathy for people who follow this account,
Speaker 3: because I understand why they did. I understand the hope
Speaker 3: they're looking for, and I never want to do what
Speaker 3: I say. See some people do in the replies to
Speaker 3: Altenps's posts, which is dunking on their followers. You know,
Speaker 3: how do you rubes believe this? Do you idiots still
Speaker 3: think this is real? I never want to do that
Speaker 3: because that doesn't help anyone. What that does is make
Speaker 3: them dig in, It makes them double down. So I
Speaker 3: always want to make sure to treat the followers of
Speaker 3: these accounts with respect, you know, treat them with empathy,
Speaker 3: talk to them like a person. Yeah, And that's how
Speaker 3: I've managed to get a few people to get out.
Speaker 3: I've managed to have people tell me that it was
Speaker 3: through my writing and other people's work on this topic
Speaker 3: that they were able to get out, They were able
Speaker 3: to disengage from this world of fake spies and code numbers.
Speaker 3: And I think that matters. I think that that helps
Speaker 3: with every little bit we do, And it starts by
Speaker 3: just being nice to people, just being kind to people
Speaker 3: who are looking for hope in the world we live in.
Speaker 2: Where can people find your work both on social media
Speaker 2: and then also you're writing.
Speaker 3: Me on Blue Sky at Altwatcher dot bsky dot social
Speaker 3: and I am unfortunately still on substack at my name
Speaker 3: it's Jajoyce Lynch dot substack dot com. And also look
Speaker 3: for dispatches from the Online Void is the name of
Speaker 3: the blog.
Speaker 2: There should absolutely be more people reading your dispatches from
Speaker 2: the Online Void. There is some very very solid work
Speaker 2: just straightly documenting the phenomenon that we've been talking about
Speaker 2: this episode and specifically the Alt National Park Service.
Speaker 3: Well, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fantastic, very like non editorialized, just showing you
Speaker 2: what's happening.
Speaker 4: Extremely we'll put together.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks, thanks, and nice for you to say.
Speaker 2: Thanks again to Jack for talking with me about Alt
Speaker 2: National Park Service. I strongly recommend people seek out his research,
Speaker 2: both on Dispatches from the Online Void and Blue Sky.
Speaker 2: Before I close this episode, I want to remind everybody
Speaker 2: that you two are not immune to propaganda. This past weekend,
Speaker 2: the internet has been a buzz with rumors and speculation
Speaker 2: that Trump died over the weekend or was actively dying,
Speaker 2: and there's been attempts to cover it up, when in
Speaker 2: fact he just went on a brief Labor day weekend holiday.
Speaker 2: People were sharing ai altered images to make Trump look
Speaker 2: more sickly, and were speculating about road closures around Walter
Speaker 2: Reed Medical Center, sharing a map with roads blocked off,
Speaker 2: but in fact, there were no irregular road closures, and
Speaker 2: this map of supposed closures that was spreading online just
Speaker 2: showed old security gates. People concocted elaborate theories that Putin
Speaker 2: poisoned Trump during their last meeting, and that when the
Speaker 2: quote unquote president was supposed to give an announcement on
Speaker 2: Tuesday afternoon, it would be Trump resigning for health reasons,
Speaker 2: or Vance would come out and announced Trump died and
Speaker 2: he is now the president. And sure enough, come Tuesday afternoon,
Speaker 2: Trump appeared perfectly normal for a press conference. Even in
Speaker 2: the lead up to the press conference, I saw people
Speaker 2: continuing these conspiracy theories with sometimes a tat of irony.
Speaker 2: But as the press conference got delayed an hour, there
Speaker 2: was more and more speculation about Trump's declining health and yeah,
Speaker 2: he is an old man, but he is not going
Speaker 2: to drop dead this weekend. This isn't true. This is
Speaker 2: a copium strategy, and the way people have been talking
Speaker 2: about it is very similar to the liberal conspiracy theories
Speaker 2: that I've been reading about these past few weeks, and
Speaker 2: as fun as it can be to speculate about a
Speaker 2: president's health, as many people did last time we had
Speaker 2: a geriatric president when was that, oh, last year? But
Speaker 2: as much fun as it is, things can quickly spiral
Speaker 2: out of your conspiratorial control, even when your percipasion is
Speaker 2: from the safety of ironic detachment. I'll talk a little
Speaker 2: bit more about Trump's imminent death theories on this week's
Speaker 2: episode of Executive Disorder, but until then, just remember you
Speaker 2: are not immune to propaganda.
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