The Alt National Park Service has spent months stealing from journalists, directly plagiarizing the work of others more than a hundred times. With more than 4.3 million followers on Facebook and nearly 900k here on Bluesky, they've built a massive following on theft.
Thank you for sharing this. Damn.
Didn't they shift policies on this and start citing sources in the comments of their posts in the last month or so? I've got mixed feelings on how strongly I feel about the notion of plagiarism in the context of current events reporting, as a former journalist, but they seem to have addressed this.
They did in theory, but not in practice. They still only provide a source maybe half the time, and those are still often wrong. But the larger issue is that they spent months ripping off journalists, and haven't addressed that. They spun it as "our adoring fans asked for links" instead.
Getting caught and covering the change as a positive thing rather than 'We've been being really bad at this and we've been held to account' is such a red flag.
why is your blog situated inside the nazi bar.
I've actually been working on that! You can find me on Ghost as well: dispatches-from-the-online-void.ghost.io
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While this may be obvious to some, seeing the absolutely breadth with which they stole and tried to sneakily take credit is still staggering. Do you know if accounts like AngryStaffer and other faux insiders are doing the same thing?
AngryStaffer has for years made clear he is no longer an insider, and while he does nothing to discourage attention from people who think he Knows Things he almost certainly doesn't, I haven't seen him do the AltNPS thing of reframing headlines as gossip, etc.
I'm actually not super familiar with AngryStaffer, but I've definitely heard that name mentioned in this context before. For the other Alts, it depends, but for the most part, they go out of their way to cite their sources, and even to vocally distance themselves from AltNPS. Which is interesting!
My understanding is AltNps isn’t a verified alt account so I think the others are wary. I am curious why it isn’t verified…but either way love your work around this!
Everything they post has already been spread on TikTok by Parnas. Sharing public information is not plagiarism. Journalists do not own the rights to the events they cover.
If the material in the screenshots isn't plagiarism, then what could possibly be? We're looking at word-for-word copying of existing articles. And for an account posturing as a news source, I expect them to at least provide links. What good-faith reason is there for them to not link a source?
Lots of people including reporters paraphrase other journalists. There are only so many ways to phrase a factual account of events. Fwiw I never saw them claim that they are journalists only that they work for the govt. Nothing that they talk about is breaking news. They aren't scooping anyone.
I could write all the same posts they do just by watching Parnas and then waiting 24-48 hours. It's not even necessary to read anything and they might not be doing so. They are great at aggregating data and getting people engaged. It's an important service. No one confuses them for journalists.
I beg to differ. Lots and lots of people treat AltNPS as a primary news source, and frequently thank them for providing "inside" information that they think they can't get anywhere else. Take a look at their Facebook comments sometime if you want tons of examples.
I've seen the FB comments. If there are people so out of the loop that that's the only place that they see that info then it's a good thing they are seeing it somewhere. It's 2025. Fascism is here. If Wired isn't getting views it's because of the algorithms not because AltNP used some of their copy
This is not a paraphrase. This is direct, unambiguous theft of an entire article from Wired. If not journalists, they absolutely claim to be government insiders with a frankly impossible amount of information. They're the Park Service. Why would they have inside information about, e.g., ICE?
Then all anyone has to do to find it is google the text. If you include the link FB will shadow ban the post and no one will see it. FB sux like that. I hardly ever include links in the body of the post. It doesn't take much to be a govt insider. Lots of people work for the feds. 🤷🏻♀️
Are they saying it's insider info? That every post is insider info? To me, they serve to help get news out that maybe not as many people would hear otherwise. It's social media, not academia. Journalists do copy each other. I've seen mistakes get published across news sites from copying each other.
They may or may not be NPS employees. Maybe they were seasonals or former staff. But most fed government employees are completely in the dark about what is going on. Only those at the top get any info as they're the ones who are carrying out dealing with it (like the EOs).
Look me in the eye and tell me there's a good-faith reason for AltNPS to never provide a source for any of their claims. They spent MONTHS without giving a single link, and only started giving sources three weeks ago. Those citations are still often wrong, and often look AI-generated.
They should try to always give a source. Not because of plagiarism, but so the public is able to evaluate for themselves if the information came from a reliable source.
Well, also because of plagiarism. I agree that citing sources is what they should be doing. So why didn't they do it? Why spend all that time deliberately rewriting the content of news articles instead of just posting a link to the site they got it from? They wanted take credit for themselves.
In the linked article, I dig into some of the account's more egregious examples of plagiarism. They grabbed entire paragraphs from an article in NPR. They took whole sections verbatim from Wired. At what point does this stop being "resistance" and start being something we can criticize?
I get your beef, but what are you looking for? Citations of sources with a lit cited section?
I'd be happy if they just said where they got their info, ever. I don't need in MLA format lol, I just need them to say "[author name] in [publication] reports that..." or simply provide a link to their source. 99% of the time, their posts are taken directly from a news outlet without credit.
I stopped following them after they started posting sequences of numbers and acting like they were sending out coded messages. There are much much much better accounts to follow than that if you are looking for the news.
Thank you for doing the work. I have been seething about their stupid larping, clout chasing and theft for months.
Thanks for reading! I guess I got mad enough about it that I ended up getting pretty obsessed. It's infuriating watching them lie.
This is a great piece, thank you. Changing a few words to make the original text sound "different" is absolutely - 💯 - still plagiarism...students get reported for academic misconduct if they do stuff like this.
Thank you for reading! I thought the same thing; these are the kinds of sneaky changes that my students used to try and get away with. I taught eighth graders.
I'm a college professor. I teach a critical thinking class in which I cover conspiratorial thinking- I was going to ask my students this coming semester to explore Alt NPS and see if they think it fits the definition of a conspiracy theory, but you (& others) have made that assignment too easy. 😂
--> not a bad thing, btw. Thanks for doing this work.
This is part of the reason why I unfollowed all of the alt accounts. If they were posting actual useful information to combat the disinformation/propaganda that the administration is putting out - that would be one thing, but being subscribed to them pretty much wrecked my feed.
Seems like many of them are doing things ethically, which OP mentioned, and even follow the OP. Just don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater is all I’m sayin’!
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I created a massive spreadsheet to track every instance of stolen work, and honestly, it was less work than it sounds like. In most cases, I found the original source of AltNPS’s post with a simple Google Search. Finding and citing sources is easy, which makes AltNPS's plagiarism even more damning.
Their Bluesky is interesting, because they post a full thread without attribution and then right at the end cite a source. Which is not the way most people citing things upfront do it…
Exactly! You'd think if they wanted to share news, they'd just include a link at the top, instead of weirdly listing out each source at the very end. It's almost like they're doing it begrudgingly after getting too much heat!
They definitely didn't used to do it. It was one of the earliest criticisms so I agree.
In the linked article, I use an article by @jennamclaughlin.bsky.social at NPR as an example. AltNPS reposted the first several paragraphs of her article with only very slight changes, intended to throw off accusations like this.
![[MCLAUGHLIN:] They've said their unit's overall mission is to review agency data for compliance with the new administration's policies and to cut costs and maximize efficiency. [ALTNPS:] They claimed their mission was to improve efficiency and cut costs.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:7f5fdeb4ci3lefmt4zr3m3wg/bafkreih4asfv5qnxxujhnnnaapieloh35qeuei2mffwxaouz5ntof5y2ie@jpeg)
Well too bad. I read them, I like them, NPR is dead thanks to GOP pedophiles, and this seems like world-class nitpicking. What else you got?
"This person who claims to fight cancer keeps going around and beating up kids with cancer!" "Well too bad. I watch them, I like them, the kids will die thanks to cancer, and this seems like world-class nitpicking. What else you got?"
Kenny Florian got fired from his cushy UFC desk job because of ONE instance of plagiarism
If your opinion is that stealing the work of journalists and passing it off as your own, a hundred times, is no big deal, then I don't know what to tell you. If you want to support journalism, I'd start by unfollowing the unrepentant plagiarists.
And as NPR staff will tell you, they're down, but not out. Now's a great time to donate and support local journalism. bsky.app/profile/lind...
But there's no disguising this. This is the outright theft of a journalist's hard work, stolen and reposted for clout. I've criticized AltNPS for their conspiratorial posts, and their fake spy games. But at their heart, this is what they are: boring, common engagement farmers and thieves.
![[MCLAUGHLIN:] It's possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending. [ALTNPS:] This wasn’t routine data—it included sensitive information on union strategies, ongoing legal cases, corporate secrets, and even personal details of workers and officials. None of it had anything to do with cutting costs or improving efficiency. It simply wasn’t supposed to leave the NLRB under any circumstance.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:7f5fdeb4ci3lefmt4zr3m3wg/bafkreiaihpjt43wloi66u2yecw22thviuojx3lmkdvahzygnxvs554ccwi@jpeg)
This is legitimately shitty behavior I do not do this when I copy people's shit unsourced this is gross
I had posted a question about the name of the boat in the Reno 911 QAnon movie, Travis explained it to me, so I gave him a shout out.
I can't imagine ever doing that. I credit ppl who give me insight (even if I don't directly quote them)
Sounds like a disgusting centrist lying through their teeth Muted
At best, grifters and thieves. At worst: Encouraging armchair activism rather than action, which could be horrifically damning.
I don't understand what is going on here