Is the “Alt” Right? (Twitter edition)
@EPA vs. @AltUSEPA

“Alternate” vs. Official Social Media Accounts

@EPA = United States Environmental Protection Agency

See the vetted list of alt/rogue accounts maintained at Snopes.com.

Twitter has long had @EPA. Now it also has @altUSEPA. And there are similar pairings.

We believe water is a universal concern that should transcend politics, and we want this site to be of service to everyone.

But we began to wonder — regardless of why they were deemed necessary1 — how do the “Alt” social media accounts really compare to the official government agency ones? Here we’ll make it easy to form your own conclusion, with the most recent posts from two accounts for comparison:

@EPA vs. @AltUSEPA

[custom-twitter-feeds screenname=”EPA” num=10 showfollow=false disablelinks=true showbutton=true exclude=”retweeter,linkbox,twitterlink”]
[custom-twitter-feeds screenname=”altUSEPA” num=10 showfollow=false disablelinks=true showbutton=true exclude=”retweeter,linkbox,twitterlink”]

1. In early 2017, some scientists, technicians, and other employees of U.S.A. federal agencies began expressing fear of suppression or loss of publicly funded research, data, and the freedom to communicate about it transparently. Some created independent social media accounts to serve as the uncensored, alternative counterparts of official accounts under control of federal agencies; they may be more or less political, and more or less partisan, depending on their respective operators.