AltWatcher

ICE says Cuban immigrant died while attempting suicide. A witness says guards pinned and choked him A Cuban immigrant who lived in the U.S. for nearly three decades died in a Texas immigration facility during an altercation with guards.

That's certainly the case here, where most of AltNPS's post comes from the first chunk of this AP article by @rjfoley.bsky.social, @apcedar.bsky.social, and @newsdude.bsky.social, who might have the best username on Bluesky.

And I know they barely read the articles, because their content usually comes exclusively from the opening paragraphs of whatever article they're ripping off:

bsky.app/profile/altw...

The other two sources (Int'l Bus. Times and HRW) don't seem to contribute anything at all to AltNPS's thread, and it looks like they're just there to pad out the list.

If anything, it makes MacMillan appearing in two of AltNPS's sources seem like a coincidence. AltNPS barely reads these articles.

This is less plagiarism and more a complete lack of curiosity on AltNPS's part.

AP and NPR both cite MacMillan's work front and center. If AltNPS wanted to give him credit and talk about his work directly, it would have been trivial to do so.

The Alt National Park Service links to four articles about the Ft. Bliss ICE concentration camp. One each from NPR, International Business Times, Human Rights Watch, and the Associated Press.

Alt National Park Service: After all of this ICE is quietly reconsidering whether to keep the facility open at all. No accountability or consequences for anyone involved. Just a plan to maybe shut it down before more people start asking questions.

At the end of their thread, AltNPS cites a whole bunch of sources. But reading those sources shows that both NPR and AP cite reporting by @douglasmac.bsky.social at WaPo, and it's his work that makes the story.

The note about ICE maybe shutting down the camp also comes from MacMillan's work.

Alt National Park Service: Camp East Montana is a massive tent camp sitting on Fort Bliss military base near El Paso, Texas. It opened in August 2025 and almost immediately became the largest ICE detention facility in the entire United States holding over 2,700 people. In tents in the Texas heat.

This post has a lot of slippery issues, and it'll take some time to dig through them.

But first, I want to make a point of AltNPS's laziness, and how it manifests in some very weird ways 🧵:

But to accounts like AltNPS, and apparently a lot of others, the genuinely interesting story behind the pic isn't important, and I think that's a shame.

It's extremely low-stakes misinformation, but it still sucks to see the cool story get buried under the easy narrative.

Musicology Duck links to this super interesting article about this particular Exxon station, the local monopolist who owns it, and how the station has been used as political "look at the gas prices!" fodder for a long time now. Highly recommend.

@musicologyduck.bsky.social has a great thread about this exact picture. The pic is from early last year, and has nothing to do with current gas prices.

It's also the gas station that Wolf Blitzer loves to complain about, and pics of it have been circulating for quite a while.

On Twitter, Brandon Weichert posts a pic of an Exxon gas station with extremely high gas prices. In the background, a massive banner hangs from a building. It has Trump's face and the phrase "AMERICA'S BACK." Weichert says "The jokes write themselves." Adam Parkhomenko posts a screenshot of Weichert's post and says, "Yes they do."

Alt National Park Service posts the same pic that Weichert did, but with Weichert's name cropped out.

Well, they made this one easy on me.

This is Brandon Weichert's joke, as reposted by @adamparkhomenko.bsky.social, which is where AltNPS probably saw it before they cropped out both of those men's names.

But there's actually a really interesting story behind this pic! 🧵

She does specify the accts spread helpful info etc largely in Trump's *first* term, which I'd agree with. We don't know for sure, but it's believed that the AltNPS account in particular has changed hands at least once in the years since its first iteration. The current version is a lot different!

Although their post isn't super clear on what exactly they're talking about. The boycott has "surpassed 4 million" WHAT?

Users? That doesn't seem to be true. Dollars? Probably not, that's nothing to OpenAI.

Alt National Park Service: The boycott of OpenAI(ChatGPT) has now surpassed 4 million. We’re also seeing many small businesses (and even some mid-sized companies) cancel their subscriptions. One of the most amazing things over the past year has been watching consumers remind big corporations just how much power they have.

Alt National Park Service: Publicly, Sam Altman claimed OpenAI is amending its agreement with the Department of Defense(lies). Behind closed doors, however, he told employees during a Tuesday all-hands meeting that the company doesn’t “get to make operational decisions” about how its AI technology is used by the DoD. #QuitGPT

AltNPS claims that more than 4 million have ditched ChatGPT, but I have no idea where they're getting that number.

Even QuitGPT, the org that they sort of cited (but not really) in an earlier post, puts the number at 2.5 million.

www.ktvu.com/news/boycott...

Exactly. By not saying where they got their info, AltNPS is implying that they learned about these soldiers' deaths THEMSELVES.

If most people posted these names without credit, it'd be annoying, but I wouldn't be crowing about it. But most people aren't pretending to be government insiders.

On Bluesky, AltNPS simply reposted Spencer's post. On Facebook, they removed his name, and didn't give him credit for his work.

AltNPS has stolen credit from journalists many times before, but it's especially crass to do so when we're talking about lives lost in war. Jesus.

Safe bet.

I have to assume AltNPS KNOWS about MTG's history of gutter racism, transphobia, antisemitism etc. They have to.

Someone like MTG can't be reformed into an ally of convenience without plastering over her long, LONG history of hate.

Every time I see a post praising MTG from the left, all I can think about is her stalking teenage school shooting survivors to harass them.

Or when she claimed LBGT rights would make straight people "go extinct."

Or when she pushed "great replacement" conspiracy videos.

Alt National Park Service: Something strange really is happening. Some of the MAGA voices now breaking with Trump are suddenly making points that actually make sense. Are we agreeing with them or are they finally agreeing with us? It’s honestly unsettling finding ourselves nodding along with MTG and Massie on a regular basis.

Alt National Park Service: 🍿 MTG still making sense. This past year really has felt like we're living in the upside down. [They attach a screenshot of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Laura Loomer fighting on Twitter]

Alt National Park Service: We've found ourselves agreeing with him much more often lately. [They attach a screenshot of Thomas Massie railing against the US government spending trillions on the Middle East]

I don't think AltNPS is going to actually make a MAGA pivot, but their increasing credulity towards people like Massie and MTG is a little concerning.

Don't trust these people!

That might be what bothers me the most here lol. If they start making KOTOR references I'm gonna cry

That's my thing! For all the crowing about "opsec" that they've done, they sure love revealing identifying details about their interests.

A massive banner hanging at Allianz Field in St. Paul. It has the "rebel loon" logo on top of the words "WE HAVE FRIENDS EVERYWHERE."

hell yeah brother

Underneath all the lies, all the plagiarism, all the LARPing, there's a core of pure cringe that AltNPS just can't escape.

I was wondering this, too. I dunno about an actual sponsorship (AltNPS would have to put their real name on record somewhere for that), but at this point, I have to wonder if AltNPS has a stake in Anthropic or something.

Two posts from altnps.bsky.social: Amazing work, everyone the OpenAI boycott is working! And thank you to our international supporters who are joining us. Sam Altman is in panic mode he went on X tonight telling users to ask him anything about OpenAI’s Pentagon deal as the boycott of ChatGPT grows. We know a lot of people are choosing to boycott AI overall, and we support that. AI is terrible on the environment! At the same time, we understand many people still use AI tools. If you’re going use AI please delete the ChatGPT app, and switch to Claude by Anthropic instead.

As an author whose book was pirated by Anthropic: using Claude is not an ethical choice

That's exactly what it is. People want hope, and I can see why they'd be attracted to the idea that there's a secret group of government insiders undermining the Trump admin from the inside.

It's an attractive lie, and it's been extremely profitable for AltNPS.

Why yes, they are!

bsky.app/profile/altw...

Jon Cooper on Bluesky: It's really crazy how much I've been agreeing with Rep. Thomas Massie lately! [Cooper attaches a screenshot of a tweet by Thomas Massie. Alt National Park Service reposts Cooper's post.]

Alt National Park Service: We've found ourselves agreeing with him much more often lately. [AltNPS attaches the same screenshot of Massie's tweet that Jon Cooper did.]

Posts like these really shatter the idea that AltNPS is any kind of legitimate "coalition." They're exactly the same as every other bottom-feeding engagement farm #resistance grifter.

They're not resisters! They're just posters.

Believe me, so have I!

Three responses to Alt National Park Service's call to download Claude instead of ChatGPT. They say: New Claude user here!! Say it loud in the back!! Just deleted it from my phone and downloaded Claude!! Done and downloaded Claude. Hesitated to embrace AI and haven't used an app. But will support the heroes?

Two responses to Alt National Park Service's call to delete ChatGPT and download Claude instead. They say: What if we just didn't use any of it at all? Call me old fashioned, but I prefer free range, organic intelligence.

AltNPS is absolutely flooding their feed with post about Anthropic and OpenAI, and thankfully, they're getting a mixed response from the audience.

It's weird for a supposed coalition of park rangers to be so gung-ho on AI, and I'm glad (some of) their followers are clocking that.