How DOGE Set the Shadow X Account for a State Agency
Less than two Weeks after Donald Park and Edward Coristine, two so -called government efficiency (DOGE), entered the small business office (SBA), a new account appeared in X: dog_sba.
SBA has had an official X since 2010. Often updates are sent and the posts re -post from the Agency’s former Republican Senator Kelly Lofler.
But according to the documents obtained under the request of the Freedom of Information Law (FOIA) exclusively shared with Wired, it was a DOG member who started and managed the new X account. Not only did the DOGE seem to do this without doing government workers who typically managing an agency’s external communication, but at least in one case, they appear to be complaining about a potential woman whistle over direct message. This is another example of how DOGE works as a seemingly separate and unstable body in government agencies.
According to sources familiar with government operations, social media accounts as well as other public channels are usually run by agency communications staff. It seems that a SBA social media manager is completely unaware of this account. In an email on March 6, he emails his colleagues with a link to the dog_sba X account, “How did I not see this before?”
According to an email on February 16, one of the two DOGE factors in SBA, it appears to have set the DOGE_SBA account and received the email verification from X to add the phone number, which has been reused. (After purchasing the company’s musk, he changed his policies to allow premium subscribers to use two factors through a short message.)
On the same day, this account again urged people to help identify waste, fraud, abuse. The post reads: “Please insight DM to reduce waste, fraud and abuse, along with any useful insights or great ideas, to DOGE -affiliated companies.” A sheet titled “Affiliate Companies” is listed on the DOGE X 32 account for DOGE missions in various agencies, including the Ministry of Security of the Homeland Security, the Social Security Department, the Housing and Urban Development Group and the other.
“Help us in the fight against fraud, garbage and abuse to benefit from taxpayers and small businesses throughout the US. DMS is open!” The DOGE_SBA account wrote in his first and only post, repeating the X DOGE account, which is still regularly sent on how to save on a government savings agency with cancellation of contracts and services.
Park, Coristine, SBA and its communications team did not respond to comment requests.
A former US public affairs official, who spoke anonymously to protect his identity, says a government employee would be very unusual to handle any social media account without knowing public affairs.
“Social media has always been very controversial in government agencies. Because it became a bigger and larger thing, most and more people wanted to use it, other people in one part regard it as a means of control,” they say. “In DOGE, we all saw the DOGE come in and we do things that are not right.”
