The Trump administration put QR code signs in national parks last year asking visitors to flag any displays that portrayed America negatively or centered narratives about enslavement, land theft, or discrimination. About 35,000 comments came in between June 2025 and January 2026.

It did not go the way the administration probably hoped.

The vast majority of unique responses — setting aside duplicate copy-paste submissions, jokes, and memes — were critical of the effort. Visitors called it censorship, whitewashing, and an embarrassment. A handful supported the executive order. And a small but memorable number submitted comments that had nothing to do with any of this at all.

"Didn't see any Bigfeets, I want my money back."

"How can this be a 'National Park' if there are not Bear's to steal our Pick-a-Nick Basket's?"

One person reported a woman who said the park was "hotter than hell today" and asked if that was the kind of thing officials wanted to know about. They thanked staff for their time.

What the Order Actually Did

President Trump signed an executive order in early 2025 directing federal officials to scour monuments, memorials, and park displays and remove language that "inappropriately disparages Americans." The Interior Department then installed what critics quickly dubbed "snitch signs" — QR codes posted in parks directing visitors to report signage they felt cast the nation in a negative light.

The administration called the broader effort "restoring truth and sanity to American history."

Critics called it something else. "Signs asking visitors to report 'negative' stories about America are censorship and the rewriting of history," one commenter wrote. "It's gross and embarrassing."

Another submitted: "I heard someone saying that the DEI Yeti lives here. Please look into this because it makes me feel racist."

What People Actually Said

The comments that weren't jokes fell into a few clear categories.

On funding cuts to the National Park Service — visitors were furious. "The NPS is 1/16th of 1% of the national budget and generates so much more money for every dollar spent," one person wrote. "Buy like two less military planes and you've saved the same amount of money problem solved you're welcome."

On slavery exhibits — the response was overwhelming in one direction. Multiple commenters explicitly asked for more information about slavery, not less. "I'm an old white guy and I want more facts, NOT LESS," one person wrote. "Why are you afraid of the truth?"

On Stonewall — visitors pushed back hard against changes to how the monument tells the story of the LGBTQ+ rights movement, specifically objecting to the removal of references to transgender and queer individuals who led the Stonewall riots.

On Native American history — commenters repeatedly asked the NPS to preserve accurate language around massacres and land seizure, specifically flagging the Sand Creek site. "This was NOT a battleground, but a massacre site," one commenter wrote. "Please do not try to whitewash the history of this site."

The comments supporting the order were a fraction of the total. Some objected to specific exhibits they considered politically motivated. Others took issue with language like "enslaved" and "enslaver" being used in programming.

What the Government Did With All of This

The Interior Department said in a statement that flagging something "does not mean it violates the Order, and it does not mean it will be changed." The department added that "in the vast majority of cases across the system, flagged materials remain unchanged."

It also said it was "not in the business of explaining the Trump Derangement Syndrome of others."

So — 35,000 comments, most of them critical, a federal agency that says almost nothing changed anyway, and a paper trail that includes both passionate defenses of historical truth and a man reporting a woman for comparing the weather to hell.

Just American democracy, doing its thing.

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