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This is a complete and utter non-issue. If you're filling out paperwork for the US government to "vet" you for something (admission, duration of stay, whatever)

This is a complete and utter non-issue. If you're filling out paperwork for the US government to "vet" you for something (admission, duration of stay, whatever) then you might want to provide places where they can learn more about you. That might be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the like where your past history of advocating violent overthrow of governments may be relevant, or it may be on other "social" sites like the StackExchange family where your past history of hundreds of accepted answers on $Programming_Language may give credibility to your request for a visa to enter for a conference. Seriously, this is adding some lines to a form and doing it in the most bureaucratic way possible because that's how governments do things.

janoc 10y ago
You have obviously a) not seen the ESTA and visa applications forms (the content and questions are very similar) for traveling to the US. b) not have one of these denied for an arbitrary and opaque reason (the applicant is not told the reason). c) not have had your personal information stolen and abused yet. If Americans had to go through this sort of BS whenever they travel to Europe there would be an uproar. But in reverse it is OK, because, obviously, the people on the other side of the pond (which is the majority of who the ESTA system applies to) are somehow more of a threat. Mate, seriously ...