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Something to realize here: If you're between 10 and 60 years old, "I don't use social media" will likely not really be an answer at the border. Even a barely-u

Something to realize here: If you're between 10 and 60 years old, "I don't use social media" will likely not really be an answer at the border. Even a barely-used account will not really be an answer. They're going to be able to say you're probably just hiding your real account. That could factor into denying you entry into a country. If this becomes common with many countries, it could become de facto illegal to keep social media out of your daily habits.

timthelion 9y ago
I just finished reading the book The Circle[1] by (Dave Eggers) with my wife, which is about just that, making it illegal not to use social media. Though some of the characters were less intelligent than I am, and thus seemed unbelievable to me (a problem I have with real people too), I recommend the book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circle_(Eggers_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circle_(Eggers_novel)
- arvinsim 9y ago
  Don't watch the movie. I read halfway through the book when the movie came out. I excitedly watched it in film form. But I only ended up disappointed. It turned me off not just from the film but from the book itself.
  - hmhrex 9y ago
    Didn't realize there was a book. I'll remember to steer clear. The book was fantastic. I remember after reading that it felt a little far-fetched, but enjoyable. That was over a year ago, and I'm finding it to be more and more accurate.
    - timthelion 9y ago
      You mean that you didn't realize there was a film don't you...
_jal 9y ago
Which is deeply disturbing - I really don't use FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc. By virtue of my choice of parents and their choice of locale when I was born, this particular bit of tyranny (I use that word advisedly) won't hit me, but when every other country on earth follows suit... Waiting for the services to pop up selling fake social accounts as cover for the Officially Socially Atypical types.
sverige 9y ago
Maybe 50 should be the upper bound. I'm in my fifties and have never had any sort of social media account. Many of my high school and college classmates are similarly situated. None of the major social media platforms were founded before I was in my mid-forties, which is why there was never any incentive to start any accounts. I enjoy getting older. It spares me a lot of drama.
- cr1895 9y ago
  >Maybe 50 should be the upper bound. I'm in my fifties and have never had any sort of social media account. Are you not posting here?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jawilson2 9y ago
    Hacker news is a short stone's throw from AOL chat rooms and IRC, powered by contemporaneous technology.
  - spraak 9y ago
    Can you explain how you see Hacker News as social media?
    - cr1895 9y ago
      We are discussing with each other publicly on a website, sharing ideas and information. Each of us is doing so tied to an identity, such as it is. Just as we might on Reddit, facebook, instagram, etc. All are social media. HackerNews is by no means different. In what way do you find it is not social media, or maybe I should ask how narrow is your definition of social media? I tried to find how exactly DHS defines "social media" because that is actually what is relevant to this discussion, but I was unable. I think someone had posted their definition in one of the other threads on this topic, if you want to try to find it yourself. Feel free to read through Wikipedia's article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media
kbart 9y ago
Exactly. This is a step (or more likely - leap) towards the bizarre future portrayed in Black Mirror episode "Nosedive". 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive
aaron-lebo 9y ago
Not sure how it could actually go that far. Some people just don't have social media accounts, you can't ban people entry for that. If that does happen, there's no way it's gonna stay legal and the simplest solution is a boycott of social media.
- SerLava 9y ago
  It's very easy to extra-judicially deny entry at the border, without much in the way of recourse. I imagine there would be backlash against it, but it's very likely that for some period of time, travel to, from, and between specific countries will be denied to people who "refuse" to produce a social media account.
- kbart 9y ago
  "you can't ban people entry for that." Who said so? Border controls have right to turn non-citizens away on border if they suspect you are lying or not disclosing all information to them.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    It'll happen on a small scale while this is working itself out, certainly, but it is hard to imagine a true defacto or dejure uniform ban on people without social media accounts. The right gets upset over insurance requirements, hard to imagine a real requirement to have a Twitter account.
    - vidarh 9y ago
      > The right gets upset over insurance requirements, hard to imagine a real requirement to have a Twitter account. The people who are affected are not voting. EDIT: missed that it affects naturalized citizens too, but see below.
      - aaron-lebo 9y ago
        Naturalized citizens vote.
bit48 9y ago
Question is what happens if one really does not use social media, at least mainstream playforms such as facebook. I'm guessing I'm not the only one around here with a small social media footprint...
- SerLava 9y ago
  That's what I'm getting at - I don't use public social media and would probably get denied.
- vidarh 9y ago
  Time to set up a startup to fake believable social media traffic, I guess.
- donohoe 9y ago
  My guess is very little. If it turns out you were lying it might go against you on future visits, or jeopardize green card etc if it came up. To me it’s not all about that. It’s this dragnet and the meta data (profiles of people who connect to you become fair game)
amelius 9y ago
I predict there will be services that make a shadow account for you. (They probably already exist).
- fiblye 9y ago
  And as soon as such a service becomes available and known to the average person, it'll be shut down or else.
- crottypeter 9y ago
  You mean linkedIn?
JustSomeNobody 9y ago
Then this is crap. Yes, I have FB, but I _view_ it maybe once per month. I _post_ far less frequently. Twitter? Sure, I follow my local city tweets so I know about things like power outages and when the trees will be cleared after the hurricane. Some of us just don't need the world to know everything about us all the time. I'm convinced there's two types of people. Those who draw energy from other people and those of us who get peopled out after a short time and need to be alone for a while to recharge. Being social _exhausts_ me so I would rather my social interaction be in real life not making some privacy invading corporation money.
- jcranmer 9y ago
  > I'm convinced there's two types of people. Those who draw energy from other people and those of us who get peopled out after a short time and need to be alone for a while to recharge. That is exactly the definition of extroversion in the first case versus introversion in the second case.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >I'm convinced there's two types of people. Those who draw energy from other people and those of us who get peopled out after a short time and need to be alone for a while to recharge. Let's call them introverts and extroverts.
jcranmer 9y ago
> If you're between 10 and 60 years old, "I don't use social media" will likely not really be an answer at the border. Even a barely-used account will not really be an answer. Why not? According to an article I read, only about 75% of US teens use Instagram and a similar amount use Snapchat (the only media the article gave). Quite frankly, about 10-20% of even First World populations don't use social media or use it very lightly. That's not particularly uncommon.
- coldtea 9y ago
  Instagram and Snapchat are niche, and even then "only about 75% of US teens" is huge. > Quite frankly, about 10-20% of even First World populations don't use social media or use it very lightly. 10-20% is still small enough to start by assuming everybody uses them, and treat the 1 in 5/10 persons as a weirdo that merits extra examination.
- vacri 9y ago
  > about 10-20% of even First World populations don't use social media Does your number include old people? I imagine a border guard would be more willing to accept a retiree not using social media than a college-age student.
rdtsc 9y ago
That's my problem. I am not on Facebook (not explicitly, I am sure it has a shadow account on me). I am not on Twitter. Not on G+. Recruiters seems to always find me somehow though, haven't figure that one out yet. I guess at the border, I'll give them my Github account? They'll probably put me on some blacklist.
msluyter 9y ago
Where there is a problem there is (sometimes) a market opportunity: a service that periodically autoposts innocuous kitten photos into your Facebook feed, says "Happy Birthday!" to your friends, and the like. (Might actually be an interesting project.)

timthelion 9y ago

I just finished reading the book The Circle[1] by (Dave Eggers) with my wife, which is about just that, making it illegal not to use social media. Though some of the characters were less intelligent than I am, and thus seemed unbelievable to me (a problem I have with real people too), I recommend the book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circle_(Eggers_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circle_(Eggers_novel)

arvinsim 9y ago
Don't watch the movie. I read halfway through the book when the movie came out. I excitedly watched it in film form. But I only ended up disappointed. It turned me off not just from the film but from the book itself.
- hmhrex 9y ago
  Didn't realize there was a book. I'll remember to steer clear. The book was fantastic. I remember after reading that it felt a little far-fetched, but enjoyable. That was over a year ago, and I'm finding it to be more and more accurate.
  - timthelion 9y ago
    You mean that you didn't realize there was a film don't you...

_jal 9y ago

Which is deeply disturbing - I really don't use FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc. By virtue of my choice of parents and their choice of locale when I was born, this particular bit of tyranny (I use that word advisedly) won't hit me, but when every other country on earth follows suit... Waiting for the services to pop up selling fake social accounts as cover for the Officially Socially Atypical types.

sverige 9y ago

Maybe 50 should be the upper bound. I'm in my fifties and have never had any sort of social media account. Many of my high school and college classmates are similarly situated. None of the major social media platforms were founded before I was in my mid-forties, which is why there was never any incentive to start any accounts. I enjoy getting older. It spares me a lot of drama.

cr1895 9y ago
>Maybe 50 should be the upper bound. I'm in my fifties and have never had any sort of social media account. Are you not posting here?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jawilson2 9y ago
  Hacker news is a short stone's throw from AOL chat rooms and IRC, powered by contemporaneous technology.
- spraak 9y ago
  Can you explain how you see Hacker News as social media?
  - cr1895 9y ago
    We are discussing with each other publicly on a website, sharing ideas and information. Each of us is doing so tied to an identity, such as it is. Just as we might on Reddit, facebook, instagram, etc. All are social media. HackerNews is by no means different. In what way do you find it is not social media, or maybe I should ask how narrow is your definition of social media? I tried to find how exactly DHS defines "social media" because that is actually what is relevant to this discussion, but I was unable. I think someone had posted their definition in one of the other threads on this topic, if you want to try to find it yourself. Feel free to read through Wikipedia's article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

kbart 9y ago

Exactly. This is a step (or more likely - leap) towards the bizarre future portrayed in Black Mirror episode "Nosedive". 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive

aaron-lebo 9y ago

Not sure how it could actually go that far. Some people just don't have social media accounts, you can't ban people entry for that. If that does happen, there's no way it's gonna stay legal and the simplest solution is a boycott of social media.

SerLava 9y ago
It's very easy to extra-judicially deny entry at the border, without much in the way of recourse. I imagine there would be backlash against it, but it's very likely that for some period of time, travel to, from, and between specific countries will be denied to people who "refuse" to produce a social media account.
kbart 9y ago
"you can't ban people entry for that." Who said so? Border controls have right to turn non-citizens away on border if they suspect you are lying or not disclosing all information to them.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  It'll happen on a small scale while this is working itself out, certainly, but it is hard to imagine a true defacto or dejure uniform ban on people without social media accounts. The right gets upset over insurance requirements, hard to imagine a real requirement to have a Twitter account.
  - vidarh 9y ago
    > The right gets upset over insurance requirements, hard to imagine a real requirement to have a Twitter account. The people who are affected are not voting. EDIT: missed that it affects naturalized citizens too, but see below.
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      Naturalized citizens vote.

bit48 9y ago

Question is what happens if one really does not use social media, at least mainstream playforms such as facebook. I'm guessing I'm not the only one around here with a small social media footprint...

SerLava 9y ago
That's what I'm getting at - I don't use public social media and would probably get denied.
vidarh 9y ago
Time to set up a startup to fake believable social media traffic, I guess.
donohoe 9y ago
My guess is very little. If it turns out you were lying it might go against you on future visits, or jeopardize green card etc if it came up. To me it’s not all about that. It’s this dragnet and the meta data (profiles of people who connect to you become fair game)

amelius 9y ago

I predict there will be services that make a shadow account for you. (They probably already exist).

fiblye 9y ago
And as soon as such a service becomes available and known to the average person, it'll be shut down or else.
crottypeter 9y ago
You mean linkedIn?

JustSomeNobody 9y ago

Then this is crap. Yes, I have FB, but I _view_ it maybe once per month. I _post_ far less frequently. Twitter? Sure, I follow my local city tweets so I know about things like power outages and when the trees will be cleared after the hurricane. Some of us just don't need the world to know everything about us all the time. I'm convinced there's two types of people. Those who draw energy from other people and those of us who get peopled out after a short time and need to be alone for a while to recharge. Being social _exhausts_ me so I would rather my social interaction be in real life not making some privacy invading corporation money.

jcranmer 9y ago
> I'm convinced there's two types of people. Those who draw energy from other people and those of us who get peopled out after a short time and need to be alone for a while to recharge. That is exactly the definition of extroversion in the first case versus introversion in the second case.
coldtea 9y ago
>I'm convinced there's two types of people. Those who draw energy from other people and those of us who get peopled out after a short time and need to be alone for a while to recharge. Let's call them introverts and extroverts.

jcranmer 9y ago

> If you're between 10 and 60 years old, "I don't use social media" will likely not really be an answer at the border. Even a barely-used account will not really be an answer. Why not? According to an article I read, only about 75% of US teens use Instagram and a similar amount use Snapchat (the only media the article gave). Quite frankly, about 10-20% of even First World populations don't use social media or use it very lightly. That's not particularly uncommon.

coldtea 9y ago
Instagram and Snapchat are niche, and even then "only about 75% of US teens" is huge. > Quite frankly, about 10-20% of even First World populations don't use social media or use it very lightly. 10-20% is still small enough to start by assuming everybody uses them, and treat the 1 in 5/10 persons as a weirdo that merits extra examination.
vacri 9y ago
> about 10-20% of even First World populations don't use social media Does your number include old people? I imagine a border guard would be more willing to accept a retiree not using social media than a college-age student.

rdtsc 9y ago

That's my problem. I am not on Facebook (not explicitly, I am sure it has a shadow account on me). I am not on Twitter. Not on G+. Recruiters seems to always find me somehow though, haven't figure that one out yet. I guess at the border, I'll give them my Github account? They'll probably put me on some blacklist.

msluyter 9y ago

Where there is a problem there is (sometimes) a market opportunity: a service that periodically autoposts innocuous kitten photos into your Facebook feed, says "Happy Birthday!" to your friends, and the like. (Might actually be an interesting project.)