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U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

585 points by aaronbrethorst 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
colinbartlett 9y ago
I'm curious of what the lobbying arms of major social media companies like Facebook and Twitter think of this. Are they using their considerable resources to try and push back against this? They can't possibly benefit from this deeper reach of the government's spying eyes.
- sean_anandale 9y ago
  Are you kidding? Twitter, for example, made ~400 million dollars last year selling data. Several federal agencies have firehose access via contractors. Any of those companies would love the contract to correlate the information provided with their internal records.
  - mywittyname 9y ago
    Isn't forcing users to divulge this information a way around paying for data exports?
- talltimtom 9y ago
  > They can’t possibly benefit from this... Are you kidding me? This is information that won’t add any tangable value to the actual state of affairs, yet money will be payed for the information. This reeks of a deal struck with the big social behind the wheel. They get Money from the tax payers for sharing information with no need to prove actual added value, just the promis of hiring some key people in well paying positions down the Line when it’s less objctional.
- TAForObvReasons 9y ago
  That's where the next billion Twitter and Facebook users will come from: forced participation tied to government services and benefits. You can easily imagine a dystopia where a FB account is required to collect Social Security or Medicare benefits.
  - dorfsmay 9y ago
    And alt user ids tuned specifically for this purpose!
  - wanderer2323 9y ago
    My pet dystopian vision was always basic income associated with a government-tied-in Alternative Reality game, with mandatory in-game outside-world activities to collect points that can be traded in for bonus BI or discounts for everything purchased with your BI card or BI card cashback limits, etc. With China developing Social Credit and US government interest in social media data, the "in-game outside-world activities" might as well be bypassed. Have a 'good' Facebook history, or else.
jgh 9y ago
the effort to make the US even more unappealing to immigrants marches on...
- huhtenberg 9y ago
  Not just immigrants, but all visitors.
  - MaysonL 9y ago
    Education was a big component of US services export. How many students will this insanity discourage from even applying to US schools? And this from an administration that supposedly worries about the trade deficit.
  - swebs 9y ago
    Nah, citizens of most first world countries don't need a visa to enter the US if they're visiting for less than 90 days. This includes western Europe, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Baltic countries, etc. You can just get on a plane and fly over. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program#/media/File:Visa_policy_of_the_USA.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program#/media/Fil...
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Nah, citizens of most first world countries don't need a visa to enter the US if they're visiting for less than 90 days. That's true, though the Trump Administration has tightened rules for the Visa Waiver Program last year, after floating the idea that they might seek to end it entirely. So, I think it's perfectly valid to see this as part of a broad policy of making the US less welcome to visitors and immigrants in general, though that policy is also more intensely focussed on repelling immigrants and visitors from non-first-world (or, in the language of our President, “shithole”) countries.
    - Strom 9y ago
      True but the ESTA application has been asking for social media accounts for some time already. I was definitely surprised to see them explicitly asking me for my github account. Luckily it’s optional right now and I got approved without giving anything, but now the infrastructure is there and they only need to flip the required bit.
ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
When the United States does something like this others start doing it too, sometimes seemingly just to reciprocate or spite. The US contributes so much to the world with respect to tech, business, culture and science but it’s also an exporter of increasing bureaucracy.
- adventured 9y ago
  I agree, this is very obviously a policy area where the US should be leading (or at least not setting new negative standards). It's curious though, as the popular thing to claim today is that China is obviously the future. They're going to supposedly dominate everything, from AI to robotics to insert-tech-thing-here. Article after article proclaimed that China would take advantage of Trump's immigration policies to do a massive global talent grab. So what happened to that fraudulent premise? There are almost zero human rights in China. The few they had acquired, have increasingly been stripped back away. So this social media grab is a massive problem for the US. Having zero rights in China means they're going to acquire all the world's talent and dominate the universe. Something certainly doesn't make sense in the storyline.
  - jbros 9y ago
    And when the capitalists, (elite, the 1%) see how good the cpc has it, that they can milk everyone else, they will try the same here. I call for economic and miltary containment of China.
- bambax 9y ago
  > bureaucracy I wouldn't call it bureaucracy, but I don't know of a proper, better name. Hysteria maybe. Not sure.
  - mulmen 9y ago
    Oppression is a good start.
    - zafiro17 9y ago
ommunist 9y ago
is this even remotely legal?
gph 9y ago
What if you don't have any social media accounts? Are they just going to assume anyone who says they don't is lying or trying to hide something? Seems like a dumb policy to require details on a purely voluntary activity.
- TAForObvReasons 9y ago
  If the companies had their way, it would be illegal to not have a social media account and not participate actively.
  - freehunter 9y ago
    And if milk companies had their way, it'd be illegal to drink water. But they don't, so...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- cbr 9y ago
  They ask for details about many voluntary activities: travel, education, work, etc.
- r00fus 9y ago
  I really hope it's not perceived or implemented as mandatory "at least one" required.
  - fwn 9y ago
    Asking such questions on a voluntary basis is usually just a phase to reduce opposition once it's finally mandatory.
- confounded 9y ago
  Pretty sure you’d be flagged for extra scrutiny.
ineedtosleep 9y ago
Pretty absurd that they're asking for all of this and: > [...] In addition to their social media histories, visa applicants will be asked for five years of previously used telephone numbers, email addresses, international travel and deportation status, as well as whether any family members have been involved in terrorist activities. I know a number of people going through, or have been through, the US visa process and surely if this is required, applicants are going to drop. Furthermore, if you submit that you don't have a social media account are they going to assume you're a liar? Are applicants just going to create new "real" accounts just to avoid looking suspicious?
- maxerickson 9y ago
  You don't have to be all that cynical to think that the whole idea is to get people to drop their applications.
- fibers 9y ago
  >I know a number of people going through, or have been through, the US visa process and surely if this is required, applicants are going to drop. That's the point that the administration wants to push.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Swizec 9y ago
  > visa applicants will be asked for five years of previously used telephone numbers, email addresses, international travel and deportation status, This has already been the case for at least 4 years. Every visa I’ve ever had asked me to fill out which countries I’ve visited in the past 5 years and whether I was ever deported.
  - fibers 9y ago
    That is significantly different than disclosing social media profiles and different emails. One (filling out travel information) makes sense because...uhhhh...you're crossing another border so it makes sense to disclose previous travel history that coincides with your stamp book on your passport. The other is uhhhh irrelevant to travel information?
cryoshon 9y ago
>The department estimates it would affect 710,000 immigrant visa applicants and 14 million non-immigrant visa applicants, including those who want to come to the U.S. for business or education, according to the documents. this will hurt business. this will hurt american companies. this will hurt the country. this will not catch any terrorists. this will not catch any serious drug traffickers. this will not be socially useful. i can't make it any more clear. the more this country outwardly projects "we're a police state, and people from other countries are unwelcome" the more isolated we will become and the more backward our peers will find us to be, and rightly so.
- roywiggins 9y ago
  > the more isolated we will become and the more backward our peers will find us to be Unfortunately, the same strain of thought that is pushing these measures is quite happy with us being more isolated and worse regarded. They think being isolated is manly virtue; that acting in concert with the international community is feminine weakness. Being liked implies that we give something away; being hated implies that we get what we want. Hence cries of "globalist cucks!" and so on. Isolation is Strength.
  - scottybowl 9y ago
    Excellent virtue signalling..
    - roywiggins 9y ago
      And your contribution to the discussion is...?
      - scottybowl 9y ago
        More than your contribution of idle parroting of the current trend of creating division between the sexes and races. Why does an opinion need to be masculine or feminine?
chinathrow 9y ago
If you apply for ESTA, there is already a field for your social media handles, marked "OPTIONAL".
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Havoc 9y ago
US isn't high on my list of holiday destinations anyway. This just adds to that.
- curiousgal 9y ago
  It isn't on my list of anything to be honest now that I have lived here for a while. I now realize that it's all made of nothing. With large salaries comes a shitty life quality; crappy food, awful health care system, undependable transit, toxic political/cultural environment. Meanwhile, in Europe or even Canada, skilled workers are welcomed and even though salaries are less, one gets an impeccable quality of life which is the point of working to begin with.
  - Havoc 9y ago
    Crappy food? Surely one can get good food in pretty much any 1st world country?
dsafe33 9y ago
As if I needed another reason to not be on Facebook or Twitter.
Someone1234 9y ago
People I've spoken to seem more comfortable acting like this is part of the current administration's agenda, rather than an encroaching trend which has been gradually getting worse year upon year. For example this specific policy was added as an "optional" (not really) question on an entry form before the 2016 presidential elections (I know, I wrote a letter protesting it during public comment period). My point is: Both Democrats and Republics have been complicit in allowing these kind of activities to continue. And the American public would sooner blame the other "side" in this political dog and pony show, than take responsibility for this being what America's fear based society has brought. As an aside: These questions are almost impossible for some of us to answer completely. I own entire domains of email addresses and make them up on the fly, I've also thrown away dozens of "social media" accounts in the last five years for trivial reasons. But the incomplete answers will be very useful when they want to arbitrarily withdraw someone's visa, in the same way that medical insurance used to have intentionally complex registration forms which they could comb through to look for ways to kick people off after they got sick. So people that hold a visa better not protest, write to their representatives, or otherwise stick out or they'll just yank the visa and say bye bye. I'll write in again during this public comment period. But frankly public comment periods just seem like a way to placate the masses, both you and they know this is coming, nothing a public comment could say will change that.
- bsder 9y ago
  > My point is: Both Democrats and Republics have been complicit in allowing these kind of activities to continue. And the American public would sooner blame the other "side" in this political dog and pony show, than take responsibility for this being what America's fear based society has brought. Stop pushing this "both sides are the same" narrative. It's part of the damn problem. While the Democratic administrations may have continued these kinds of policies (and I will challenge you on whether they as bad as the Republican ones), most of the opposition to these policies is coming from rank and file Democrats. Democrats are a bit busy right now fighting a LOT of battles on a lot of fronts--some of them aimed at the core of our democratic institutions. You will have to pardon us if things like visas aren't at the top of the agenda right now. If you want problems like this tackled, you're gonna have to help us bail water on the bigger ones first. In addition, you are giving up just as the political pushback against social media is growing. Don't do that. Politics is a contact sport, but it's slow. Furthermore, you can get significant evangelical (but not mainline Republican) support against this, as well. You simply need to run the narrative of this as "the mark of the beast".
xvf22 9y ago
While Canada is excluded (so far) I'm just not comfortable going down to the US anymore and supporting this nonsense in any way. I wonder if it'll ever get bad enough where this information must be provided before an overflight.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Do you realize that alternate airports for many Canadian airports are US airports and that you could be forced to go through immigration if your plane ends up at an alternate?
  - bpye 9y ago
    What would happen if you refused to provide any details to US immigration at that point..?
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      Detention.
  - huy-nguyen 9y ago
    I think it’s possible to seek shelter at an alternate US airport without technically entering it through immigration. From people’s real life experience: https://www.quora.com/What-happens-to-the-passengers-and-crew-on-an-airliner-if-it’s-forced-to-make-an-emergency-landing-in-a-country-and-their-passports-lack-a-valid-entry-visa https://www.quora.com/What-happens-to-the-passengers-and-cre...
dmode 9y ago
Trump administration has been increasingly hostile to legal immigrants, so this doesn’t surprise me one bit. Everyday there is a new policy change in USCIS designed to screw immigrants, whose only crime is working on high paid jobs. I am on the verge of losing my work permit after having lived here for 12 years and working in high tech jobs in leading companies.
- scottybowl 9y ago
  Why do you deserve a job over a resident with equal skills?
  - nekopa 9y ago
    Sounds like he is a resident.
    - scottybowl 9y ago
      British citizen actually, living and working in the UK. Care to answer the question?
  - maerF0x0 9y ago
    willing to work for less money could be one reason. besides equal skills could be bringing a valuable experience (eg: Knows the <Country> market better than a national)
  - blegbleg 9y ago
    After living in a country for 12 years, you legally are a resident. Additionally he is obviously a highly skilled worker considering he works for leading tech companies, therefore you cannot consider him an average Joe bricklayer who can be compared with others as he is in a percentile that is in demand (there is a shortage of these people). Two people are hardly ever equal when it comes to applying for a job, its not just about skills, its about the people, its about the experiences they have had. I would always employ a person with more life experience than not, and traveling, learning a new language, a new culture is apart of that. It takes bravery, courage and stamina to uproot your life and move to a new country and these are all respectable traits. So respectable in fact, that the fear of these people by society is blatantly evident. You forget that we are all citizens of the world, and people move around for many different reasons. Just because you are happy to stay in your cultural bubble doesn't mean other people are. And if these people are skilled and can contribute to the economy, even better.
floatingatoll 9y ago
Hacker News is a social media site that should be declared voluntarily under these rules.
- tzahola 9y ago
  Hacker News??? [ENTRY DENIED]
  - floatingatoll 9y ago
    You laugh - but yes, precisely. The rules specify that you have to declare five years prior history, so if this worries you, keep that in mind!
  - stale2002 9y ago
    Legit there was a tech bootcamp called hacker school that had to change their name because the FBI kept bothering them.
    - iampims 9y ago
      I believe it’s known as recurse center now.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Slansitartop 9y ago
I dread that this will become standard when applying for visas elsewhere. It's already difficult enough. Also, could this be another route for backdoor revocation of permanent residency and/or citizenship? For instance, you piss off the wrong person in government, they learn you failed to disclose your MySpace profile, revoke your visa for lying, then deport you? It's my understanding that some of the visa questions (e.g. have you committed war crimes) are there to enable precisely this kind of thing. (Posted previously to a dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16710551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16710551)
chx 9y ago
Oh good, last year we had the interview of David Thornton, the arrest of Marcus Hutchins, the enhanced pat down procedure from the TSA, we really needed more reasons to avoid the USA, really.
stuffedBelly 9y ago
How to retaliate against someone you dislike while they are applying to travel/study in the US? Launch a smear campaign against him/her on social media. Super effective.
nacho2sweet 9y ago
The social media companies are US companies. Why are they hurting their own companies. Why would I want to have a social media account if every country wants to look at what I consider my personal life. Having accounts won't be worth it. Fuck that. I already work at a large university that can't use anything hosted on US servers because of their shitty homeland security server laws. So many cloud services out of huge campus wide contracts. I delete all my apps and texts when I go through borders as well.
- TillE 9y ago
  > every country Mostly the US and the UK, it seems. For example the EU Blue Card system is generally quite reasonable: if you have high qualifications and can find a job, you get a work visa, which eventually turns into permanent residency. US and UK immigration tends to be overcomplicated, draconian, and paranoid.
  - techsin101 9y ago
    Usually when you screw enough people you have to remain paranoid. There is a reason countries like USA, France, and Uk are always targeted whereas countries like Denmark, Canada, Norway, and so on are never in the news despite being easier to get in, same philosophy, and more wealthy.
    - _acme 9y ago
      Is it really easier to get 'in' Denmark or Norway than the US or UK? Perhaps for vacation travel, but to settle permanently in small, wealthy, homogeneous countries is usually far more difficult than to settle in the US.
      - klipt 9y ago
        Any EU/EEA citizen has the right to settle in Denmark or Norway, so if getting in directly is hard, just get citizenship in another EU/EEA country first.
elcapitan 9y ago
"Sir, we have reviewed your git commit history of the last 5 years and come to the conclusion that you would be gravely endangering the code quality of this country."
- jrs95 9y ago
  But if we deport 90% of our programmers, how will the banks continue to operate?
  - rajeshpant 9y ago
    why are you specifically worried about banks? They shouldn't exist in the first place. Its 2018.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Dowwie 9y ago
  That, uh. That just might be reasonable grounds. This is an agenda that quite a few programmers might get behind.
- hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
  I'm OK with making spaces (instead of tabs) a visa requirement.
  - rovr138 9y ago
    Got a new project today. Wasted so much time until I figured there’s tabs and spaces mixed in there.
cm2187 9y ago
Like if this week had not given us enough reasons to not use social medias...
dboreham 9y ago
One thing to know is that apparently the reason for having seemingly idiotic questions on immigration forms ("are you a terrorist?", "are you a nazi war criminal?") is not that the government is stupid but rather that they're there in order to be able to deport someone for answering the question incorrectly in the event that the government wants to deport them but lacks sufficient evidence to pursue a criminal case. There's a blanket "you answer wrong, we deport you" law somewhere on the books.
- fwn 9y ago
  Yes. At worst, that may be the idea. Making an overly broad questionnair to introduce arbitrariness by enabeling your executive branch to selectively invalidate a specific visa holders questionnaires consistency.
- komali2 9y ago
  Doesn't the 5th amendment make those questions impossible to answer? (If you plead the 5th on them, you're.. probably a terrorist...)
  - freehunter 9y ago
    5th amendment only applies in criminal cases: "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself". Doesn't cover border crossings or visa applications.
    - coldsauce 9y ago
      Also, the United States hasn't historically always given constitutional rights to non-citizens living in the United States.
      - freehunter 9y ago
        Right, and the areas around the border have been called by the ACLU "Constitution-free zones". Basically the government says if you're within 100 miles of the border and have crossed or are likely to cross, your Constitutional rights no longer exist. It's really fun stuff.
fipple 9y ago
So "Nobody forced you to give Facebook all that data" will no longer be true. If you don't have your data on Facebook, and it doesn't match your government records, you'll be marked as Suspicious by the secret police.
- sneak 9y ago
  Pretty sure we have that in place already now, based on the leaked XKeyscore rules we saw.
  - paganel 9y ago
    > based on the leaked XKeyscore rules we saw. Link for the lazy: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret....
Idontagree 9y ago
Doesn't some other countries already do this? I was asked about my LinkedIn for a work visa in Canada.
- aero142 9y ago
  Canada is very aggressive about searching for "hate speech" at the border. This includes mandating that you turn over your phone and searching through your texts, emails and any linked accounts for keywords. This is personal experience.
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    How do we know what they are searching for?
    - aero142 9y ago
      The drug related searches were in my search history. The officer told me he was searching for drugs and hate speech.
  - freedomben 9y ago
    I've crossed the US/Canadian border probably a dozen times in the last 3 years and have never been asked about this, or asked to see my phone. The Canadians seemed much more concerned about guns and drugs/alcohol. It was actually worse coming back into the US than getting into Canada (I am a US citizen with passport for comparison purposes).
  - lawnchair_larry 9y ago
    I saw this on their border security reality TV show, but neither I, nor anyone I know, has ever had their phone searched visiting Canada. I've been curious how often they do it. What were your circumstances? If that show is to be believed, they aren't looking for hate speech. They are looking for the person who says they are just visiting, and then has all kinds of text messages about when they start their new job, or how they are looking forward to moving there.
ttul 9y ago
#deletefacebook
- scarlac 9y ago
  This has nothing to do with Facebook. It affects all social media sites, even non-US ones. It won't help you a bit to delete Facebook unless you wait 5 years. You'd still be required to give up the account info before then. And if you ever decide to hop on an alternative to Facebook (like HackerNews, GitHub, Twitter, Reddit, etc), you'll be required to enter them as well.
jordigh 9y ago
I'm not sure I'm planning to visit the US ever again, but if I did, what would count as social media? Does HN count? Does my blog? IRC nickname? Github and Bitbucket accounts? I've never had a Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest or LinkedIn account. The only thing I guess unequivocally counts as social media is my Mastodon accounts.
- aurelian15 9y ago
  GitHub is explicitly listed as "social media" on the optional question that is on the ESTA [1] form since 2016. If I remember correctly, the wording is relatively broad, so I would guess that HN and Reddit count as well. [1] https://www.evisaonline.com/en/usa/esta.html https://www.evisaonline.com/en/usa/esta.html
  - freehunter 9y ago
    Since when did GitHub stop being a code repository and start becoming a social network? Am I using GitHub wrong?
    - piqalq 9y ago
      What do you think commits are? git commit -m -S “just having my 4th Oreo milkshake haha”
    - lovich 9y ago
      It has stars and accounts, so there is a social aspect
    - saagarjha 9y ago
      Isn’t GitHub’s motto “social coding” or something similar?
  - davb 9y ago
    Just an FYI - that website (evisaonline) isn’t an official government site. They seem to be some third party who provide some sort of ESTA application service. The official site is at https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/ https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/
kakarot 9y ago
This won't catch sophisticated criminals. But of course that isn't the goal; a global-scale chilling effect is what this policy creates.
hacknat 9y ago
I’ve gone through the naturalization process myself, and it’s already offensively invasive, this doesn’t seem out of step with what they already do.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Visa applications are a far broader class than people going through the naturalization process, and, while there may be an argument that the naturalization process is excessively invasive, an application for citizenship does justify more depth of scrutiny than a visa application.
  - hacknat 9y ago
    Really? I think the opposite. The first gate should be the hardest to he through, especially if you get a visa that is a guaranteed path to citizenship like an H1B (H1B to Green Card to Citizen).
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      There are no visas that are a guaranteed path to citizenship (hence, the naturalization process, which can and will knock people out even if they have an immigrant visa), least of all non-immigrant visas (including dual-intent visas like the H-1B.)
    - confounded 9y ago
      Are you aware that for people from many countries, entering the US, even for a day to attend a meeting, requires a visa?
    - anigbrowl 9y ago
      a visa that is a guaranteed path to citizenship like an H1B What?! No. I realize you were speaking casually but please don't throw such misinformation around.
  - lopmotr 9y ago
    Then why is there zero scrutiny on babies born into citizenship? Countries always manage to excuse their own people even when they're a disproportionately high cause of crime.
kevinthew 9y ago
Social media and privacy have always butted heads and I hope courts start to side with pro privacy advocates
trizic 9y ago
Deleting your social media account would probably be interpreted as you are hiding something rather than protesting privacy issues.
BadassFractal 9y ago
In that case, do you become even more suspicious if you don't have social media accounts because you deleted them?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
qwerty456127 9y ago
It's time to delete everything and close our social media accounts. We ought to quit this game. By the way, do they understand people change? Immature minds are prone to idealize all kinds of bullshit (incl. marxism and eugenics), daemonize whoever and whatever does not fit in their view (usually extremely narrow to the moment) and shout about this aloud but they grow older, expand their understanding and change their views. How many people don't feel embarrassed reading the comments they have posted years ago?
cerebellum 9y ago
Your wife forgets to list that yahoo mail account to which she no longer has access and everything is deleted: family gets deported.* You forget to list that LiveJournal, Advogato or Quora accounts: family gets deported.* Your daughter forgets to list that Pinterest account: family gets deported.* Your son forgets to list that last.fm or SoundCloud account: family gets deported.* Your mom forgets her Academia.edu account and Mittens forgets her vampirefreaks account: family gets deported.* [*] or separated...
- saiya-jin 9y ago
  so they can move to much more sane society which actually look like something from 21st century - Europe (or Australia if you prefer surfing, skin cancer and deadly animals all around)
- _acme 9y ago
  Under what conditions would any of these events actually occur? The government isn't going to waste resources to deport someone solely for forgetting an account; they would only go to such effort if there's another reason that they actually care about to deport that person.
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    It provides an excuse to be selectively abused to deport people, since it applies so broadly.
  - musage 9y ago
    > they would only go to such effort if there's another reason that they actually care about to deport that person. They would do that under those conditions. Not "only". So you answered your own question, if you actually want to make the argument (via slipping in that "only") that it's okay for the govt to use this to get rid of people they want to get rid of for reasons that on their own aren't sufficient, then make the argument.
  - larkeith 9y ago
    The point isn't to go after everyone who fails to completely or accurately answer, but rather to provide a pretext for the deportation of people the government disfavor but lack a criminal case against; for example, an immigrant opposition leader, protestor, or whistleblower.
benevol 9y ago
It's mind-blowing to what degree the country has been on a downward spiral for the last decade or so. I'm really not convinced people already understand just how hard it will be to reinstall sane dynamics and politics.
bojo 9y ago
Ugh. I'm at the tail end of doing immigration visas for my wife and daughter, and it's taken a year to get here. The process is already somewhat stressful as it is. Adding bullshit like social media to the already long list of things you have to report makes my blood boil. Glad we'll be done before this ever gets approved.
ksk 9y ago
What if one gave somebody else's info by mistake? Very easy to do esp with phone numbers.
confounded 9y ago
It feels good to complain on HN, but we all will be contacting our representatives, and following the EFF’s campaigning, won’t we? Please?
- whoisjuan 9y ago
  Yeah. That would be good, except you will get a canned response which more or less implies that they don't give a fuck about your opinions... That's the current state of affairs.
  - UenoHDTV80 9y ago
    You have always gotten the canned response. That's not the point. If enough of us complain, the representatives sometimes get scared and change their positions. But we all gotta do it. We all gotta vote too. It's a collective action problem. Don't be a free rider
- mch82 9y ago
  What if we teamed up as a community to draft a bill, then lobbied Congress to pass it? Edit: Restated as a question.
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  Except I think I'm not listened to. I've lived outside the states for nearly 5 years now, with no plans on moving back. They ask about this on the voting forms. It helps me suspect my vote is easily cast aside and that I don't count. On top of that, I'm very much a minority in my home state (Indiana). I suspect I don't have someone that will listen.
api_or_ipa 9y ago
Could this policy possibly violate the ToS' you sign when you register for these accounts?
- saagarjha 9y ago
  Which part would it violate?
zerostar07 9y ago
time to make a facebook profile. because sure as hell i will sound suspicious if i tell them i dont have one.
legopelle 9y ago
I left the field blank on my ESTA application. Should I be worried?
ojbyrne 9y ago
Tourists and business visitors? I think the travel industry is about to ramp up lobbying efforts. Or get killed financially.
Silhouette 9y ago
I literally do not know every email address I have used in the past five years. I typically make up a new one for every business that asks for one. Likewise for the occasional throwaway account on discussion forums if I'm discussing anything controversial or where my own identity might compromise someone else's position that they don't want to be publicly associated with.
tmaier 9y ago
This kind of behaviour is a case of why one should avoid hosting internation conferences in the US. Sad for the US, but important to keep in mond when organizing.
- AjJi 9y ago
  FWIW, the Dota2 International[1] for 2018 will be held in Vancouver this year, all previous editions were in the US. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_(Dota_2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_(Dota_2)
- visarga 9y ago
  They could split the conference into an US and an EU branch, run simultaneously by streaming, so researchers could make their presentations and attendees watch from both countries. That would limit the mingling and interaction though. If your goal is to make contacts, find employees, investors or jobs, then you got to go through the hoops.
noarchy 9y ago
To anyone who has been calling for regulation of social media, here you go. This is what the actual result will gradually look like for everyone: you can ask the government to "protect" you from social media, but it is in the interest of government to work with social media platforms to do anything but protect your privacy. Don't think that your country is immune from the trend. The islands of potential protection from this grow smaller by the day, as pressure mounts, both internally and externally. Remember that major governments have been, and undoubtedly continue to spy on all of us, either openly or covertly. You can #deletefacebook all you want - you won't be able to opt out of your own government's spying efforts.
sebastianavina 9y ago
what happens if you dont have a facebook account? or instagram? its a no? because they can believe you are lying
conkerspoon 9y ago
This thread has been infested with propagandists attempting to normalise this unusual state of affairs. Like every other service that allows anonymous account signup, stick a fork in HN... it's done. It's easy picking for Chinese and Russian propagandists.
remind_me_again 9y ago
Doesn't the government have full access to such stuff already. I think these kind of stories exists just to obscrure that fact.
peter303 9y ago
Hopefully the hotels of of the person instituting this policy will go bankrupt from the large decrease in international visitors. Karma. That person should think ahead a bit and realize the full consequences.
ilkan 9y ago
All social media? "Yes, I 'liked' a video starring 'Isis' on Pornhub 10 years ago but I swear it's not what you think!" Imagine filling in those usernames, hilarious
deleted 9y ago
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makecheck 9y ago
Ugh. First, fake profiles are not only possible, they are trivial. So if you correctly state you don’t have a profile on X, and they find one anyway...do you think they’ll bother to tell you why you were denied? No, you’ll just be silently blacklisted for what “you” do online. Social networks are also run by companies, not the government. They need to just stop expecting us to interact with a tiny number of specific companies (it’s “big 3” credit reporting all over again, only somehow worse). And finally, can we stop treating potential immigrants so poorly!?!? There are enough rules, forms, fees and delays already; how many more things do they really need?
- sleavey 9y ago
  The US is not the centre of the world. I'm a researcher and even though the immigration process is smoother for academics, others and I have long since decided not to pursue work in the US. There are many reasons, but amongst them are the populist government, draconian "America first, rest of the world second" policies (that have existed since the Bush era, not just Trump), dropping or stagnant science funding and (obviously only in some aspects) the expert-hostile society.
therealmarv 9y ago
So will this be the case for ESTA visas too?
- tagawa 9y ago
  I can't confirm but according to the ESTA site[1], "an approved travel authorization is not a visa. It does not meet the legal or regulatory requirements to serve in lieu of a United States visa when a visa is required under United States law". Therefore if the social media details become a requirement for visa applications only, then ESTA would theoretically be exempt. Having said that, social media is currently an optional field on the ESTA form so the foundation has been laid. [1] https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/ https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/
therealmarv 9y ago
On another site I've read it includes passwords too. This is surely a joke, right?
onthe_otherhand 9y ago
I will offer the outsider's perspective. I didn't know which form it was going to take, but I expected this for quite a while. What is really happening here is a brilliant kind of targeting of the most tech savvy folks (most likely to be prolific on social media) - you know, that pesky immigrant group who not only easily make more than the median income of the natives, but the ones who are most likely to be law abiding (and against whom the usual slander such as "rapists" will not stick). This is the group which most infuriates the native underclass in all societies when the society starts facing economic turmoil. To all immigrants who went to the US on such a visa (e.g. H1) - take this as a distant warning and make a plan B to leave the US. This story does not have a good ending and it has happened too often in history. There may be a lot of native folks wringing their hands and even offering their support (which is welcome of course) but the underclass is generally too economically ignorant to ever listen to them.
Nomentatus 9y ago
The ancient Greeks were paid to show up and vote. If you don't do this, irrational actors or those with very poor math skills will be highly over-represented and this will show in the result. But thanks to gerrymandering, your vote will very likely be moot. So that has to be fixed first. (This was a reply that appears to have become stranded.)
s2g 9y ago
I'm going to raise this to my employer with a note that I will likely just leave if this happens. I like living here, but christ it's just not worth it. I'm sick of the rabid anti-immigrant bullshit.
alephu5 9y ago
The USA is a joke when it comes to security. They've got all this stupid and expensive beauracracy for coming in and out of the country that does nothing but irritate people. I recently flew through the US on a connection flight from the UK and needed to give details of my employment history and my birth place amongst other things. In Tampa I got interrogated for looking nervous, which I was because we had landed late and I had very little time to catch my connection. My phone was searched, my WhatsApp messages were read, and they asked me all sorts of personal questions such as my girlfriend's birthday and the names of her cats. After all this nonsense and their military-checkpoint style TSA procedures, I was able to continue on my journey (after the almost 20 hour delay). So if they ask for social media profiles and phone numbers it's just a minor addition to the existing useless questions. If I wanted to hide something I could easily lie and they'd have absolutely no way of checking. Quite honestly I hope I never have to go anywhere near the US border ever again, I would rather pay an extra £200 for an alternative flight.
nova22033 9y ago
This is meaningless. Does anyone think TSA has the resources or systems to go through the social media profiles of the applicants and catch the "bad guys"?
feedmeseymour 9y ago
I'm OK with any country seeking private details from outsiders attempting to gain entry. I am not OK with any country seeking private details from its own citizens or those who have already legally gained access.
sirmoveon 9y ago
Already happening

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

I'm curious of what the lobbying arms of major social media companies like Facebook and Twitter think of this. Are they using their considerable resources to try and push back against this? They can't possibly benefit from this deeper reach of the government's spying eyes.

sean_anandale 9y ago
Are you kidding? Twitter, for example, made ~400 million dollars last year selling data. Several federal agencies have firehose access via contractors. Any of those companies would love the contract to correlate the information provided with their internal records.
- mywittyname 9y ago
  Isn't forcing users to divulge this information a way around paying for data exports?
talltimtom 9y ago
> They can’t possibly benefit from this... Are you kidding me? This is information that won’t add any tangable value to the actual state of affairs, yet money will be payed for the information. This reeks of a deal struck with the big social behind the wheel. They get Money from the tax payers for sharing information with no need to prove actual added value, just the promis of hiring some key people in well paying positions down the Line when it’s less objctional.
TAForObvReasons 9y ago
That's where the next billion Twitter and Facebook users will come from: forced participation tied to government services and benefits. You can easily imagine a dystopia where a FB account is required to collect Social Security or Medicare benefits.
- dorfsmay 9y ago
  And alt user ids tuned specifically for this purpose!
- wanderer2323 9y ago
  My pet dystopian vision was always basic income associated with a government-tied-in Alternative Reality game, with mandatory in-game outside-world activities to collect points that can be traded in for bonus BI or discounts for everything purchased with your BI card or BI card cashback limits, etc. With China developing Social Credit and US government interest in social media data, the "in-game outside-world activities" might as well be bypassed. Have a 'good' Facebook history, or else.

jgh 9y ago

the effort to make the US even more unappealing to immigrants marches on...

huhtenberg 9y ago
Not just immigrants, but all visitors.
- MaysonL 9y ago
  Education was a big component of US services export. How many students will this insanity discourage from even applying to US schools? And this from an administration that supposedly worries about the trade deficit.
- swebs 9y ago
  Nah, citizens of most first world countries don't need a visa to enter the US if they're visiting for less than 90 days. This includes western Europe, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Baltic countries, etc. You can just get on a plane and fly over. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program#/media/File:Visa_policy_of_the_USA.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program#/media/Fil...
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Nah, citizens of most first world countries don't need a visa to enter the US if they're visiting for less than 90 days. That's true, though the Trump Administration has tightened rules for the Visa Waiver Program last year, after floating the idea that they might seek to end it entirely. So, I think it's perfectly valid to see this as part of a broad policy of making the US less welcome to visitors and immigrants in general, though that policy is also more intensely focussed on repelling immigrants and visitors from non-first-world (or, in the language of our President, “shithole”) countries.
  - Strom 9y ago
    True but the ESTA application has been asking for social media accounts for some time already. I was definitely surprised to see them explicitly asking me for my github account. Luckily it’s optional right now and I got approved without giving anything, but now the infrastructure is there and they only need to flip the required bit.

ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago

When the United States does something like this others start doing it too, sometimes seemingly just to reciprocate or spite. The US contributes so much to the world with respect to tech, business, culture and science but it’s also an exporter of increasing bureaucracy.

adventured 9y ago
I agree, this is very obviously a policy area where the US should be leading (or at least not setting new negative standards). It's curious though, as the popular thing to claim today is that China is obviously the future. They're going to supposedly dominate everything, from AI to robotics to insert-tech-thing-here. Article after article proclaimed that China would take advantage of Trump's immigration policies to do a massive global talent grab. So what happened to that fraudulent premise? There are almost zero human rights in China. The few they had acquired, have increasingly been stripped back away. So this social media grab is a massive problem for the US. Having zero rights in China means they're going to acquire all the world's talent and dominate the universe. Something certainly doesn't make sense in the storyline.
- jbros 9y ago
  And when the capitalists, (elite, the 1%) see how good the cpc has it, that they can milk everyone else, they will try the same here. I call for economic and miltary containment of China.
bambax 9y ago
> bureaucracy I wouldn't call it bureaucracy, but I don't know of a proper, better name. Hysteria maybe. Not sure.
- mulmen 9y ago
  Oppression is a good start.
  - zafiro17 9y ago

ommunist 9y ago

is this even remotely legal?

gph 9y ago

What if you don't have any social media accounts? Are they just going to assume anyone who says they don't is lying or trying to hide something? Seems like a dumb policy to require details on a purely voluntary activity.

TAForObvReasons 9y ago
If the companies had their way, it would be illegal to not have a social media account and not participate actively.
- freehunter 9y ago
  And if milk companies had their way, it'd be illegal to drink water. But they don't, so...
deleted 9y ago
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cbr 9y ago
They ask for details about many voluntary activities: travel, education, work, etc.
r00fus 9y ago
I really hope it's not perceived or implemented as mandatory "at least one" required.
- fwn 9y ago
  Asking such questions on a voluntary basis is usually just a phase to reduce opposition once it's finally mandatory.
confounded 9y ago
Pretty sure you’d be flagged for extra scrutiny.

ineedtosleep 9y ago

Pretty absurd that they're asking for all of this and: > [...] In addition to their social media histories, visa applicants will be asked for five years of previously used telephone numbers, email addresses, international travel and deportation status, as well as whether any family members have been involved in terrorist activities. I know a number of people going through, or have been through, the US visa process and surely if this is required, applicants are going to drop. Furthermore, if you submit that you don't have a social media account are they going to assume you're a liar? Are applicants just going to create new "real" accounts just to avoid looking suspicious?

maxerickson 9y ago
You don't have to be all that cynical to think that the whole idea is to get people to drop their applications.
fibers 9y ago
>I know a number of people going through, or have been through, the US visa process and surely if this is required, applicants are going to drop. That's the point that the administration wants to push.
deleted 9y ago
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Swizec 9y ago
> visa applicants will be asked for five years of previously used telephone numbers, email addresses, international travel and deportation status, This has already been the case for at least 4 years. Every visa I’ve ever had asked me to fill out which countries I’ve visited in the past 5 years and whether I was ever deported.
- fibers 9y ago
  That is significantly different than disclosing social media profiles and different emails. One (filling out travel information) makes sense because...uhhhh...you're crossing another border so it makes sense to disclose previous travel history that coincides with your stamp book on your passport. The other is uhhhh irrelevant to travel information?

cryoshon 9y ago

>The department estimates it would affect 710,000 immigrant visa applicants and 14 million non-immigrant visa applicants, including those who want to come to the U.S. for business or education, according to the documents. this will hurt business. this will hurt american companies. this will hurt the country. this will not catch any terrorists. this will not catch any serious drug traffickers. this will not be socially useful. i can't make it any more clear. the more this country outwardly projects "we're a police state, and people from other countries are unwelcome" the more isolated we will become and the more backward our peers will find us to be, and rightly so.

roywiggins 9y ago
> the more isolated we will become and the more backward our peers will find us to be Unfortunately, the same strain of thought that is pushing these measures is quite happy with us being more isolated and worse regarded. They think being isolated is manly virtue; that acting in concert with the international community is feminine weakness. Being liked implies that we give something away; being hated implies that we get what we want. Hence cries of "globalist cucks!" and so on. Isolation is Strength.
- scottybowl 9y ago
  Excellent virtue signalling..
  - roywiggins 9y ago
    And your contribution to the discussion is...?
    - scottybowl 9y ago
      More than your contribution of idle parroting of the current trend of creating division between the sexes and races. Why does an opinion need to be masculine or feminine?

chinathrow 9y ago

If you apply for ESTA, there is already a field for your social media handles, marked "OPTIONAL".

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Havoc 9y ago

US isn't high on my list of holiday destinations anyway. This just adds to that.

curiousgal 9y ago
It isn't on my list of anything to be honest now that I have lived here for a while. I now realize that it's all made of nothing. With large salaries comes a shitty life quality; crappy food, awful health care system, undependable transit, toxic political/cultural environment. Meanwhile, in Europe or even Canada, skilled workers are welcomed and even though salaries are less, one gets an impeccable quality of life which is the point of working to begin with.
- Havoc 9y ago
  Crappy food? Surely one can get good food in pretty much any 1st world country?

dsafe33 9y ago

As if I needed another reason to not be on Facebook or Twitter.

Someone1234 9y ago

People I've spoken to seem more comfortable acting like this is part of the current administration's agenda, rather than an encroaching trend which has been gradually getting worse year upon year. For example this specific policy was added as an "optional" (not really) question on an entry form before the 2016 presidential elections (I know, I wrote a letter protesting it during public comment period). My point is: Both Democrats and Republics have been complicit in allowing these kind of activities to continue. And the American public would sooner blame the other "side" in this political dog and pony show, than take responsibility for this being what America's fear based society has brought. As an aside: These questions are almost impossible for some of us to answer completely. I own entire domains of email addresses and make them up on the fly, I've also thrown away dozens of "social media" accounts in the last five years for trivial reasons. But the incomplete answers will be very useful when they want to arbitrarily withdraw someone's visa, in the same way that medical insurance used to have intentionally complex registration forms which they could comb through to look for ways to kick people off after they got sick. So people that hold a visa better not protest, write to their representatives, or otherwise stick out or they'll just yank the visa and say bye bye. I'll write in again during this public comment period. But frankly public comment periods just seem like a way to placate the masses, both you and they know this is coming, nothing a public comment could say will change that.

bsder 9y ago
> My point is: Both Democrats and Republics have been complicit in allowing these kind of activities to continue. And the American public would sooner blame the other "side" in this political dog and pony show, than take responsibility for this being what America's fear based society has brought. Stop pushing this "both sides are the same" narrative. It's part of the damn problem. While the Democratic administrations may have continued these kinds of policies (and I will challenge you on whether they as bad as the Republican ones), most of the opposition to these policies is coming from rank and file Democrats. Democrats are a bit busy right now fighting a LOT of battles on a lot of fronts--some of them aimed at the core of our democratic institutions. You will have to pardon us if things like visas aren't at the top of the agenda right now. If you want problems like this tackled, you're gonna have to help us bail water on the bigger ones first. In addition, you are giving up just as the political pushback against social media is growing. Don't do that. Politics is a contact sport, but it's slow. Furthermore, you can get significant evangelical (but not mainline Republican) support against this, as well. You simply need to run the narrative of this as "the mark of the beast".

xvf22 9y ago

While Canada is excluded (so far) I'm just not comfortable going down to the US anymore and supporting this nonsense in any way. I wonder if it'll ever get bad enough where this information must be provided before an overflight.

jacquesm 9y ago
Do you realize that alternate airports for many Canadian airports are US airports and that you could be forced to go through immigration if your plane ends up at an alternate?
- bpye 9y ago
  What would happen if you refused to provide any details to US immigration at that point..?
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Detention.
- huy-nguyen 9y ago
  I think it’s possible to seek shelter at an alternate US airport without technically entering it through immigration. From people’s real life experience: https://www.quora.com/What-happens-to-the-passengers-and-crew-on-an-airliner-if-it’s-forced-to-make-an-emergency-landing-in-a-country-and-their-passports-lack-a-valid-entry-visa https://www.quora.com/What-happens-to-the-passengers-and-cre...

dmode 9y ago

Trump administration has been increasingly hostile to legal immigrants, so this doesn’t surprise me one bit. Everyday there is a new policy change in USCIS designed to screw immigrants, whose only crime is working on high paid jobs. I am on the verge of losing my work permit after having lived here for 12 years and working in high tech jobs in leading companies.

scottybowl 9y ago
Why do you deserve a job over a resident with equal skills?
- nekopa 9y ago
  Sounds like he is a resident.
  - scottybowl 9y ago
    British citizen actually, living and working in the UK. Care to answer the question?
- maerF0x0 9y ago
  willing to work for less money could be one reason. besides equal skills could be bringing a valuable experience (eg: Knows the <Country> market better than a national)
- blegbleg 9y ago
  After living in a country for 12 years, you legally are a resident. Additionally he is obviously a highly skilled worker considering he works for leading tech companies, therefore you cannot consider him an average Joe bricklayer who can be compared with others as he is in a percentile that is in demand (there is a shortage of these people). Two people are hardly ever equal when it comes to applying for a job, its not just about skills, its about the people, its about the experiences they have had. I would always employ a person with more life experience than not, and traveling, learning a new language, a new culture is apart of that. It takes bravery, courage and stamina to uproot your life and move to a new country and these are all respectable traits. So respectable in fact, that the fear of these people by society is blatantly evident. You forget that we are all citizens of the world, and people move around for many different reasons. Just because you are happy to stay in your cultural bubble doesn't mean other people are. And if these people are skilled and can contribute to the economy, even better.

floatingatoll 9y ago

Hacker News is a social media site that should be declared voluntarily under these rules.

tzahola 9y ago
Hacker News??? [ENTRY DENIED]
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  You laugh - but yes, precisely. The rules specify that you have to declare five years prior history, so if this worries you, keep that in mind!
- stale2002 9y ago
  Legit there was a tech bootcamp called hacker school that had to change their name because the FBI kept bothering them.
  - iampims 9y ago
    I believe it’s known as recurse center now.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Slansitartop 9y ago

I dread that this will become standard when applying for visas elsewhere. It's already difficult enough. Also, could this be another route for backdoor revocation of permanent residency and/or citizenship? For instance, you piss off the wrong person in government, they learn you failed to disclose your MySpace profile, revoke your visa for lying, then deport you? It's my understanding that some of the visa questions (e.g. have you committed war crimes) are there to enable precisely this kind of thing. (Posted previously to a dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16710551 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16710551)

chx 9y ago

Oh good, last year we had the interview of David Thornton, the arrest of Marcus Hutchins, the enhanced pat down procedure from the TSA, we really needed more reasons to avoid the USA, really.

stuffedBelly 9y ago

How to retaliate against someone you dislike while they are applying to travel/study in the US? Launch a smear campaign against him/her on social media. Super effective.

nacho2sweet 9y ago

The social media companies are US companies. Why are they hurting their own companies. Why would I want to have a social media account if every country wants to look at what I consider my personal life. Having accounts won't be worth it. Fuck that. I already work at a large university that can't use anything hosted on US servers because of their shitty homeland security server laws. So many cloud services out of huge campus wide contracts. I delete all my apps and texts when I go through borders as well.

TillE 9y ago
> every country Mostly the US and the UK, it seems. For example the EU Blue Card system is generally quite reasonable: if you have high qualifications and can find a job, you get a work visa, which eventually turns into permanent residency. US and UK immigration tends to be overcomplicated, draconian, and paranoid.
- techsin101 9y ago
  Usually when you screw enough people you have to remain paranoid. There is a reason countries like USA, France, and Uk are always targeted whereas countries like Denmark, Canada, Norway, and so on are never in the news despite being easier to get in, same philosophy, and more wealthy.
  - _acme 9y ago
    Is it really easier to get 'in' Denmark or Norway than the US or UK? Perhaps for vacation travel, but to settle permanently in small, wealthy, homogeneous countries is usually far more difficult than to settle in the US.
    - klipt 9y ago
      Any EU/EEA citizen has the right to settle in Denmark or Norway, so if getting in directly is hard, just get citizenship in another EU/EEA country first.

elcapitan 9y ago

"Sir, we have reviewed your git commit history of the last 5 years and come to the conclusion that you would be gravely endangering the code quality of this country."

jrs95 9y ago
But if we deport 90% of our programmers, how will the banks continue to operate?
- rajeshpant 9y ago
  why are you specifically worried about banks? They shouldn't exist in the first place. Its 2018.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Dowwie 9y ago
That, uh. That just might be reasonable grounds. This is an agenda that quite a few programmers might get behind.
hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
I'm OK with making spaces (instead of tabs) a visa requirement.
- rovr138 9y ago
  Got a new project today. Wasted so much time until I figured there’s tabs and spaces mixed in there.

cm2187 9y ago

Like if this week had not given us enough reasons to not use social medias...

dboreham 9y ago

One thing to know is that apparently the reason for having seemingly idiotic questions on immigration forms ("are you a terrorist?", "are you a nazi war criminal?") is not that the government is stupid but rather that they're there in order to be able to deport someone for answering the question incorrectly in the event that the government wants to deport them but lacks sufficient evidence to pursue a criminal case. There's a blanket "you answer wrong, we deport you" law somewhere on the books.

fwn 9y ago
Yes. At worst, that may be the idea. Making an overly broad questionnair to introduce arbitrariness by enabeling your executive branch to selectively invalidate a specific visa holders questionnaires consistency.
komali2 9y ago
Doesn't the 5th amendment make those questions impossible to answer? (If you plead the 5th on them, you're.. probably a terrorist...)
- freehunter 9y ago
  5th amendment only applies in criminal cases: "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself". Doesn't cover border crossings or visa applications.
  - coldsauce 9y ago
    Also, the United States hasn't historically always given constitutional rights to non-citizens living in the United States.
    - freehunter 9y ago
      Right, and the areas around the border have been called by the ACLU "Constitution-free zones". Basically the government says if you're within 100 miles of the border and have crossed or are likely to cross, your Constitutional rights no longer exist. It's really fun stuff.

fipple 9y ago

So "Nobody forced you to give Facebook all that data" will no longer be true. If you don't have your data on Facebook, and it doesn't match your government records, you'll be marked as Suspicious by the secret police.

sneak 9y ago
Pretty sure we have that in place already now, based on the leaked XKeyscore rules we saw.
- paganel 9y ago
  > based on the leaked XKeyscore rules we saw. Link for the lazy: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret....

Idontagree 9y ago

Doesn't some other countries already do this? I was asked about my LinkedIn for a work visa in Canada.

aero142 9y ago
Canada is very aggressive about searching for "hate speech" at the border. This includes mandating that you turn over your phone and searching through your texts, emails and any linked accounts for keywords. This is personal experience.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  How do we know what they are searching for?
  - aero142 9y ago
    The drug related searches were in my search history. The officer told me he was searching for drugs and hate speech.
- freedomben 9y ago
  I've crossed the US/Canadian border probably a dozen times in the last 3 years and have never been asked about this, or asked to see my phone. The Canadians seemed much more concerned about guns and drugs/alcohol. It was actually worse coming back into the US than getting into Canada (I am a US citizen with passport for comparison purposes).
- lawnchair_larry 9y ago
  I saw this on their border security reality TV show, but neither I, nor anyone I know, has ever had their phone searched visiting Canada. I've been curious how often they do it. What were your circumstances? If that show is to be believed, they aren't looking for hate speech. They are looking for the person who says they are just visiting, and then has all kinds of text messages about when they start their new job, or how they are looking forward to moving there.

ttul 9y ago

#deletefacebook

scarlac 9y ago
This has nothing to do with Facebook. It affects all social media sites, even non-US ones. It won't help you a bit to delete Facebook unless you wait 5 years. You'd still be required to give up the account info before then. And if you ever decide to hop on an alternative to Facebook (like HackerNews, GitHub, Twitter, Reddit, etc), you'll be required to enter them as well.

jordigh 9y ago

I'm not sure I'm planning to visit the US ever again, but if I did, what would count as social media? Does HN count? Does my blog? IRC nickname? Github and Bitbucket accounts? I've never had a Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest or LinkedIn account. The only thing I guess unequivocally counts as social media is my Mastodon accounts.

aurelian15 9y ago
GitHub is explicitly listed as "social media" on the optional question that is on the ESTA [1] form since 2016. If I remember correctly, the wording is relatively broad, so I would guess that HN and Reddit count as well. [1] https://www.evisaonline.com/en/usa/esta.html https://www.evisaonline.com/en/usa/esta.html
- freehunter 9y ago
  Since when did GitHub stop being a code repository and start becoming a social network? Am I using GitHub wrong?
  - piqalq 9y ago
    What do you think commits are? git commit -m -S “just having my 4th Oreo milkshake haha”
  - lovich 9y ago
    It has stars and accounts, so there is a social aspect
  - saagarjha 9y ago
    Isn’t GitHub’s motto “social coding” or something similar?
- davb 9y ago
  Just an FYI - that website (evisaonline) isn’t an official government site. They seem to be some third party who provide some sort of ESTA application service. The official site is at https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/ https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/

kakarot 9y ago

This won't catch sophisticated criminals. But of course that isn't the goal; a global-scale chilling effect is what this policy creates.

hacknat 9y ago

I’ve gone through the naturalization process myself, and it’s already offensively invasive, this doesn’t seem out of step with what they already do.

dragonwriter 9y ago
Visa applications are a far broader class than people going through the naturalization process, and, while there may be an argument that the naturalization process is excessively invasive, an application for citizenship does justify more depth of scrutiny than a visa application.
- hacknat 9y ago
  Really? I think the opposite. The first gate should be the hardest to he through, especially if you get a visa that is a guaranteed path to citizenship like an H1B (H1B to Green Card to Citizen).
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    There are no visas that are a guaranteed path to citizenship (hence, the naturalization process, which can and will knock people out even if they have an immigrant visa), least of all non-immigrant visas (including dual-intent visas like the H-1B.)
  - confounded 9y ago
    Are you aware that for people from many countries, entering the US, even for a day to attend a meeting, requires a visa?
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    a visa that is a guaranteed path to citizenship like an H1B What?! No. I realize you were speaking casually but please don't throw such misinformation around.
- lopmotr 9y ago
  Then why is there zero scrutiny on babies born into citizenship? Countries always manage to excuse their own people even when they're a disproportionately high cause of crime.

kevinthew 9y ago

Social media and privacy have always butted heads and I hope courts start to side with pro privacy advocates

trizic 9y ago

Deleting your social media account would probably be interpreted as you are hiding something rather than protesting privacy issues.

BadassFractal 9y ago

In that case, do you become even more suspicious if you don't have social media accounts because you deleted them?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

qwerty456127 9y ago

It's time to delete everything and close our social media accounts. We ought to quit this game. By the way, do they understand people change? Immature minds are prone to idealize all kinds of bullshit (incl. marxism and eugenics), daemonize whoever and whatever does not fit in their view (usually extremely narrow to the moment) and shout about this aloud but they grow older, expand their understanding and change their views. How many people don't feel embarrassed reading the comments they have posted years ago?

cerebellum 9y ago

Your wife forgets to list that yahoo mail account to which she no longer has access and everything is deleted: family gets deported.* You forget to list that LiveJournal, Advogato or Quora accounts: family gets deported.* Your daughter forgets to list that Pinterest account: family gets deported.* Your son forgets to list that last.fm or SoundCloud account: family gets deported.* Your mom forgets her Academia.edu account and Mittens forgets her vampirefreaks account: family gets deported.* [*] or separated...

saiya-jin 9y ago
so they can move to much more sane society which actually look like something from 21st century - Europe (or Australia if you prefer surfing, skin cancer and deadly animals all around)
_acme 9y ago
Under what conditions would any of these events actually occur? The government isn't going to waste resources to deport someone solely for forgetting an account; they would only go to such effort if there's another reason that they actually care about to deport that person.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  It provides an excuse to be selectively abused to deport people, since it applies so broadly.
- musage 9y ago
  > they would only go to such effort if there's another reason that they actually care about to deport that person. They would do that under those conditions. Not "only". So you answered your own question, if you actually want to make the argument (via slipping in that "only") that it's okay for the govt to use this to get rid of people they want to get rid of for reasons that on their own aren't sufficient, then make the argument.
- larkeith 9y ago
  The point isn't to go after everyone who fails to completely or accurately answer, but rather to provide a pretext for the deportation of people the government disfavor but lack a criminal case against; for example, an immigrant opposition leader, protestor, or whistleblower.

benevol 9y ago

It's mind-blowing to what degree the country has been on a downward spiral for the last decade or so. I'm really not convinced people already understand just how hard it will be to reinstall sane dynamics and politics.

bojo 9y ago

Ugh. I'm at the tail end of doing immigration visas for my wife and daughter, and it's taken a year to get here. The process is already somewhat stressful as it is. Adding bullshit like social media to the already long list of things you have to report makes my blood boil. Glad we'll be done before this ever gets approved.

ksk 9y ago

What if one gave somebody else's info by mistake? Very easy to do esp with phone numbers.

confounded 9y ago

It feels good to complain on HN, but we all will be contacting our representatives, and following the EFF’s campaigning, won’t we? Please?

whoisjuan 9y ago
Yeah. That would be good, except you will get a canned response which more or less implies that they don't give a fuck about your opinions... That's the current state of affairs.
- UenoHDTV80 9y ago
  You have always gotten the canned response. That's not the point. If enough of us complain, the representatives sometimes get scared and change their positions. But we all gotta do it. We all gotta vote too. It's a collective action problem. Don't be a free rider
mch82 9y ago
What if we teamed up as a community to draft a bill, then lobbied Congress to pass it? Edit: Restated as a question.
Broken_Hippo 9y ago
Except I think I'm not listened to. I've lived outside the states for nearly 5 years now, with no plans on moving back. They ask about this on the voting forms. It helps me suspect my vote is easily cast aside and that I don't count. On top of that, I'm very much a minority in my home state (Indiana). I suspect I don't have someone that will listen.

api_or_ipa 9y ago

Could this policy possibly violate the ToS' you sign when you register for these accounts?

saagarjha 9y ago
Which part would it violate?

zerostar07 9y ago

time to make a facebook profile. because sure as hell i will sound suspicious if i tell them i dont have one.

legopelle 9y ago

I left the field blank on my ESTA application. Should I be worried?

ojbyrne 9y ago

Tourists and business visitors? I think the travel industry is about to ramp up lobbying efforts. Or get killed financially.

Silhouette 9y ago

I literally do not know every email address I have used in the past five years. I typically make up a new one for every business that asks for one. Likewise for the occasional throwaway account on discussion forums if I'm discussing anything controversial or where my own identity might compromise someone else's position that they don't want to be publicly associated with.

tmaier 9y ago

This kind of behaviour is a case of why one should avoid hosting internation conferences in the US. Sad for the US, but important to keep in mond when organizing.

AjJi 9y ago
FWIW, the Dota2 International[1] for 2018 will be held in Vancouver this year, all previous editions were in the US. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_(Dota_2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_(Dota_2)
visarga 9y ago
They could split the conference into an US and an EU branch, run simultaneously by streaming, so researchers could make their presentations and attendees watch from both countries. That would limit the mingling and interaction though. If your goal is to make contacts, find employees, investors or jobs, then you got to go through the hoops.

noarchy 9y ago

To anyone who has been calling for regulation of social media, here you go. This is what the actual result will gradually look like for everyone: you can ask the government to "protect" you from social media, but it is in the interest of government to work with social media platforms to do anything but protect your privacy. Don't think that your country is immune from the trend. The islands of potential protection from this grow smaller by the day, as pressure mounts, both internally and externally. Remember that major governments have been, and undoubtedly continue to spy on all of us, either openly or covertly. You can #deletefacebook all you want - you won't be able to opt out of your own government's spying efforts.

sebastianavina 9y ago

what happens if you dont have a facebook account? or instagram? its a no? because they can believe you are lying

conkerspoon 9y ago

This thread has been infested with propagandists attempting to normalise this unusual state of affairs. Like every other service that allows anonymous account signup, stick a fork in HN... it's done. It's easy picking for Chinese and Russian propagandists.

remind_me_again 9y ago

Doesn't the government have full access to such stuff already. I think these kind of stories exists just to obscrure that fact.

peter303 9y ago

Hopefully the hotels of of the person instituting this policy will go bankrupt from the large decrease in international visitors. Karma. That person should think ahead a bit and realize the full consequences.

ilkan 9y ago

All social media? "Yes, I 'liked' a video starring 'Isis' on Pornhub 10 years ago but I swear it's not what you think!" Imagine filling in those usernames, hilarious

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

makecheck 9y ago

Ugh. First, fake profiles are not only possible, they are trivial. So if you correctly state you don’t have a profile on X, and they find one anyway...do you think they’ll bother to tell you why you were denied? No, you’ll just be silently blacklisted for what “you” do online. Social networks are also run by companies, not the government. They need to just stop expecting us to interact with a tiny number of specific companies (it’s “big 3” credit reporting all over again, only somehow worse). And finally, can we stop treating potential immigrants so poorly!?!? There are enough rules, forms, fees and delays already; how many more things do they really need?

sleavey 9y ago
The US is not the centre of the world. I'm a researcher and even though the immigration process is smoother for academics, others and I have long since decided not to pursue work in the US. There are many reasons, but amongst them are the populist government, draconian "America first, rest of the world second" policies (that have existed since the Bush era, not just Trump), dropping or stagnant science funding and (obviously only in some aspects) the expert-hostile society.

therealmarv 9y ago

So will this be the case for ESTA visas too?

tagawa 9y ago
I can't confirm but according to the ESTA site[1], "an approved travel authorization is not a visa. It does not meet the legal or regulatory requirements to serve in lieu of a United States visa when a visa is required under United States law". Therefore if the social media details become a requirement for visa applications only, then ESTA would theoretically be exempt. Having said that, social media is currently an optional field on the ESTA form so the foundation has been laid. [1] https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/ https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/

therealmarv 9y ago

On another site I've read it includes passwords too. This is surely a joke, right?

onthe_otherhand 9y ago

I will offer the outsider's perspective. I didn't know which form it was going to take, but I expected this for quite a while. What is really happening here is a brilliant kind of targeting of the most tech savvy folks (most likely to be prolific on social media) - you know, that pesky immigrant group who not only easily make more than the median income of the natives, but the ones who are most likely to be law abiding (and against whom the usual slander such as "rapists" will not stick). This is the group which most infuriates the native underclass in all societies when the society starts facing economic turmoil. To all immigrants who went to the US on such a visa (e.g. H1) - take this as a distant warning and make a plan B to leave the US. This story does not have a good ending and it has happened too often in history. There may be a lot of native folks wringing their hands and even offering their support (which is welcome of course) but the underclass is generally too economically ignorant to ever listen to them.

Nomentatus 9y ago

The ancient Greeks were paid to show up and vote. If you don't do this, irrational actors or those with very poor math skills will be highly over-represented and this will show in the result. But thanks to gerrymandering, your vote will very likely be moot. So that has to be fixed first. (This was a reply that appears to have become stranded.)

s2g 9y ago

I'm going to raise this to my employer with a note that I will likely just leave if this happens. I like living here, but christ it's just not worth it. I'm sick of the rabid anti-immigrant bullshit.

alephu5 9y ago

The USA is a joke when it comes to security. They've got all this stupid and expensive beauracracy for coming in and out of the country that does nothing but irritate people. I recently flew through the US on a connection flight from the UK and needed to give details of my employment history and my birth place amongst other things. In Tampa I got interrogated for looking nervous, which I was because we had landed late and I had very little time to catch my connection. My phone was searched, my WhatsApp messages were read, and they asked me all sorts of personal questions such as my girlfriend's birthday and the names of her cats. After all this nonsense and their military-checkpoint style TSA procedures, I was able to continue on my journey (after the almost 20 hour delay). So if they ask for social media profiles and phone numbers it's just a minor addition to the existing useless questions. If I wanted to hide something I could easily lie and they'd have absolutely no way of checking. Quite honestly I hope I never have to go anywhere near the US border ever again, I would rather pay an extra £200 for an alternative flight.

nova22033 9y ago

This is meaningless. Does anyone think TSA has the resources or systems to go through the social media profiles of the applicants and catch the "bad guys"?

feedmeseymour 9y ago

I'm OK with any country seeking private details from outsiders attempting to gain entry. I am not OK with any country seeking private details from its own citizens or those who have already legally gained access.

sirmoveon 9y ago

Already happening