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US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' for new visas
- mizzao 1y agoMaybe an interesting side effect of this policy is that people will stop using social media if they intend to go to the US in the future. Perhaps not a bad thing, given the negative side effects of using it.
- nullfield 1y agoI don’t even know that I could come up with such a list. Setting everything to “public”, likewise, has potential implications far beyond a visa, since scraping can happen real fast. Then, things on the Internet live like… more than forever, potentially resurfacing later. That could be a potential employer, romantic interest, etc.—and just consider how things from 10-20 years ago have already resurfaced for some high-profile individuals, under some new social cause or just attitude change. The same thing can happen to any of us under these circumstances, ready to ruin lives.
- oneeyedpigeon 1y agoSome people set their social media profiles to less-than-public for very good reasons: e.g. they have protected characteristics and often experience online abuse as a result. This is basically saying "if you're the victim of bigots, you can't come to the US".
- mihaaly 1y agoI recall in 2014 when we sought travel authorization/visa with my later wife it asked about social media accounts. Well, my memory can fool me, my recollection could be wrong. Anyhow, I had this thought around then, related or unrelated, while already starting to pull back social media presence, not necessarily for the security concerns less serious than today, but for the negative security potentials and also due to the increadible noise and low quality flow of inflated self promotion started to repelled me, so I had this thought then that not having the 'normal' online presence could be disadvantageous in applying to state bodies for some favour or permission. Should I pretend something? Should I have a twitter account and broadcast each and every opinion of mine for the space of the internet? Otherwise I could be the freak, the unusual, the weird, who does not fit the normal profile and becomes suspicious? 'What is he hiding?!', could be the thought if I do not have the right amount of online presence expected? That time we did not have to worry about setting everything public, we figured US officials will have access regardless, if they really want to. ;)
- dotcoma 1y agoThe end is near.
- FrustratedMonky 1y agoPeople are already being denied entry based on social media posts. Censorship? Anyone? Scary times.
- slackfan 1y agoThis has been policy since the Obama admin, where have you been? e: they downvoted him because they hated the truth.
- Propelloni 1y agoYou sure you mean Barrack Obama, the 44th president of the USA? He's on record for disallowing this explicitly. The Republicans got quite a knot in their panties over it, too [1]. [1] https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/terrorism/political-correctness-kills-obama-admin-prohibits-reviews-of-social-media-postings-by-visa-applicants/ https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/terrorism/pol...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- 1251231512 1y agoObama was against this, what are you talking about ?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- hypeatei 1y agoNo, I think the downvotes are because of the "both sides"-ism which is used as a deflection tactic to make it seem like it's just an overreaction. As someone else pointed out, what was stated isn't even true.
- FrustratedMonky 1y ago
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- casenmgreen 1y agoIt seems to me one of the methods of control in oppressive States is to have a multitude of rules, which are impractical to actually adhere to, where failure to adhere provides leverage to State - a "justification" for State to then do whatever it is it decides to do with you (such as deportation without due process).
- osa1 1y agoExactly. Another case where this happens is with credit/point based systems for things like settlement/citizenship that effectively allows governments to discriminate freely based on vague criteria.
- jjcob 1y agoI think point based systems are the most fair and not arbitrary, since points are usually awarded for things like age, degree, language proficiency. That's the least discriminating way to steer immigration.
- casenmgreen 1y agoFrom what I've read - but have not myself looked into - Australia has been using this system for some time, and wants very much to move on from it, as it has not worked well in practice.
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoPlay the devil's advocate with me for a bit. Say you let someone in who suicide bombs himself and takes out several Americans. Then a reporter asks the DHS spokesperson how they let someone in the country that had "Death to America" posts all over their social media out in the open for everyone to see but they didn't. Nobody would forgive the government for such a grave oversight. At the airport you already let them check your luggage and pockets to make sure you're not a threat to the crew and passengers. How's it different to be checking your social media before entering to make sure you're not a threat to the citizens? Which do you think is more important to the electorate, the safety of the citizens, or the privacy inconveniences of immigrants, which doesn't exist anyway?
- verzali 1y ago> The embassy also wants people to set their social media profiles to public. Good thing I have no interest in visiting the land of the "free" anytime soon.
- kubb 1y agoYeah that country is toast, better look elsewhere.
- lnsru 1y agoWell I had a plan to do some museum/nature trip there and slowly gathered resources for it. But I don’t know if I want full visa+border control experience. I guess Iceland and Adriatic Sea countries will get my vacation budget instead.
- childintime 1y agoI was thinking about presenting at a conference in the USA in november, but the risks and abuse associated with entrance are now so high, it's out of the question. The world can no longer center on the USA. The tr*mp administration seems to think they are inviolable, that they can solve every problem with the military. They'll be caught with their pants down. A $400 drone can now take out a $2B piece of equipment. That waters the mouth of any adversary. A great humbling is coming.
- msgodel 1y ago[flagged]
- ujkhsjkdhf234 1y agoWhat problems are you talking about? Be specific.
- potato3732842 1y ago>What problems are you talking about? Be specific. The one where these people don't have work papers, so they can't work the kind of above the table jobs you need to work to fully support yourself so they wind up being a drain on our social safety nets. The average working American in my state can't even afford "good" healthcare but we're happy to let these people in sign these people up for state healthcare and benefits (at least in my blue state, perhaps the red states have stringent criteria that makes them ineligible) and doll out millions of dollars of contracts to all sorts of entities that facilitate this process. It's absolutely nonsensical policy. And this is without even examining the effects on supply and demand of labor, cheap housing, etc, which I'm sure aren't great. I don't hate the immigrants. They're mostly fine people. But I would enact the most unspeakable horrors upon the people who actively created this situation were I given the opportunity. And the people who really ought to be pissed are the people who are in favor of adjacent political policy (broad safety nets, permissive legal immigration policies, etc) because the peddlers of the illegal immigration situation cast shade upon all them. Edit: Some of you really need to re-read that second to last sentence.
- bonoboTP 1y agoI remember that there was such a text box even on ESTA applications several years ago, but it was optional. This article uses the word "required" but it doesn't give a direct quote saying that it truly is mandatory, it reads a bit waffly.
- JimDabell 1y agoYes, I last visited the USA in 2019, and my ESTA application included fields to list social media usernames. I thought it was interesting that GitHub was listed as a social media site.
- neallindsay 1y agoI guess they expect you to set all your repos to public before applying for a visa now. Maybe your Venmo history as well?
- mbirth 1y agoUsernames only? There’s someone living in the US not being able to write their own gmail address correctly. Thus, I sometimes get things like confirmations of hotel bookings they did. What if you get flagged because someone else used your username to post stupid things? Will you even be informed of the offending posts and have opportunity to defend yourself? This requirement doesn’t make any sense.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- RecycledEle 1y agoThis is only possible of you ignore decent security precautions and rarely use different user names. They are literally saying that only those who lie or have garbage security practices can get Visas.
- DemocracyFTW2 1y agoThat sounds an awful lot like the kind of goons running the country...
- 1251231512 1y agoIf you say don't have one, especially as a middle to young age adult, that's already a flag :).
- crote 1y ago> They are literally saying that only those who lie can get Visas. Yes. And if everyone with a visa has lied on their application, anyone with a visa can be deported at any time when it becomes convenient.
- potato3732842 1y agoNot everyone. They can only do stuff like this a little bit. If they use it too much the courts will strike it down. Same with every other abuse of government power. Not that that makes it better.
- giacomoforte 1y agoScary stuff. I don't have social media, but from time to time I would create and delete Facebook/Twitter/Instagram accounts. Never posted anything. Just used them for auth/developer/Marketplace...etc. But I don't know all the logins I used in the past... So if I fail to provide a login to an empty profile, do I get permabanned from the US?
- sorokod 1y agoCould you share the definition of social media the excludes HN ?
- msgodel 1y agoProbably artificial cybernetics (other than voting) + insists on using real name.
- giacomoforte 1y agoIf HN counts the so does the comment section of every website that a person might ever use.
- Daneel_ 1y agoTo me social media platforms are primarily for sharing updates about the lives of people and remaining connected to either friends or followers. HN is primarily a news site that allows discussions - I wouldn't classify it as social media. Heck, Reddit barely qualifies as social media for me. My internal definition is probably two decades out of date, however.
- Gigachad 1y agoReddit absolutely counts as social media they want, it's likely much more useful to them than your facebook account since people post a lot more interesting stuff on reddit vs a facebook account. Your comments on this thread are more interesting to dictators than your dog photos on facebook.
- codingdave 1y ago
- comrade1234 1y agoHere's my, um, hacker news account name. Yes it is social media. And here's my... um... yeah I remember now my orkut login.
- gwd 1y agoHaven't these guys heard of the "reciprocity principle"? When I went to Brazil a few years ago, the basic price for a tourist visa was like $25 and could be done online. But, if you were a US citizen, it cost $150 and you had to schedule an attend an interview in person -- because, those were the costs and burdens placed on Brazilian citizens to apply for a US visa. Does the US want other countries inspecting our citizens' social media posts for the last five years? ED: Fix spelling mistake
- bpoyner 1y agoBolivia also has a reciprocity visa charge of $160 for US citizens. Many years ago we were very close to the Bolivian border but the visa cost for a day trip just didn't make it worth it.
- chii 1y agoto play the devil's advocate, if more people wanted to visit the US than the other way around, then it's not "disadvantageous" for the US to do this.
- littlestymaar 1y agoUntil you realize that tourism industry is a multi-billion dollar industry and the US used to be one of the biggest tourist destination of the world (only behind France and Spain).
- zczc 1y agoLooks like the new requirement is only for F, M, and J student and exchange visas that already need more paperwork, not for B-1/B-2 tourism and business visas.
- Cthulhu_ 1y agoWhy's that? Doesn't tourism and business coming into the US benefit the country? Take student visas. Sure, you could have a student come to the US, finish their education, and go back to their home country, "stealing" knowledge from the US to benefit their own country. Or they could find a job in the US and/or start the next trillion dollar company since the opportunities in the US are better. Satya Nadella traveled to the US for a university degree and ended up at Microsoft, where he led business units bringing in tens of billions, and under his CEO-ness he increased the value of the MS stock from around $40 when he became CEO in 2014 to $477 today, making it one of the first trillion dollar companies in the US. But that wouldn't have happened if he didn't get a visa. Neither would Tesla (Elon Musk, migrated from South Africa on a student visa), netiher would Google (Sergey Brin migrated in from Russia, Sundar Pichai migrated on a student visa from India), etc. I just don't understand it.
- Aeolun 1y agoI think what the US wants is for nobody to visit them any more. For nobody to do trade with them any more. Basically Shogunate Japan?
- potato3732842 1y agoI think part of the point is to put the squeeze on companies that have been abusing the H1B program in spirit if not by the letter by making it hard for their talent to enter the country easily and giving the executive fairly unilateral right of denial. Though I think this is an ancillary motive.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- chii 1y agoThere are way better ways to squeeze abusers of the H1B program than to roundabout the VISA application like this. This seems to be exclusively targeted at anti-trump people, by punishing them for their free speech.
- littlestymaar 1y agoNot only anti-Trump people, but also anti-Netanyahu it seems.
- Tadpole9181 1y agoOh, yeah, totally. Because this makes significantly more sense than, I don't know, just enforcing the H1B rules that are flagrantly violated in the open constantly? Not to mention this does nothing to curb outsourcing, which is the next big thing.
- bentt 1y agoIt's infuriating that we're slamming the door on legal immigration because we couldn't fix illegal immigration.
- littlestymaar 1y agoIllegal immigration has always been a pretext. The real motivation is racism/white supremacism, they don't care about whether or not the immigrants are legal or not (hence the lack of trial/due process to expel people to Salvador) they just don't want more non-white (whatever that means) people in the US. Yet another page from the alt-right playbook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dBJIkp7qIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dBJIkp7qIg
- poulpy123 1y agowell I hope I will have no reason to go to the US anytime soon
- oneeyedpigeon 1y agoYeah, nobody's going to be doing this. Depending on their definition of 'social media', this could be hundreds of usernames for some of us, many of which have been long forgotten.
- ujkhsjkdhf234 1y agoThat's the point. It's not possible to comply with this so if you upset the administration they have a valid reason to arrest, deport, and ban you because you lied on an immigration form.
- _l219 1y ago> Omitting social media information could lead to “visa denial and ineligibility” for future visas, the embassy added. The state capture by big tech is getting insane. No national ID because privacy and government overreach but sure force everyone to register an account with a private entity that specifically profits by selling your personal information. I am curious if they'll reject me for not having any active mainstream social media accounts. I suppose I'll find out next year. Might make a few accounts to automate with LLMs and Stable Diffusion with pro-Trump content just in case when I get time on the weekends.
- herbst 1y agoIn the last thread several people mentioned plans like this, even for their kids. Basically letting people creating astro surfing accounts that only benefit the social media platforms and politics again.
- _lvbh 1y agoNow that I think about it, this policy is a really smart play. Pretty much incentivizing foreign interference and sentiment manipulation while keeping more left leaning immigrants out of the country. Give it a few years and that might be enough to give the republicans a consistent majority of national vote share.
- selcuka 1y ago> Might make a few accounts to automate with LLMs and Stable Diffusion with pro-Trump content just in case when I get time on the weekends. I don't know. The next president might not like that and deny your visa.
- egorfine 1y agoIs there a legal definition of "social media"? Because I am a law abiding citizen and I would like to list all of them, no worries. A few dozens, maybe a hundred.
- xxs 1y agoThat's not very relevant unfortunately. Visa applications can be denied at a whim.
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- Helmut10001 1y agoSo if I have my own Mastodon instance, should I configure my nginx to serve a specific "cleaned up" version if accessed from the US or the embassy's IP?
- bravesoul2 1y agoThis cures my SF startup fomo
- stby 1y ago> Omitting social media information could lead to “visa denial and ineligibility” for future visas, the embassy added. Honest question, how would they detect missing info? If they already knew all my social media profiles, they wouldn't need to ask for it. If I wrote some credible threads on any platform, I assume those would have been detected by someone anyway. Also, I surely wouldn't voluntarily disclose the account I used to publish those.
- zevon 1y agoQuestion you and do research on you on the open web as well as on whatever other data they can access / request. You can get selected for some form of in-depth questioning and research on you at a border for many reasons. At that point, it's certainly still possible that they miss some information about you but in times of big data collection by governments, "better" systems to make sense of the data and permissive legislation, it becomes less likely. Especially if you did not prepare in advance (for example: most people who post some hateful or threatful shit probably do not take the greatest care possible to make themselves as untraceable as possible). I once got detained for about four hours or so at my destination airport. There were multiple rounds of questioning by persons who seemed rather intelligent and based on what they asked, they did some research about me in the meantime (or wanted to achieve that effect - no idea what tactics those people use). There could have been a few reasons why I was questioned in-depth - maybe it was because of a random spot check, maybe because they considered some stuff in my luggage unusual, maybe because I had work affiliations with people who are routinely questioned when entering some countries due to their work. Who knows. This was many years ago, so I assume they had to do a lot of their research by hand and there would have been limited other data sources available. I imagine this is rather different today.
- stwrzn 1y agoWhat happens if I don't have any active social media? Also, most people could not even produce such a list, even if they wanted to. Would that be a permanent ban from entering the US?
- bpoyner 1y agoI hope everyone is reading through and noticing this is for F, M and J visas, which are all education related visas. Not that I love that either, but it doesn't apply to every visitor.
- mrtksn 1y agoAmazing. Do you people understand that this is the most oppressive policy ever among any country? In American movies dictatorships are portrayed as regimes that are able to control every aspect of their citizen's lives but in real life dictators don't do that. This is why there's the myth among the alt-right about how free Russia is. In real life, only the relevant people are bothered and the rest do whatever they want, say whatever they think. Just don't say it at the wrong place. USA is going for the US style dystopia and the American dystopia is totalitarian. I'm sure some will think "This is only for the foreigners, it makes sense to know what they are up to". Once you are done implementing it for foreigners you will want to know what citizens are up to because the rhetoric of these people is not only about the "dangerous aliens among us", they talk about traitor all the time. They will want to know who are those traitors to keep them from infiltrating key positions and you have all kind of traitors already. It's not just national traitor, it's also gender traitors, race traitor, language traitors, fiscal traitors, history traitors, religion traitors, traitor traitors. The speed of US descending into darkness is scary.
- msgodel 1y agoThe vaccine mandates were far more oppressive, and I'd argue the individual healthcare federal mandate was also far more oppressive. this only affects non-citizens. If the federal government were going around asking for citizens social media I'd be more inclined to agree with you. That's not what they're doing though.
- mrtksn 1y agoI don't know how the vaccine mandates were enforced in US but two wrongs don't make it right. Why do you think that it affects only non-citizens?
- msgodel 1y ago1) You said this was "the most oppressive policy." I gave two examples of more oppressive polices. 2) The vaccine mandates were enforced by having employers fire you for failure to comply with it. It was actually pretty terrible. 3) Visa holders are non-citizens by definition.
- mongol 1y agoThis is something I would have expected China to do. But perhaps United States has turned into China now. Getting harder and harder to see a difference from the outside.
- anal_reactor 1y agoThe government is doing exactly what it promised. "Less foreigners" was one of the selling points of Mr Trump. Sure, it means a bit less of soft power and international startups, but that's a cost the electorate was prepared for. Oh, and a slight dip in tourism. I don't understand what's so shocking about this. BTW I don't think anyone has ever done a true risk-benefit analysis of such a move, so while it's baseless to say it'll bring any good, it's also baseless to say it'll bring bad. Because realistically, many people going to the US simply don't have an alternative. It'll take decades before Europe decides to hold a meeting to schedule a conversation about improving innovation.
- nlitened 1y agoHas it not been like this for many years already for “non-western” countries? I remember I had to supply all social media details (and a lot of other personal information) both times when I applied for US visa.
- AnonC 1y agoFor anyone who hasn’t read the article but wants to comment, this is (currently) for F (non-immigrant student visa), M (non-immigrant vocational student visa) and J (exchange visitors participating in cultural exchange programs). This does not (currently) apply to other non-immigrant or immigrant visas. E.g. If you want to visit as a tourist or for a business meeting (B2 or B1 visa), this is not asked for. On the topic of scanning social media accounts, it is ripe for abuse by either party in this process. The ones who really want to hide their tracks would already have alt handles that are not connected to their real identities and take precautions to avoid having that happen. Meanwhile, innocent people who just expressed a hot take that was long forgotten may be excluded by knee jerk reactions (who has time for nuance?).
- zczc 1y agoThe requirement to list social accounts has been present since 2018, and the FAQ [1] says: Visa applicants who have never used social media will not be refused on the basis of failing to provide a social media identifier, and the form does allow the applicant to respond with "None." https://ie.usembassy.gov https://ie.usembassy.gov gives 504 so I can't check the primary source, but it seems like the new part is a requirement to make accounts public and applies only to F, M, and J student and exchange visas. [1] https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Enhanced%20Vetting/CA%20-%20FAQs%20on%20Social%20Media%20Collection%20-%206-4-2019%20(v.2).pdf https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Enhanced%20Vettin...
- harrisoned 1y agoSo this answers my question about not actually having social media. In theory you wouldn't be denied. But as a professional in the field who cares for privacy, and simply has no use for such services, i wonder if they could just assume you are lying and has bad intentions.
- jacknews 1y agoI suspect the NSA is able to correlate any accounts already if they really want to so this seems like 'conspicuous examination' and a deliberate barrier to visitors. F*ck em. America was built on imported foreign talent, and these stupid games will win stupid in the long term.
- singularity2001 1y ago15 years ago I was interrogated at the airport for some tweet without telling them my username so I'm very surprised that they need the names now, probably just for a confirmation and to see the willingness to cooperate.
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- theyknowitsxmas 1y ago[flagged]
- afroboy 1y agoAll of that for such tiny terrorist country doing horrible things to two million people.
- joshka 1y agoFor reference, the DS-160 (form to book a visa appointment) question is as follows (for an E3 visa at least, unsure if this is different for different visa classes): Do you have a social media presence? Select from the list below each social media platform you have used within the last five years. In the space next to the platform’s name, enter the username or handle you have used on that platform. Please do not provide your passwords. If you have used more than one platform or more than one username or handle on a single platform, click the 'Add Another' button to list each one separately. If you have not used any of the listed social media platforms in the last five years, select 'None.' Help: Social Media Enter information associated with your online presence, including the types of online providers/platforms, applications and websites that you use to collaborate, share information, and interact with others. List the username, handle, screen-name, or other identifiers associated with your social media profile. (You do not need to list accounts designed for use by multiple users within a business or other organization.) The options listed on the form are: ASK DOUBAN FACEBOOK FLICKR GOOGLE INSTAGRAM LINKEDIN MYSPACE PINTEREST QZONE REDDIT SINA TENCENT TUMBLR TWITTER TWOO VINE VKONTAKTE YOUKU YOUTUBE NONE The next question on the form is also: Do you wish to provide information about your presence on any other websites or applications you have used within the last five years to create or share content (photos, videos, status updates, etc.)?
- joshka 1y agoAs an aside, this info has been on the DS160 since 2019, the docs around it at https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=202011-1405-005 https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAViewDocument?ref_nbr=20... are kinda interesting.