5 ms·
What of those who have virtually no footprint? Almost the only thing I have is LinkedIn, which is always only as up to date as the last time I changed jobs, wh
by BLKNSLVR 11mo ago
What of those who have virtually no footprint?
Almost the only thing I have is LinkedIn, which is always only as up to date as the last time I changed jobs, which I don't do often.
No Facebook, insta, snap, twitter, tiktok. I subscribe to maybe five channels on YouTube.
My HN account isn't linked to my main 'identity' email address so I could hide it just by having a clean phone (which I do for international travel anyway).
I feel like I'd be suspicious due to the lack of traceability. I've had work colleagues say that they couldn't find a trace of me online (although that was a while ago now, and not colleagues who are adept at online sleuthing).
My age may be just enough to be believably not terminally online.
- rayiner 11mo agoThen just say that. Customs has some list that's automatically generated based on a Google search or something like that, and all they're doing is trying to catch you lying. Like the TSA, this screening is done by the lowest common denominator of government employee to catch the lowest common denominator of terrorist or foreign subversive.
- embedding-shape 11mo ago> to catch the lowest common denominator of terrorist or foreign subversive My guess from the outside, is that none of these actions are actually meant to "capture" or even "detect" any of those things, the methods are likely to inefficient and small to be able to do so. What they're trying to do, is make those people not even consider going to the US in the first place, because they're scared of getting caught. Same as a lot of the ICE actions and other things going on. They're not meant to be efficiently solving some concrete issue with their action, they're meant to scare the rest of the populace into being docile and accepting more and more control over time.
- vinni2 11mo agoThey have managed to scare me off at least. So I will spend my money elsewhere.
- rayiner 11mo agoGood thing international tourism counts for only about half of a percent of U.S. GDP: https://wttc.org/news/us-economy-set-to-lose-12-5bn-in-international-traveler-spend-this-year https://wttc.org/news/us-economy-set-to-lose-12-5bn-in-inter...
- soco 11mo agoRight on, who needs those puny half percents or the jobs related to them, when we have megacorps covering for the rest of the gdp (and exporting it to Cayman).
- DaSHacka 11mo ago[flagged]
- DFHippie 11mo agoA lot of things will be harder for the US to do if everyone in the world hates us. Letting people come here and see that most Americans aren't monsters pays dividends beyond the dollars they spend. The Trump Administrations actions read like a checklist of things you'd do if you wanted to destroy the US's power to protect itself and its allies and promote the well-being of its people.
- raw_anon_1111 11mo ago> Letting people come here and see that most Americans aren't monsters pays dividends beyond the dollars they spend. 40% of the population still support Trump. If you have 10 friends and ask them where they want to meet for dinner and 6 say let’s go to a Mexican restaurant and the other 4 say “let’s kill Bob and eat him”, you still need to be concerned about your friend group.
- rayiner 11mo agoMost of his major policies have approval ratings above 50% https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/HHP_Dec2025_KeyFindings.pdf https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/HHP... (page 23) 53% think he’s doing a better job than Biden (page 18) His approval rating in his second term is tracking about the same or a bit higher than Obama’s at the same time: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/trump-obama-bush-second-term https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/trump-obama-...
- raw_anon_1111 11mo agoNo it’s meant to make sure you don’t say mean things about people Trump likes. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/15/state-department-visas-revoked-charlie-kirk-criticism-00608817 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/15/state-department-vi...
- BLKNSLVR 11mo agoHow could this be weaponised against someone you don't like? How easy is it to set up a <any social network> account under someone else's name, post a bunch of inflammatory opinions, AI some photos of them at a Free Palestine rally, and then sit back and await the inevitable border crossing horror story? Mental note: Research yourself (and your traveling companions) thoroughly before visiting the US.
- rayiner 11mo agoYes, significant potential for such mischief with this system.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- netfortius 11mo agoWouldn't an HN account need to be mentioned, once this platform is made visible enough, so that the bozos in charge, in the US, take it seriously? A social media ICE would love to dig into such.
- rsync 11mo agoI don’t consider hacker news to be social media… And I wouldn’t expect others to, either.
- perihelions 11mo agoFor what it's worth, HN is on ICE's list of surveilled sites (which it pays a tech contractor to crawl), https://www.404media.co/the-200-sites-an-ice-surveillance-contractor-is-monitoring/ https://www.404media.co/the-200-sites-an-ice-surveillance-co... ("The 200+ Sites an ICE Surveillance Contractor is Monitoring") https://archive.is/Lldzh https://archive.is/Lldzh
- bell-cot 11mo agoI'd bet the actual list of surveilled sites is far longer, and actually kept secret.
- workfromspace 11mo agoHere's the actual list from the article for anyone like me (404media has paywall and archive.is doesn't work from Baltics): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VyAaJaWCutyJyMiTXuDH4D_HHefoYxnbGL9l02kyCus https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VyAaJaWCutyJyMiTXuDH...
- SAI_Peregrinus 11mo agoWhy not? Anything where user interaction is a primary portion of the site's content is social media. The term "social media" predates algorithmically-driven parasocial feeds, though it does postdate things like BBSes and PHPBB.
- belter 11mo ago
- M95D 11mo ago> What of those who have virtually no footprint? Those people wouldn't want to travel to a police state anyway.
- jamesponddotco 11mo agoBut they might have to. I’m on the same boat and told management at work that I won’t be traveling to the US while Trump is in power, which they seem to be fine with, but who knows if that’ll last.
- ericmay 11mo ago> Those people wouldn't want to travel to a police state anyway. I fall into this camp (little to no social media besides LinkedIn) and I've had no issues traveling to the EU or UK or really any other police state for that matter. Plan to do more this upcoming year.
- tavavex 11mo agoSome people have to travel for work. For Canadians, lots of international flights connect through the US (especially if you're flying on the cheapest routes), and there's no way to transit through without "properly" entering the country. While the thing in the post doesn't yet apply to Canada (due to us not requiring an ESTA), it very well could become a thing soon. That would be pretty awful for everyone.
- raw_anon_1111 11mo agoDoes any country require you to have entry rights for a layover?
- bigfatkitten 11mo agoUS does. You have to clear immigration, exit the terminal and then come back into the terminal just like a local passenger.
- 11mo ago
- nh43215rgb 11mo ago"It warns that if any social media information is not listed, it could lead to both current and future visas being denied."