Outside of just wanting privacy for its own sake, there are many, many reasons to keep social media profiles private: health privacy, sexual orientation privacy, relationship privacy, location privacy, financial privacy, etc.
“To facilitate this vetting, all applicants for F, M and J non-immigrant visas will be asked to adjust the privacy settings on all their social media profiles to ‘public’”, the official said.
Mountain_Skies · 2h ago
Much of the world is against LBGTQ+ rights. If an immigrant has social media posts expressing open hatred and even calls for violence against people with sexual orientations not approved of in their home culture, will you still have an open mind about welcoming them in the US with open arms?
This isn't theoretical. Both China and India, the two countries that supply the most students to the US, prohibit marriage equality. Both have extensive discrimination throughout their societies, both at the government and cultural levels.
UncleMeat · 1h ago
The only students who've ever called me a homophobic slur were born in the US.
bigyabai · 1h ago
Many Americans have never seriously looked at a map before. Should they be categorically denied entry to foreign countries for their stereotypical ignorance?
Here in America, you can't put someone on trial for a crime they haven't committed. Even if you think they're from a suspicious country. That's called racial profiling, and it's forbidden by civil rights laws for a reason; nobody should have to tolerate the indignation of their peer's stupidity.
Freedom2 · 37m ago
> Here in America, you can't put someone on trial for a crime they haven't committed
Actually in the US you can - it's why there's stories of innocent men and women being released from jail after other evidence proves their innocence (eg: DNA).
kennywinker · 2h ago
Until 2015 gay marriage was illegal in many states. Plenty here hold pretty nasty anti lgbtq beliefs. This is a bad argument for screening visa applicants for beliefs, and not what this new rule will be used for. It will be used to deny anyone critical of israeli genocide, people who think we shouldn’t destroy the planet’s climate, and people who think women should control their own bodies.
sundaeofshock · 2h ago
Yes. I wouldn’t be happy they hold those views, but I don’t support basing a person’s entry into the US on how the feel about Donald Trump.
Of course, your scenario is a big ol’ straw person, as those beliefs are not what they are screening for.
dmoy · 2h ago
It might not be what the US is screening for, but if you're forced to make your account public, not just to the US, then your own government would also know.
bastardoperator · 2h ago
This isn't a screening process, it's a deterrent.
digianarchist · 2h ago
Right. That’s what these new powers will be used for. To defend LGBT folks in the United States. /s
derektank · 1h ago
Obviously not by this administration, but if we are creating new powers, the question of the principle is relevant and its potential use by a Democratic administration is also relevant.
I, personally, don't see a problem with creating an ideological test for certain kinds of visa holders or permanent residents. As Karl Popper noted in outlining the paradox of tolerance, unlimited tolerance can lead to the destruction of tolerance itself. I think it's worth exploring ways for the government to prevent enemies of liberalism from entering the country, even if we already face illiberalism at home.
That being said, I think this specific proposal threatens personal privacy far too much to be justified.
frollogaston · 2h ago
To answer your question, yes those people should be welcome, yes I'm ok with people coming from China and India.
vFunct · 1h ago
There’s also a lot of reasons to have a completely public social media account.
userbinator · 3m ago
I have no social media associated with my real identity.
That should've always been the norm, yet unfortunately it isn't.
felineflock · 2h ago
I will spend this weekend creating burner social media accounts for my kids as a precaution. Each one will be crafted to look like they've never had a controversial thought in their lives.
Just lasagna pics, birthday cakes, kittens, golden retrievers, baby goats, maybe an artsy photo of a leaf with #blessed.
Everything I can do so that an AI running immigration background checks might match my kids to the profile of a low threat, emotionally well-regulated, consumer-minded citizen material.
Absolutely no pictures of Winnie the Pooh to keep China travel option open too.
I welcome any tips. Someone here must have cracked the code to be completely unremarkable and "wholesome" to governments.
seanmcdirmid · 1h ago
I've been to China a lot while also being critical of it sometimes on Facebook, and have never been refused a visa, even a work Z visa. Either they aren't looking or can't look because Facebook is blocked in China. My guess is simply that they aren't looking.
DigitallyFidget · 1h ago
My only tip isn't really useful. Just avoid going to that hostile country for now. Unless there's a specific necessity. And if that's the case, then change all your social media accounts info, change the name, change birthdates, missmatch as much info as possible. Delete photos of yourself/family. Then for 'burner' accounts, make them on a different social network, like bluesky, myspace (they're still around), and then use an AI to generate ideas for posts and just make those as posts for the next while. The problem will be making a realistic timeline/history for new accounts. Alternatively "your kids aren't allowed to use social media", and that clears up a lot of work. But honestly just avoid the risk of traveling there in the first place, is it worth the risk of being detained?
frollogaston · 1h ago
There's no need. Just make some accounts, upload a pic, leave it alone. The only purpose of that is to avoid any extra restrictions they may later place on new accounts. Like, I have 10 Gmail accounts from before they wanted a phone number, plus a few burner Facebooks. I made one new Gmail recently, and it was banned without explanation.
tenpies · 1h ago
What method are you using to predict what future governments won't find offensive/illegal?
Short of time travel, this seems impossible.
felineflock · 1m ago
Yes, it is not possible. We can't predict but can follow the trends.
Governments tend to want to be seen as a god-like entity protector/judge of all.
So they hate satire or anything that means they're not being taken seriously.
Just recently Brazil decided to jail a comedian, for instance.
justahuman74 · 3h ago
I guess students will have to delete all social media before applying?
kergonath · 3h ago
Until an empty account is seen as a red flag. The thing is, they do not need a reason to reject visa applications. This will just provide more pretexts and more power trips for border control agents and embassy bureaucrats.
theendisney · 2h ago
Ohh thats a whole new dystopian formula! We all thought instagram was optional but soon it Will be required to show off your beach body. While drinking the correct drink. Enhance with the right ai and catefully edit out your chinese Mexican and african friends.
The gaming quality on yt and twitch can be measured with ai to check if you are not pretending. The immigration interview full of questions about grand theft auto.
HN born as a place for founders to pretend to be civilized and knowledgable can extend to cover everyone. I mean, I wouldnt give a visum to the guy writing this comment.
frollogaston · 2h ago
This is why I made an unused Facebook account filled with normal stuff before applying to college, back when that was the popular thing.
ASinclair · 2h ago
Simple, just use AI tools to generate fake profiles that seem normal enough to pass inspection by some random State Department employee.
makeitdouble · 2h ago
And that's kind of the point: have social media mostly filled with apolitical or at least non controversial content.
As other pointed out, border control is already an area where an agent can stop basically anyone without any provable justification. More that this specific rule, the whole social climate needs to change to ever get back to a balanced situation.
vjvjvjvjghv · 2h ago
How many foreigners, illegal or not, are committing crimes? And how much could be found out from social media? This seems extremely paranoid.
On the other hand, maybe this will lead to people putting less stuff on social media. This would probably be a net positive.
sega_sai · 2h ago
Thought police in action. Very nice.
duxup · 3h ago
Thought police.
seanmcdirmid · 1h ago
What does this mean for China? You should be sharing your WeChat messages not just with your friends and family, but also with Donald Trump? Its not like you have a facebook page, and Wechat doesn't really work like Facebook (it isn't really suited to wide spread sharing, although some people try to do that).
Simulacra · 1h ago
I don't understand why the social media companies are not fighting this? This is ridiculous.
acdha · 1h ago
They’re telling everyone that you need to use their services to be allowed into the United States. Some managers are going to be so excited about those engagement numbers!
betaby · 2h ago
Like it is today in Russia and Belarus.
SuperNinKenDo · 2h ago
Free speech for me but not for thee.
America holds immense leverage when it comes to education, and now it seeks to use that leverage to export control of people's speech, thoughts, and movements abroad.
At least when China does this kinda thing there's not so strong a stench of hypocrisy.
fallingknife · 3h ago
You don't have the right to enter another country. Therefore, any country is allowed to investigate you any way it wants or impose any requirement it pleases before issuing you a visa to enter.
kristjansson · 3h ago
Nonetheless one can be dismayed at seeing what those we've placed in power decide to do with that privilege.
Bilal_io · 2h ago
The issue is that the US claims to be a free speech absolutist and even tries to apply this morality outside its borders using criticism and sometimes force.
protocolture · 2h ago
"You dont have the right to enter another country" How do you know.
"Therefore any country is allowed to investigate you" What for thought crimes?
Bootlicking levels are off the charts here. Theres nothing reasonable about investigating someones social media history, especially because opinions change over time. I dont want to see people in immigration detention because of a decade old social media post. This is the kind of behaviour that we used to criticise failed states for. "Its not safe for you to travel to syria because you gave a talk about human rights abuses of the assad regime" etc.
Americans rightly criticised Australia for preventing americans with wonky ideas from traveling to Australia.
Why is this view suddenly being normalised now that America wants to implement it?
amanaplanacanal · 2h ago
The executive can only enforce laws passed by the legislature. The first amendment says that "Congress shall make no law". So how the hell can the executive make decisions about anything based on a person's speech? If Congress approved this, it's unconstitutional. If they haven't, the executive is going beyond their purview, which is also unconstitutional.
lolc · 3h ago
How would you like to be probed by your host country today?
No comments yet
duxup · 2h ago
Next up is "you don't have a right to go to college" right?
Trump administration has already made demands to monitor US students for "viewpoint diversity" and adjust admissions accordingly ...
linotype · 3h ago
You’re naive if you think they’ll stop with foreign students.
princealiiiii · 3h ago
It's all done to chill free speech, especially "antisemetic" protests of Israel.
duxup · 3h ago
They already asked Harvard to monitor students for “viewpoint diversity” and make adjustments to admissions based on a government selected third party’s instructions.
When they refused Trump started trying to force the to comply.
They're already trying to reach the same thought police type activity with American students.
Mountain_Skies · 2h ago
True. After seeing how the tech companies, media, and Biden administration acted during the pandemic, you should be worried about how quickly this can spin out of control.
rsingel · 2h ago
Lol. The Biden administration who simply asked platforms to enforce their own terms of service?
Maybe you're better example is the Trump administration saying it's going to withhold transportation funding from cities because citizens their dared to protest him, issued presidential orders against law firms that represented people suing him, pulled the security clearances of people who dared to say that the 2020 election was not stolen, and threatened trees and charges against a former DHS official who wrote an unflattering op-ed in the Washington Post.
One of these is not like the other
frollogaston · 2h ago
I think the other comment is referring to Biden administration coercing social media companies on covid19 content ranking until a judge stopped it. Idk if this was related, but YouTube had covid19 vaccine videos promoted to a special place on its front page for over a year.
rsingel · 33m ago
Flagging content that's against terms of service, foreign interference or illegal (like voting by text scams) is hardly coercion.
The article you linked states that it was thrown out for technical reasons. Multiple lower courts sided with the plantiffs so it's clear that the actions taken are far from uncontroversial.
infotainment · 3h ago
The country of free speech, everyone!
You are free to say whatever you like, as long as your words do not contradict Official Party Ideology.
throw0101c · 37m ago
> You are free to say whatever you like, as long as your words do not contradict Official Party Ideology.
“There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech.” ― Idi Amin
nathanaldensr · 3h ago
Some of this goes beyond party. "Anti-semitism" is an AIPAC carve-out and AIPAC owns both parties.
Rights don't apply when you are entering another country. Americans have the right to bear arms too, but good luck with that argument when get caught at the border with weapons.
nielsbot · 2h ago
Are you ok denying visas to students based on the contents of their social media profiles?
Mountain_Skies · 2h ago
>Gays are vile and should not be allowed to exist.
Would you be ok with that social media poster being granted entry into the country?
vkou · 1m ago
I wouldn't exactly be jumping for joy over it, but that's a juice that's not worth the squeeze.
ilya_m · 2h ago
Do I think it's the best use of taxpayers' dollars (ie, mine) to screen for objectionable content on social media? No.
Do I trust the government to police opinions? No, especially when there's no accountability and appeals process.
Do I believe the overall benefits that harassment-free international travel brings to this country outweigh the costs of letting in some visitors whose views I disagree with? Yes.
kennywinker · 2h ago
They’d be welcomed with open arms in ~30% of the country. Screening for thought crimes isn’t a slippery slope, it’s a frictionless plane.
frollogaston · 2h ago
Yes
mlindner · 2h ago
You're expected to be truthful in your visa application, and not being truthful is grounds for visa rejection.
impossiblefork · 2h ago
Rights always apply, always. This is the thing about human rights enshrined in human rights laws in places like the EU, or about your constitutional rights (although the latter only applies to US citizens and to people physically present in the US).
However, countries may, depending on their laws, choose to not let certain people in on conditions that would otherwise violate guarantees on freedom of speech etc.
However, you do have your constitutional rights at the border etc. There is an exception concerning searches.
qwe----3 · 3h ago
We also have freedom of movement inside the US but that doesn't mean you can come in illegally...
erpellan · 3h ago
Unless you want to cross state lines to get an abortion
mlindner · 2h ago
The courts haven't ruled on that yet but interstate commerce clause is pretty explicit about this kind of thing. A state can't criminalize someone going to another state to do something as that is something reserved to the federal government.
So no, there is no restriction on going to another state to get an abortion.
em-bee · 2h ago
several states are trying to change that. laws are being proposed to ban travel, and although they are being challenged, as you said, the last word on this is not spoken yet.
and even if legal, people having an out-of-state abortion are being sued. that alone is a big restriction, because what good is a right if you don't have the means to defend yourself when that right is being challenged.
nielsbot · 2h ago
What is coming in illegally?
bigyabai · 3h ago
And a right to bear arms, until you need MANPADs to fight the feds.
Why do half of your comments (most of the ones in uppercase) sound like they're written by AI?
exiguus · 1h ago
English is not my native language
dang · 2m ago
Just for clarity, we'd rather have your own words (non-native though they may be) than words processed through an LLM. (I'm not saying you did use an LLM—just explaining the principle. LLMs are incredible but we don't want Hacker News conversations to be mediated by them.)
Non-native English speakers are not only welcome on HN, we're in awe of how good their English is. Please feel free to write as you write.
“To facilitate this vetting, all applicants for F, M and J non-immigrant visas will be asked to adjust the privacy settings on all their social media profiles to ‘public’”, the official said.
This isn't theoretical. Both China and India, the two countries that supply the most students to the US, prohibit marriage equality. Both have extensive discrimination throughout their societies, both at the government and cultural levels.
Here in America, you can't put someone on trial for a crime they haven't committed. Even if you think they're from a suspicious country. That's called racial profiling, and it's forbidden by civil rights laws for a reason; nobody should have to tolerate the indignation of their peer's stupidity.
Actually in the US you can - it's why there's stories of innocent men and women being released from jail after other evidence proves their innocence (eg: DNA).
Of course, your scenario is a big ol’ straw person, as those beliefs are not what they are screening for.
I, personally, don't see a problem with creating an ideological test for certain kinds of visa holders or permanent residents. As Karl Popper noted in outlining the paradox of tolerance, unlimited tolerance can lead to the destruction of tolerance itself. I think it's worth exploring ways for the government to prevent enemies of liberalism from entering the country, even if we already face illiberalism at home.
That being said, I think this specific proposal threatens personal privacy far too much to be justified.
That should've always been the norm, yet unfortunately it isn't.
Just lasagna pics, birthday cakes, kittens, golden retrievers, baby goats, maybe an artsy photo of a leaf with #blessed.
Everything I can do so that an AI running immigration background checks might match my kids to the profile of a low threat, emotionally well-regulated, consumer-minded citizen material.
Absolutely no pictures of Winnie the Pooh to keep China travel option open too.
I welcome any tips. Someone here must have cracked the code to be completely unremarkable and "wholesome" to governments.
Short of time travel, this seems impossible.
The gaming quality on yt and twitch can be measured with ai to check if you are not pretending. The immigration interview full of questions about grand theft auto.
HN born as a place for founders to pretend to be civilized and knowledgable can extend to cover everyone. I mean, I wouldnt give a visum to the guy writing this comment.
As other pointed out, border control is already an area where an agent can stop basically anyone without any provable justification. More that this specific rule, the whole social climate needs to change to ever get back to a balanced situation.
On the other hand, maybe this will lead to people putting less stuff on social media. This would probably be a net positive.
America holds immense leverage when it comes to education, and now it seeks to use that leverage to export control of people's speech, thoughts, and movements abroad.
At least when China does this kinda thing there's not so strong a stench of hypocrisy.
"Therefore any country is allowed to investigate you" What for thought crimes?
Bootlicking levels are off the charts here. Theres nothing reasonable about investigating someones social media history, especially because opinions change over time. I dont want to see people in immigration detention because of a decade old social media post. This is the kind of behaviour that we used to criticise failed states for. "Its not safe for you to travel to syria because you gave a talk about human rights abuses of the assad regime" etc.
Americans rightly criticised Australia for preventing americans with wonky ideas from traveling to Australia.
Why is this view suddenly being normalised now that America wants to implement it?
No comments yet
Trump administration has already made demands to monitor US students for "viewpoint diversity" and adjust admissions accordingly ...
When they refused Trump started trying to force the to comply.
They're already trying to reach the same thought police type activity with American students.
Maybe you're better example is the Trump administration saying it's going to withhold transportation funding from cities because citizens their dared to protest him, issued presidential orders against law firms that represented people suing him, pulled the security clearances of people who dared to say that the 2020 election was not stolen, and threatened trees and charges against a former DHS official who wrote an unflattering op-ed in the Washington Post.
One of these is not like the other
The Supreme Court threw out the case.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c100l6jrjvno
The Twitter files were a nothing burger
You are free to say whatever you like, as long as your words do not contradict Official Party Ideology.
“There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech.” ― Idi Amin
Would you be ok with that social media poster being granted entry into the country?
Do I trust the government to police opinions? No, especially when there's no accountability and appeals process.
Do I believe the overall benefits that harassment-free international travel brings to this country outweigh the costs of letting in some visitors whose views I disagree with? Yes.
However, countries may, depending on their laws, choose to not let certain people in on conditions that would otherwise violate guarantees on freedom of speech etc.
However, you do have your constitutional rights at the border etc. There is an exception concerning searches.
So no, there is no restriction on going to another state to get an abortion.
and even if legal, people having an out-of-state abortion are being sued. that alone is a big restriction, because what good is a right if you don't have the means to defend yourself when that right is being challenged.
https://www.twz.com/air/department-of-homeland-security-q-9-...
Non-native English speakers are not only welcome on HN, we're in awe of how good their English is. Please feel free to write as you write.