US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' for new visas

I wish it happened more in different countries. Your country demands that you are forbidden to bring any items, regardless of how dangerous they are, in the embassy? Apply the same rule to the citizens of that country and only for them. I'm sure they will appreciate being openly discriminated in front of the applicants from the other parts of the world. Your country demands 150-200 dollars for a shitty single time entry tourist visa (yes, I'm looking at you UK)? Charge the citizens of that country the same sum for their visas. Etc. And in reverse - if they are easing or removing absurd restrictions, then reciprocate and ease restrictions in return.

In this case, what has Ireland done to US citizens that this reciprocates? Ireland has a special deal for US citizens - no visa is required for visits up to 90 days - you just turn up and show your passport.

I'm not convinced that this is truly about actually protecting the US from terrorism or foreign attack since all major terrorist acts that I can recall over the last few decades were perpetrated by native-born US citizens and not by visitors on visas.

It seems more about catching people who might have, for example, expressed an opinion that doesn't align with "they deserve it" with respect to Palestinians in Gaza - which currently seems sufficient to be branded "a threat to the US" and grounds for detention and expulsion.

I’d guess this administration draws its power from voters who don’t have a passport and power brokers whose staff handle visas. (Or at least it operates as if it believes it does.)

> Haven't these guys heard of the "reprocity principle"?

Did you see the trade war started recently with every country in the world? I don't think anything is being thoroughly planned or thought out in this administration. They're all about power and not governance.

I don't think the current US administration cares about this. Most people who voted for it probably don't care about travelling abroad either.

The xenophobes making these decisions don't care if they create problems for US citizens traveling abroad.

They don't want people in the US to travel outside the US so they probably see it as a positive if other countries put up more deterrents.

Bolivia 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.

IMHO the new administration is aiming for full control, they don't need pretext to deny visa. Maybe they will iron out the process on foreign enemies before start chasing the enemies from within. IIRC they want to profile everyone and Palantir will handle that.

They're called "pretextual laws", and are prevalent in places like Russia and China. They always require proof though, since the whole point is an easy case in court.

I can't see an easy way to prove someone supplied an incomplete list of online handles though. It would be trivial for me to look up all the places I've supplied my real e-mail address and make sure to include them in the list, and good luck finding my handles otherwise.

You're describing more or less every legal system in existence for at least the last few centuries. It is often close to impossible to go through a day without breaking at least one law, usually a multitude of them. Such infractions are not acted upon until some power-that-be deems it necessary to get a handle on a person.

As to the sudden insistence on due process when it comes to deportation of illegals I do wonder why this was not an issue when the previous regime let in millions of people without any regard for the laws of the land - i.e. due process. Is it the intention to make it impossible to correct this flagrant violation of migration laws by suddenly insisting on having every single individual go though a lengthy legal process, clogging up the courts?

Play 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?

Exactly. 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.

While your perspective bias undermines your point, this form of government (i.e. vague laws, the highly selective application of them, and the use of the justice system regardless of guilt as a weapon to suppress dissent by middle classes (e.g. threat of bankruptcy, threats of long term pre-trial detention, etc.) has existed for quite some time.

It goes by different names depending on your bias, but it exists. The right side of the political spectrum would call it anarcho-tyranny.

I 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.

Yeah that country is toast, better look elsewhere.

Well 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.

Some 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".

I 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. ;)

HN is social media. Messenger apps are almost certainly social media. GitHub or similar platforms might be social media. There might be some people out there without any social media accounts, but they wouldn't be able to post about it on the internet.

Other than that, your example of using temporary accounts for some secondary platform functionality is yet another reason why this policy is terrible.

Could you share the definition of social media the excludes HN ?

I 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.

So 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.

Yes, 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.

The problem is that people don't actually do enough stuff that puts them in adversarial contact with the government to realize how terrible it all is.

The 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.

That'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.