Korean students seek 'digital undertakers' amid US visa social media screening
81 comments
·June 24, 2025jan_Sate
I don't get why the US thought that it'd be a good idea to vet social media accounts for visa applications. If someone's having ill intent, one could easily create a burner account and fill in some random content for the sake of getting thru the visa application. Or they could even just purchase an account somewhere on the internet.
Sad to see what US has become.
DragonStrength
No one is pretending this is about terrorism now. They're explicit this is about curbing political activism by foreign students. Some outside the US miss that because few countries would have given foreign students this much room for activism in the first place.
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tuyguntn
Do you think US embassy will reject political activism if it was against China?
Tika2234
[dead]
mandmandam
> They're explicit this is about curbing political activism by foreign students.
Freedom of assembly is a universal human right; not that anyone seriously expects respect for those from the US any more.
mensetmanusman
Except the US views it as its right to assemble who it wants to allow in. Same right, different perspective.
Hilift
> why the US thought that it'd be a good idea to vet social media accounts for visa applications.
The catalyst was the campus takeovers by people wearing masks and causing disruption for months. That was a gift for the Republicans, delivered on a silver platter. They made that an issue every day in Congress from October 7 2023 until November 5 2024. It coincided with the resignation of several university presidents.
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik Cornell Martha Pollack Liz Magill, University of Pennsylvania Claudine Gay Harvard
Additionally, the US has a statutory requirement for biometric exit scans when a visitor leaves. It was completely ignored. There were entry scans, but no exit scan.
The simple fact is they don't want anyone not like them coming to the US, and unauthorized entry has diminished significantly. It's also the reason for rejecting birthright citizenship, and deporting unauthorized persons to third country staging areas.
The UK is in the same boat. The UK is currently spending ~£3 billion per year on accommodations, and costs are expected to triple. It's created profiteering companies and waves of human trafficking across Europe. France only recently agreed to stop them when they line up a row of 20 zodiacs to assault Dover.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation
https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-college-presidents-who-ha...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/07/uk-asylum-seek...
AlecSchueler
I think they call it security theatre.
apwell23
Doing that would be visa fraud.
Why create any rule if ppl can commit fraud anyways?
Why ask for educational qualifications for h1b because ppl can create fake certificates( many do) ?
marcinzm
Because then anyone can be deported at any time without any more process needed since it's visa fraud. Maybe even get your citizenship revoked one day given how things are going.
noobermin
Along with the push for ending birth right citizenship and detaining citizens the goal is a white ethnostate. I doubt Trump is that cognizant of that but Stephen Miller definitely is pushing for that.
15155
> Along with the push for ending birth right citizenship
Which other countries in the world allow pregnant vacationers to birth citizens?
ivape
It appears most of the western hemisphere (Canada, USA, Mexico, most of South America).
ivape
Yeah, I mean, what was that whole we’re going to bring white South African immigrants here and kick brown ones out?
MAGA is a white supremacy movement, but calling this out in America is like trying to tell your best friend her husband is cheating on her. It’s going to be an ugly reveal and difficult conversation, but the facts are the facts.
zeroCalories
The goal isn't to stop terrorism, or drug trafficking, etc. It's to curb opposition. There's very little difference between someone that's anti-american but keeps their opinions to themself, and someone that has no opinions. Why do you think China cracks down on speech? Is it for shits-and-giggles?
15155
> anti-american but keeps their opinions to themself, and someone that has no opinions
Why do we need to be admitting anti-American individuals to this country for any reason whatsoever?
News flash: visas are a privilege, not a right.
jlebar
Who gets to define what is anti-American?
Perhaps you think it's anti-American to believe that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. Perhaps I think it's anti-American to believe that the Jan 6 rioters should have been pardoned.
Whose purity test should we apply?
__s
Anti American is a fluid term
Is it anti American to oppose annexing Canada? Careful what you reply, may affect your visa application
kingkawn
Your deportation hearing is now scheduled for next week for anti Americanism disguised as jingoistic patriotism. Hopefully there’s a country that will accept you but if not there are some extraterritorial islands we can parachute you on to
cced
Are we now adding US to the list of countries cracking down on free speech?
watwut
Obviously yes.
kmbfjr
Yes. The moment you must show allegiance to a sitting president, your rights to free speech have been abridged.
I am sure there are many more examples.
leipie
For me it has already been on there for quite a while now. Is has just been getting quite a bit worse, since Trump 2
mrtksn
I was wondering if anyone hasn't started such a SaaS yet. Can have an effect of unauthentic MAGA + Israel accounts flooding the social media. However the issue is that it only works if your identity is linked to you, so for most people that would be very embarrassing.
If Americans show flexibility to let you show your allegiance to USA and Israel through anonymous accounts they may be able to flood the social media with fake but real accounts. Bots but real people, if this was Chernobyl they would be called biorobots.
That would be next-gen astroturfing, very hard to detect.
udev4096
> help me permanently delete data
Surprise surprise. There is no such thing. About time people start understanding the grave consequences of their reckless actions
ognarb
The US is not only restricting the free speech of their own citizens but also from citizens of other countries...
philipjoubert
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haxiomic
Words like “female” will flag scientific research grant applications for review and any found to be supporting diversity equity and inclusion face being cut
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/02/05/n...
AlecSchueler
I would think things like removing access to research which contained certain keywords could count, as well as things like ordering the removal of images of women and people of colour from military websites for example.
joshuanapoli
US universities are being punished for allowing free speech of individual members. The federal government is angling to get these groups to self-censor.
evrimoztamur
US citizens themselves restrict the free speech of other US citizens, the governing bodies don't have to do much.
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locopati
Peaceful protest against Israel's destruction of Gaza will get you in trouble.
Research all the anti-LGBTQ legislation at the federal and state levels.
Remember, after all, the 1st amendment covers not only freedom of speech, but also assembly, the press, no establishment of religion, and the ability to petition the government. All of these things have been attacked and will continue to be attacked.
haxiomic
Idaho Teacher ordered to remove “Everybody is welcome” sign in classroom as US government threatens to cut funding for orgs supporting inclusive ideologies (lgbt, “woke”)
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/education/article3...
mc32
It’d been going on for a while: they had embedded people at Twitter, Facebook, etc. to act as liaisons to “protect truth” on subjects such as the origins of Covid, hunter Biden’s laptop, the senility of a certain commander in chief, the discussion on males participating in women’s sports, etc. the movement went so far as preventing speakers with opposing views to speak at universities. The idea of safe spaces itself is about censorship of ideas.
All in the name of stopping “misinformation”.
amanaplanacanal
That was just private citizens exercising their own free speech rights, even if you disagreed. Now we have the federal government punishing people with speech and beliefs the president and his cronies don't like. It's a whole different ballgame.
coolThingsFirst
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udev4096
> that she felt “stressed."
Are these people so delusional that they think "social media" sites are even remotely anonymous? Whatever you do, it's up for sale. No wonder meta has billions of active users, most of them with no brain cells. It's extremely concerning that majority of the younger generation has almost no sense of achieving privacy on the internet
tuyguntn
So many things are being done to protect a single country outside of the USA, even on a different continent, including losing its credibility about free speech and human rights.
marcinzm
This has little to do with a single country and more with the fact that if someone is willing to fight for anything other than the current administration then one day they might fight against the current administration directly. Same reason Stalin sent those who fought in the Warsaw Uprising against the Germans to Siberia. Today it's the Germans, tomorrow it may be the Soviets.
demarq
Israel
aaron695
[dead]
danielktdoranie
I completely support the vigorous vetting of non-citizen seeking entry into the U.S.A. For any non-citizens entering the U.S.A. is a privilege and not a right. They are guests in the U.S.A. and need to respect their host country and its laws.
Regarding the auditing social media, it's not just about their posts, but who they are friends with and who are friends with them. Point and case, your personal social media profile may be benign photos of kittens and snaps of what you had to eat that day, but your brother could be "friends" with terrorist or member of a criminal gang and that person could use your relationship with your bother to extort you after you enter the U.S.A.
Biden's administration let at least 2700 Tren de Aragua gang members walk across the southern boarder. ICE and DHS have successfully arrested these TDA members, but there are more. These people rape, murder, traffic humans and drugs into the U.S.A. Their criminal network (and therefore profits) have been severely disrupted. It's common sense that they are going to seek new and creative ways to get back in business. As they already extort and exploit on a daily basis in Venezuela, why wouldn't they do the same to potential foreign students?
This is just one example.
netsharc
The criminals will still get in, and the law-abiding foreigners will stay out because "law" is whatever King Donald McFries says nowadays. So congrats, your ensuring the quality of your guests are as shitty as your regime.
amanaplanacanal
It's not about terrorism. It's about keeping people with political views that don't align with Stephen Miller and Donald Trump out. This stuff is actively harming the US.
It's not just students btw... we're dealing it this too. My wife is a Korean university professor teaching at an American university, and her visa needs to be renewed by next month. I'm Canadian and she has residency in Canada but the Korean embassy in Canada advised her to travel back to Korea to renew it. She got back to Korea end of May to find that the US embassy in Korea had paused appointments. Monday last week she was able to make an appointment for it, and indeed she was advised her social media will be screened. (J-1, visiting professor)