Haven'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

It 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).

> 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.

I 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.

Amazing. 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.

The 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 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%20Vettin...

For 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.)

    ASK
    DOUBAN
    FACEBOOK
    FLICKR
    GOOGLE
    INSTAGRAM
    LINKEDIN
    MYSPACE
    PINTEREST
    QZONE
    REDDIT
    SINA
    TENCENT
    TUMBLR
    TWITTER
    TWOO
    VINE
    VKONTAKTE
    YOUKU
    YOUTUBE
    NONE

    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.)?

Scary 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?

I 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?

I 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.

15 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.

So 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?

Yeah, 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.

I 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.

This 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.

Is 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.

> 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.

As 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=20... are kinda interesting.

For 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?).

Maybe 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.

Has 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.

What 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?

This 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.

People are already being denied entry based on social media posts.

Censorship? Anyone?

Scary times.

All of that for such tiny terrorist country doing horrible things to two million people.

This cures my SF startup fomo

The 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.

> 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.

I 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.

The end is near.

well I hope I will have no reason to go to the US anytime soon

Here's my, um, hacker news account name. Yes it is social media. And here's my... um... yeah I remember now my orkut login.

It's infuriating that we're slamming the door on legal immigration because we couldn't fix illegal immigration.

They can go fuck themselves.