3w ago

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

www.thejournal.ie

US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' on new visa applications

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/457134

Comments

29 comments

Welp, goodbye tourism.
- you wouldn't go to Russia for vacation, why would you go to America?
  people dont visit countries that are fun by genocidal, fascist mafias.
- Anybody who goes to the USA for tourism these days frankly deserves what they get. It's not as if we don't have six months of ever-increasing US shitfuckery to warn us!
Every unreasonable demand coming from mango mussolini’s people makes me laugh!
- I fear the day you’ll have to stop laughing too.
  
  Having a strict policy of never setting foot on US soil does wonders for not having to worry about Trump's latest brain fart.
It's been like this for ages in Mexico. They also take your biometrics, BTW.
What happens if you don't have social media?
Or like you just change your public name when you travel?
Or like say you don't? I have this feeling these people don't actually give two shits to go find out if you lied about that or not
- I imagine they'll just deny visas to all those cases. Unfortunately they're under no obligation to provide visas to people who don't use social media.
- All of those questions AND also, five years -- what if I forget?
- They can use it as an excuse to arrest people
- Trumpists who've spent the last decade saying all kinds of insane bigoted shit online can now sell their Twitter accounts to prospective students for big money.
How will they know?
- Obviously they'll just search for the username in their "metadata only" database to check if you were lying. It's just like taxes: they know about everything already, they just want to check if you're honest or can add another datapoint to hang you with.
  
  If they can figure that out, they won't be asking first, they'll come for you in the night when it's easy and you are asleep
Lol no
Unenforceable
I wonder how they will treat people who don't have social media accounts?
Apart from all the other concerns, given the way both ICE and Trump have behaved the last six months, it's not beneath them to grant you a visa first, let you enter the country, cancel your visa and lock you up.
It's for F, M, and J visas, not tourists. F visas are for academic students, M is for vocational/non-academic study, and J is for work/study programs. None of them are for immigration.
- As a tourist applying for USA visa waiver they wanted social media username/links. But they only had slots for Facebook, twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Apparently fediverse hasn't hit their radar.
  
  No Facebook since 2016. No Twitter since ... I want to say 2021? It was sometime after the COVID-19 blow-up, fairly soon afterward. Never had Instagram or LinkedIn.
  I guess I get bounced.
  No, wait! They can't bounce me! I swore off setting foot on US soil ever again in 1999.
- Still a ridiculous requirement. They weren't requiring a list of everyone you talked to in the last 12 months, copies of letters/emails, and your diary 30 years ago.

29 comments