US State Department begins social media screening for nearly all visa applicants
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
The only saving grace is that they don't/can't verify that you really own the social media profile. You can just put in Mark Zuckerberg's profile and apply
> These new obstacles to immigration come at a time ...
If I understand this correctly, these are not obstacles to just immigrate to USA; these are obstacles for visiting USA.
It’s been difficult to see anything positive in the social media sphere lately. I closed my Facebook account nearly 5 years ago because it just felt like a toxic influence. My reddit account nearly 6 years ago met the same fate.
These days I can only stand using Discord and WhatsApp for conversations with people I know IRL. I can’t imagine my kids ever being interested in most social media sites as they’ve already skipped most social media services to talk to their friends directly in video games like Minecraft and Roblox and using iMessage in group conversations.
I reckon Facebook could do a pretty good job at that. Deep network checks, location history, call logs, content history (if they're active on the sites you browse). Terrifying but through. Makes the NSA look like a nosey neighbour peeping over the fence.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal..." — The United States Declaration of Independence
That said, requiring it for everyone seems heavy handed and feels wrong. I can’t quite put into words why, however.
And I bet most people who have not dealt with visas will just say “Well if you have nothing to hide ...”
The visa application requires you to enter social media profiles for major platforms including facebook, twitter etc but there is no way for them to verify it's really yours. We did fill up ours but for my two year old toddler I just marked as no social media profile.
The lack of social media profile on one of the application meant the whole application was flagged delaying our ESTA. I would have assumed that the system would have a check to allow no social media for people younger than 13 (or 16)
My main concern is that they would be suspicious of people who don't publish their every thought on the internet.
... actually. We should/could setup a group collaboration site on a different shock URL that's close to this which would have plausible deniability if you gave them the shock URL.
"OMG! I mean lemonparties.org.. not lemonparty.org... WTF"
The reality couldn't be any further from that!
1. The vast bulk of migrants do not go to the US
2. International share of migrants has grown much faster than the US share
The US has a large overall number of immigrants as it is a large country, but per capita many countries are taking in more. Canada takes in about 3x per capita for example.
- https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article177733806/Neue-EU...
- https://www.metro.se/artikel/nej-eu-planerar-inte-att-placer...
Just last week, a thousand people in one solitary moment on one day formed a line and forced their way into the country for the privilege of being an unwelcome, tenuous inhabitant; that's how much some people want to be in the U.S.
This is the wrong line of argument if you just want to say that it's inappropriate for the government to scrutinize social media posts as part of the visa application process. You're setting yourself up to defend an unnecessary point rather than the actual argument.
But now I'm physically reluctant to type out this fact, because it could conceivably jeopardize my next visa application.
The values and freedoms that people picture America stands for, and that it bases its claims to legitimacy on -freedom of thought and speech, democracy, for example- aren't values that America has any interest in upholding for people outside its own borders, instead it repeatedly shows contempt for them; and in the case of dozens of minorities (ethnic, religious, gender and sexual) it shows little interest in upholding these values and freedoms for its own citizens.
It's mind-numbing to me that Americans speaking to non-Americans who might begin to encounter reasons why American foreign policy in particular is littered with atrocities will now be even less exposed to that information of that because of the chilling effect of social media screening.
Dude, I just said that people want to be in the U.S. I didn't write an essay on the ultimate moral high ground of America, nor claim that they've done no wrong. I just said many people attempt to illegally enter the country because they want to be there.
>But now I'm physically reluctant to type out this fact, because it could conceivably jeopardize my next visa application.
The values and freedoms that people picture America stands for, and that it bases its claims to legitimacy on -freedom of thought and speech, democracy, for example- aren't values that America has any interest in upholding for people outside its own borders, instead it repeatedly shows contempt for them; and in the case of dozens of minorities (ethnic, religious, gender and sexual) it shows little interest in upholding these values and freedoms for its own citizens.
Well, if you hate the place so much, then why apply for a visa? As for the U.S. "upholding" "freedom of thought and speech" "outside its own borders", that is entirely outside its remit, and it seems that countries outside the U.S' borders have no interest in upholding freedom of speech anywhere (including at home), how exactly is the U.S. supposed to ensure the civil rights of people it does not govern, in countries where those civil rights are not protected?
If you see me feeling an ethical duty to scrutinise the widespread and damaging effects of US foreign policy and immediately decide that must mean I "hate the place" (or the people), it doesn't leave much cognitive room for any genuine engagement with the idea that American foreign policy could be harmful.
Secondly, one of my claims was that US foreign policy actively harms values and freedoms when it "topples democratically elected governments, starts coups and supports dictators".
I've nowhere argued that the US has a duty to "ensure" the civil rights of people it does not govern (a gargantuan undertaking), but that is actually quite a seperate question than whether the US has an ethical duty to avoid actively harming them (eg with behaviour such as toppling democratically elected govts, staging coups, supporting dictators et cetera).