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Comment by Marsymars | Hacker News Reader

If I'm ever required to provide social media handles when entering the USA, I'll be deleting any relevant social media accounts.

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The current rules for immigrants require "any account names ... over the previous five years" so an immigrant could be denied entry for failing to provide the account name for a deleted account.

What if I delete the entire content?

Did you also delete the copy stored in NSA’s Utah Data Center?

There is no such thing as "deleting" data on somebody's else system.

If you delete the account, the account name is irrelevant. You can give the exact name, and still no information could be obtained via it.

there are multiple services that cache deleted twitter and reddit content. it'd be silly to assume the government wasn't capable of accessing that.

or of implementing new statutes that require archival covering the timewindow and getting them directly from the provider

Read: NSA has at least a that much historic data stored about everyone and is able to decrypt way more than we publicly know.

I'd argue they can't... and that's why it's being stored that long... if you end up on a shitlist I'd guess your retention period goes up.

They need a backlog to supply the parallel construction if their Eye of Providence decides you look interesting.

I submitted a DS-160 application for a B1/B2 this past Friday and which asks for all social media handles in use over the past 5 years. The implication is that this a request for accounts you've used, not those that are still "active".

Yes, such a requirement for my visits to the US would also motivate me to not open any new social media accounts if I was planning on visiting the US within the next five years.

When I entered they asked for GitHub too. Are you planning to delete that also?

Probably not, I'm a pragmatist. The US government asking for social media handles is a significant disincentive that brings the value of many, but not all, social media accounts below zero.

Can't edit, but to be clear: I'll be deleting the accounts as soon as the requirement comes into effect - not at the time of my next visit to the USA.

Just because you "delete" the accounts doesn't necessarily mean they are deleted. The social media companies most likely just set the flag in the "deleted" column. Not only that, it's almost a certainty that some government entity is vacuuming all the social media data anyways. So even if you delete it, the government would still have your social media data.

If people you know visit the US and they hand over their social media info, then your interaction with these people will be visible to the government. Social media is a very insidious beast.

Also, suddenly deleting a bunch of social media accounts before traveling to the US would probably raise some red flags.

My goal isn't to make it impossible for the US government to get the information I've already given to social media companies - it's to do my part to remove the incentive for the US government to ask for social media details in the first place. If everyone outside of the USA had the same policy, it would devastate American social media companies, and cause the government policy to be entirely counterproductive. By not closing my social media accounts, I'd be complicit in incentivizing the government to ask for their details.

> Also, suddenly deleting a bunch of social media accounts before traveling to the US would probably raise some red flags.

I'd delete my social media accounts as soon as the policy is changed, which is likely to be months or years prior to my next visit to the US.

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