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Comment by kavouras | Hacker News Reader

Of course its worth making a fuss about it. My social media are private because what's getting shared in it is for close friends and family only. The US government has no right searching through it. This is a big joke and I'm afraid it's only the beginning. Personally, with how things are going, I don't think I'm pursuing a PhD in the US after graduating. What's next, sharing a backup of my private conversations?

I'm afraid we're going into a weird timeline where authoritarian figures in power(not just government) are having immense amounts of data for people, and the technology to go through it without much effort. It's a good time(if it's not to late) for everyone who cares about their privacy to start getting as much as possible outside mainstream social media and centralized accounts(google etc)

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problem is not being on social media is becoming more and more suspicious in and of itself sadly.

I can fake, change or delete my social media. I can't fake, change or delete my biometrics. So it's crazy to me to see people focusing on the least worst violations of their privacy like the government seeing their vacation photos.

>The US government has no right searching through it.

Well they just made it a right. What are rights anyway? Rights are not a natural construct, they're whatever the government decides. So if the government decides one thing, tomorrow it can decide another thing if it wants to.

It's not a US issue, every country you will go to can change their rights willy nilly based on the current boogie man: terrorists, COVID, Russia, Iran, right wing "extremists" etc

In the UK or Germany you can be fined, swatted or arrested for tweets and wrong think. Why? Because government made that a right.

I'm not sure what your argument is. I'm not trying to talk about the semantics of the word right. Yeah every human rule is a social construct, I'm just saying this is bad, and it's only the beginning.

I'm guessing you're a US citizen, because this isn't about the US. Many countries in the world are more or less puppies of the US government, it's not like we're living in an isolated world where the decisions of the US government don't apply to others because they're not US citizens. This is showing a general trend, which doesn't concern just visa applications.

>I'm guessing you're a US citizen, because this isn't about the US.

I'm not and I never said it is, I was just saying it's a bit hypocritical for people to complain about governments wanting to see your social media before letting you in the country, while being OK with giving up your biometrics.

You might say you're also not OK with giving up your biometrics, and then I would say, well why are you going to places that do things you're not OK with? Just stay home or go to other places. Why complain about the politics of countries you're not a citizen of and can't vote? Their country, their rules, only their citizen can enact change.

And BTW, I'm OK with governments wanting to see your social media before letting you in. Where I live in EU, there's a lot of middle eastern "refugees" whose social media is full of support of terrorist orgs and calling for death to Israel. Why would you want to let such people in? Would you want those people living next to you? If they're that brazen and stupid to be so open about extremist beliefs on social media, they don't belong in our society and shouldn't have been let in the first place. Granted that won't stop all these extremists, but it will at least stop the really dumb ones.

I expect my elected government to prioritize the safety of its taxpayers over the privacy rights of foreigners and visitors.

I expect my elected government to obey the Constitution under which it is set up. Treating anyone differently because they exercised freedom of speech is against how the US is supposed to work.

Freedom of speech means saying what you want, not blocking roads, college campuses and disrupting activities so people can't walk and study.

Your freedom of speech ends when you're physically and practically disturbing other people's freedoms. Weird how people don't get that.

What does any of that have to do with vetting social media posts for unapproved viewpoints?

What does your previous comment have to do with it?

Inspecting visitor's social media doesn't break the constitution same as how inspecting their/your luggage at the airport doesn't. Border checks are a thing orthogonal to the constitution.

Employers will also Google you and judge you based on what you said on social media. If your profile is full of swastikas or other schizo shit, you probably won't see an offer. Why shouldn't countries do it? Do you want dangerous people let?

So no, that doesn't break the constitution.

I realize that you aren't from the US, so maybe you don't know how US courts have interpreted the first amendment. The US government cannot prohibit "swastikas and other schizo shit", as distasteful as they are. Your employer is perfectly free to do so, however. Those are two different things in the US.

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