I deleted my entire social media presence before visiting the US – I'm a citizen | Hacker News Reader

I deleted my entire social media presence before visiting the US – I'm a citizen

theregister.com

117 pointsrntn100 comments

From the article:

    Remember the year: 2025 was when it all changed.
    When socials transformed from self-expression to entrapment.

I have to disagree with the 2025 part of this. While this admin has made the 100mi Constitution Free Zone even more hostile, practices like leveraging SM accounts against us have been ramping up for most of a decade.

refs: https://www.techdirt.com/2017/02/09/dhs-secretary-says-agenc...

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/01/02/dhs-documents-show-haras...

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/12/17/report-cbps-border-devic...

While it's possibly a valid point, those articles are all from the last iteration of this specific administration.

It is my experience that every administration massively ramps-up Bush era bulk surveillance.

Then I would expect a number of articles from 2020-2024 as well.

> Then I would expect a number of articles from 2020-2024 as well.

I wish.

For some &%*# reason, news orgs natural instinct is to defer to LEO/IC agencies - to rarely-if-ever vet agency PR and immediately forget every lie told by agency leadership.

For LEO/IC in republican admins, the press will sometimes do their jobs and hold these agencies somewhat accountable (and thereby honor press' extra 1A protections).

I think a non-citizen should take a burner phone or clean phone and set all their social media to private before going. The risk is considerable and being placed into a holding cell for weeks or months, even when having a ticket home (as has happened to some) is a truamatic outcome.

A citizen has a question to ask, on if they want to risk being one of the unfortunate examples to create a media wave of pushback, and if so; be prepared for a tricky interview. Obviously those with children and things to do might not want to take that risk.

With all of this in mind: One might note the powerful hypocrisy of JD Vance's unexpected lecture to the governments of European allies demanding protections of free speech[0], while America's current border policy is the polar opposite of that. There's nothing wrong with being strict on people who you think are entirely intending to violate their visa but everything wrong in trying to thought-police some pretty soft ideas[1]. The tourist who was refused entry just for having that JD Vance meme on his phone seems to cross that line by quite some margin.

For me, this administration has been a huge mask slip for pretty much all the "personal freedoms" talking points of GOP politicians/voters. Its appears it was never about "free speech" but rather the dominion of their speech.

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceve3wl21x1o

[1] https://time.com/7297472/jd-vance-meme-mads-mikkelsen-touris...

>set all their social media to private before going.

https://www.npr.org/2025/06/19/g-s1-73572/us-resumes-visas-f... : All students applying for a visa will need to set their social media profiles to "public," according to a post Wednesday on the State Department's website

The answer may be to have more than one set of social media - one with your real ID you keep clean and upbeat for work, immigration etc and others in a modified name for other stuff.

Create an alternate, pro-trump public social.

Take it a step further, get a Trump phone on Trump mobile, loaded with pro-Trump public socials

this is probably a billion business idea

sell these by the airport duty-free for 20, or heck 50 a pop

we could probably get the man himself to let us use his brand for a cut.

And don't forget to set the wallpaper to one of Trump's NFTs

They scrape all social media on a pro-active basis, so setting it to private before a trip won't help.

I set up accounts with my full legal name on them a while ago. There is minimal activity on them. If anyone wants to find me, msg me there.

I do all my actual online activities with handles as God intended back in the good old days.

Social media’s goal of connecting everyone with real names never was for our benefit and we all should stop giving them this data.

Unfortunately, AI will make it easy to deanonymize accounts en masse based on stylometry.

> The tourist who was refused entry just for having that JD Vance meme on his phone seems to cross that line by quite some margin.

My understanding is that he was stopped for other reasons, and that meme was questioned while he was being already detained.

However, there's NO doubt this is not the America I grew up in.

My solution is simply to not go to the US. I'm sorry. I know it used to be a great country, and there are still many great people living there, but I'm afraid the US dropped below China on the list of countries I'd like to visit. There are a hundred countries I'd feel safer.

I am also deleted from socials from many years (besides anon HN), so I hear the perspective, but isn’t a bit dramatic to relate it to border reentry for an American citizen?

Or is there some absurd news story I missed?

> is there some absurd news story I missed?

You've missed several, here's a good summary (while it's still online): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_and_deportation_of_A...

> Stephen Miller [...] ordered American security forces to arrest at least 3,000 humans per day nationwide.

What a bizarre article! It always refers to illegal immigrants as "humans" as if that's the crime.

Is this a new trend in the euphemism treadmill? Have we moved from "undocumented immigrant" to "human"?

"Illegal immigrants" are humans.

The term illegal immigrant is hate speech, trying to criminalize their being. Humans that broke immigration law is more appropriate.

Oh good, more semantics to the rescue. You're as great as those people who ended homelessness with 'unhoused', ended racism by lumping all non-whites into 'people of color'.

I'd say 'God bless you sir', but that's hate speech as well now.

Words matter because they define our shared reality.

The examples you shared are liberal identity politics, nonsense I don't prescribe to. Calling a person "illegal" is a way of dehumanization. Dehumanization is the first step towards genocide.

The second and fourth part of your reply do not match the first and third one.

> The examples you shared are liberal identity politics, nonsense I don't prescribe to. ... Dehumanization is the first step towards genocide.

Good, wholeheartedly agree, identity politics is a form of divide and conquer thought up by people who had two goals: to gain power and to keep it. Also, indeed, dehumanisation has been used by many with ill intent to make it psychologically defensible to get rid of groups of people who either stand in their way or who are used as scape goats for everything bad whether those be 'Jews' or 'straight white men'.

> Words matter because they define our shared reality. ... Calling a person "illegal" is a way of dehumanization.

Nope, that is part of the word games played by the same group which tries to use identity politics to gain and keep power. Calling a person illegal is the way to refer to people who committed the crime of illegal entry, thereby violating immigration law. All countries have laws on migration and as far as I know all those laws - when translated to English - refer to Illegal entry when discussing those who violate it. It is comparable to calling those who commit the crime of robbery a robber, those who commit the crime of burglary a burglar, those who commit the crime of fraud a fraudster and so on.

> I'd say 'God bless you sir', but that's hate speech as well now.

The only people I see suggesting that it's hate speech are conservatives who pretend you can't say anything anymore. I'd love to see something beyond some random Twitter post from some random user that classifies "god bless you" is literal hate speech.

Regardless, may Satan see you in the end.

It’s easier to prop up a strawman then have a real discussion

This “can’t say god bless you” nonsense is just moving the “war on Christmas” culture war BS even further.

It is not a serious discussion. The end goal is to install the 10 commandments in public and force prayer in schools. Because anything else is persecution

Which gods blessing are you attempting to give? There are so many.

I think that you're probably going to end up in a pit about the term "hate speech", but the terms "illegal" or "illegal alien", which seems to be the words of the moment, are deliberately dehumanizing, and that's the point.

Agreed. The right terminology used by even the government is "unauthorized immigrants". These include people who may actually be in the country legally - like those seeking asylum - but can be deported at any time.

That said, though no person's existence should be called "illegal", I'm afraid it's an uphill battle to change that term if Fox News is going to use it 24/7. There are better hills to die on.

> The right terminology used by even the government is "unauthorized immigrants".

I wish they used the term immigrant. The preferred term seems to be "illegal alien" or one or both of those words. See this example from yesterday from the department of homeland security: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07/20/six-months-keeping-ameri...

Or a release from May for the Whitehouse: https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/05/fact-sheet-pr...

Or ICE in April: https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/100-days-record-breaking-i...

You (and everyone who takes that stance) are reading a lot into how the term should be parsed. "Immigrated illegally" is a completely accurate statement. It is not saying that the people are illegal (how could they be?), but that their immigration was illegal.

Now, you can say that the immigration laws are morally wrong if you want, but that's a different argument. As far as descriptive terms go, they immigrated illegally, so they're illegal immigrants - immigrants whose immigration was illegal. No, we're not going to go with whatever newspeak alternative you come up with.

But your side also has a valid point: These are human beings. They deserve to be treated like humans, not animals, even if they are being expelled from the country. That's a true point, and one that needs to be made repeatedly. But heckling people about the term used to describe the people is not going to move the needle on that issue.

> heckling people about the term used to describe the people is not going to move the needle on that issue

I disagree with this; this is the primary means by which dehumanization occurs. I like to think of "police officer" as the perfect dehumanizing term because it showcases that dehumanization is not always negative. Some people will hear the term and automatically think good things and some will automatically think bad things. Few will think about a person they don't know, complete with vices and virtues they may or may not agree with. The point is that dehumanization makes you think of a concept of a person rather than a person.

But that's true of every term. "Computer programmer", say. People hear that term and automatically think certain things. " Few will think about a person they don't know, complete with vices and virtues they may or may not agree with." It "makes you think of a concept of a person rather than a person."

So I think that dynamic is present in every term we use to refer to humans as something other than "human". I don't need people to refer to me as "human who programs computers" so that I'm not dehumanized. (In fact, once "human that programs computers" becomes the accepted term, that term would also have the dynamic of dehumanizing those it covers. Having the word "human" in it wouldn't save it once it became a recognized term.)

Your whole first paragraph is actually offering another example of a dehumanizing term. The point of “human who does a thing” is to be a naturally-chosen phrase, not a term. Think, “Joe programs computers”, not, “Joe is a computer programmer”. You are correct that it would similarly be dehumanizing if it simply became another term to replace “computer programmer” like “Joe is a human-who-programs-computers” but that is because the statement is about what Joe supposedly “is” rather than being a description of things they’ve done.

In that case the most dehumanizing terms I can think of are blacks, Asians, Latinos, and to a certain extent, white.

Well, I mean, I don’t disagree; those are all racist terms. The dehumanizing aspect of those terms (and more generally with racism) is that they are reducing a person to their physical characteristics. “They’re black” is different from “they have a dark skin color”. One is talking about “what someone is” holistically (dehumanizing), while the other is talking about a specific aspect of their physical appearance.

That seems a bit of a stretch. The idea will evolve into, “Since racial labels are bad let’s just ignore them altogether and be color blind”. But we all know that’s not how the real world works. Three male programmers with same qualifications, the black man is going to have a different experience with the police than a white man. And the Asian man is going to deal with different stuff when it comes to dating.

I don’t necessarily disagree with this comment but I also think the things you mention are examples of how society-wide dehumanization can affect real-world decision-making when it comes to certain demographics.

> You (and everyone who takes that stance) are reading a lot into how the term should be parsed. "Immigrated illegally" is a completely accurate statement. It is not saying that the people are illegal (how could they be?), but that their immigration was illegal.

That is not what is said - otherwise it would be people who immigrated illegally, using an adverb instead of an adjective.

By moving the designator illegal from the activity to the person, you are criminalizing their being instead of their deed.

Maybe we should start calling people who speed "Illegal Drivers," so that people can see the danger of a term like "Illegal Immigrant."

Well, if someone doesn't have a license and drives, we call them an "unlicensed driver". It's their driving that's unlicensed, not them as a human being.

You sure? Seems to me that the person is unlicensed, as in they don’t have a license.

I think the other child comment here shoots himself in the foot by resorting to the very weak argument “guess we can’t say anything anymore”.

A stronger argument would be like: what about the terms criminal, convict, or even lawyer, doctor? Is it not just as referential to a person’s being to call them by their status or trade or any number of properties?

I happen to have loved several illegal immigrants who are close to my family. I don’t think badly of them or their being. But illegal immigrant is a factual description of what they are.

The article says "people", not humans. And whichever term it is using, it is not referring to undocumented immigrants, it is referring to people, regardless of documentation. "Trump's 'border czar', Tom Homan, has stated ICE does not need probable cause to detain people based on their physical appearance. Homan confirmed ICE has made what he described as 'collateral arrests' of 'many' American citizens". The goal is to arrest at least 3,000 brown people, many of which will end up being US citizens, but that is just collateral damage to them.

It says "people" now. Half an hour ago it said "human". See edit:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/2600:4...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Detention_and_d...

In the minutes after you comment, it has been ninja edited to change "humans" to "people".

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Detention_and_dep...

The oddness of the original...was it was possibly pasted from an LLM response?

It says "people" for me?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/05/12/hasan-...

> Piker, a U.S. citizen who streams on Twitch under the name HasanAbi, said in a live stream that he was taken aside after landing at Chicago O’Hare International Airport from Paris on Sunday — despite being enrolled in Global Entry, a CBP program that is supposed to give expedited clearance to “pre-approved, low-risk travelers” returning to the U.S.

> Piker said he was brought to a detention room inside O’Hare that had “fluorescent lightbulbs, the whole nine [yards]” and where a CBP agent questioned him for about two hours about his job, his political affiliation, his opinion of Trump and whether he had any connections to terrorist groups.

Hasan's story is totally fabricated, so that's a bad example.

why would it be fabricated? Given some of the opinions he espouses on Twitch and the hardline posture of ICE today it makes sense they'd interview him based on his opinions on Hamas.

> why would it be fabricated?

for views and attention, he thrives on it

There was a deconstruction of his tweets timeline somewhere. He said he was questioned for two hours but the timeline shows the time his plane arrived and then an hour later his tweet that he was out. It leaves more like 20-30 minutes for questioning. There is speculation he actually was pulled aside for a routine Global Entry application on arrival interview since he had said he had applied for it in some prior episode.

That seems like a big claim, do you have any evidence to back it up?

This YouTube video is making deconstruction and timeline does not corroborate what Hasan is saying and it also looks like it was standard Global Entry interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYvgns0MAdo

He tweeted every step of the way though the airport. The tweet timestamps do not match with his tall tale.

When asked about it in several interviews recently, he claims he doesn't remember the details too well, conveniently.

Besides, he's a well known liar and grifter who caters to the low information voters of the left.

Deleting your social media accounts right before travel could be regarded as suspicious and not effective as your account data may not really be deleted.

I was way ahead of all the people deleting their social media by not posting anything to social media since ~2015 or so. I'm still shocked that people put up with the abuses of Meta, Twitter, and all the rest.

If you ever made a social media account under your own name, the game's over. I'll assume the alphabet agencies will be able to see even “deleted” accounts.

> In 2025, social media has moved from self-expression to self-entrapment

I sort of feel if you're only figuring this out now you've been willfully/woefully ignorant.

Why are such articles flagged? And why do only flaggers get a flag vote but there's no unflag vote?

I did something similar. I knew anything on my accounts was already in the palantir dataset used by DHS. I wanted to at least remove presence local on my phone, I didn't bring a computer abroad with me.

I went through my history and deleted twitter, x and bluesky (I didn't and still don't read them via their apps). Probably should have deleted any mastadon links that I viewed in case any were not loyal enough.

I deleted stored passwords for all social media. Deleting SMS was tedious, if you donate, they sell you number to every campaign that is considered the "enemy of the people" by the establishment. The best I could do was search for "campaign" and "Trump" and delete the SMS messages out of the Messages app.

Of course my luck was better than I expected. All I did at immigration was point out one of my kids was really tired (he was quite sick on the plane-ride home). The CBP agent said something about "I'll get you out of here soon" and that was true without a single question.

I suppose my toddler makes me look like less of a risk to national security than when I would return from solo overseas travel. I'm not going to get too comfortable though.

I mean... just get a burner phone and transfer the number over for your travel duration and call it a day seems easier than all this.

Cheapo iPhone Mini on one of the refurb sites'll run you a couple hundred bucks. Not too too bad if you just need something to connect to Wi-Fi and access maps and email with.

When FB first came out someone work in finance said

"this is personal file, but the intellgency agencies has just made it fashionable and making money for us to maintain our own personal files"

This is even worse then the Stasi. At least at that time people didn't see it as something operasive, but now we see it as fashionable.

It is more important to NOT have your personal data on the some else's hardware.

Facebook has made it impossible for a generation of people to become spies and undercover cops, because their parents have uploaded an entire childhoods worth of photos and identifying information onto there. They have been doxxed before they even knew they wanted to be spies. Every nation state has spies in all the big tech companies.

My pity and my respect are mutually exclusive. This author seemingly wants both and gets neither. People like this are worse than the bullies.

Either be brave enough to stand up for what you believe in or shut up and do your capitulation in silence.

someone just checked the incogni database, ... you didn't delete anything

Isn't someone doing something like this the exact opposite of what incogni would want considering their whole business is to 'help people remove their data' from data brokers?

'help people remove their data from all other data brokers'

Is there someone aggregating information about these incidents? Would be nice to know if i should avoid visiting next year.

But also i can't help but feel sorry and mad about all the people who used their real names online for political activism. How have you not learned these lessons from history? Did you think you re special?

ICE now uses Mobile Fortify that does instant facial recognition and fingerprint scanning against hundreds of millions of images that looks up DHS, State Department, and state law enforcement databases. It can then do a "Super Query" that can hit multiple databases on individuals, vehicles, airplanes, vessels, addresses, phone numbers and firearms. LexisNexis will be added in the near future.

They also use Clearview AI which does facial recognition against social media and the web.

What I wonder is, are people just listing their social media accounts when asked? I would imagine that if I was an activist on social media or if I was expressing strong views not liked by somebody I would definitely not tell that somebody if they are in a position to make my life harder. Is this maybe like the "Are you planning to do a terrorist attack" question in the visa application form or maybe like the one that asks you if you committed a genocide or war crimes?

My bet is actually that it is intended to silence anyone who is NOT hostile to USA but has grievances with the current administration, i.e. someone who is smart and actually admires USA and aspires to visit/study/work in USA but wants USA to be better. I.e someone smart who has a chance to get into a prestigious US University and aspire to actually make the world a better place by someday make a huge contribution to science and wishes that USA was ethical country so their life work was put in a good use and not just some financial/political gain.

I'm pretty certain that USA will have a change in profile of the people they attract and that's probably the intention but I don't think that it will be good for America and the humanity. The message is clear, if you aspire to make the world a more fair place or a place that the humanity as a whole gets elevated then don't come, this place is about maximizing the power of the politicians and the profits of the shareholders.

> What I wonder is, are people just listing their social media accounts when asked?

The State Department is fully capable of finding social media accounts that you haven't listed: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/red...

And given that they're working hard on gathering data on citizens too, this will soon apply to you too?

I imagine that if I was a political activist or something I would have op-sec.

That's why, IMHO, this is just an attempt of inducing self censorship among those who aspire to come to US for something productive.

What's the process for checking? They ask you to unlock your phone or hook it up to some machine and slurps info out?

Isn't this exactly what they want? To quash dissent?

Yeah, probably, but you don't have to be a martyr for the cause if it means not being able to go home.

Reddit as well.

lol. Did the same thing. Deleted WeChat (great for meeting Chinese women traveling and wanting to meet locals), deleted viber and everything else.

I have also nuked my hackernews account multiple times in the past and will probably do it again before my next trip.

This is just more nonsensical fear-mongering for clicks.

I deleted all of my social media accounts prior to the last presidential election. I didn't wany myself or my family becoming targets of the administration or their sycophants.

not speaking up is exactly what they want...

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