Does the government have any direct link to meta re what accounts people actually have. I’m surprised people aren’t up in arms about this, I guess it affects mostly visitors and immigrants but the fact that the government needs to see your activity on a private company’s web app is wild to me.
If they ask you "well, do you use any social media?" You'd presumably have to answer with HN, which maybe doesn't sound all that great :)
I mean, some US govt immigration forms asking for your social media usernames include pastebin sites like "justpaste.it". See for example: https://static.feber.se/article_images/42/10/92/421092_1280....
Knowing that, it's crystal clear HN falls strictly within that definition of "social media", although it might not be as clear if you don't know what that particular site is.
Googling 'site:gov "justpaste.it"' also brings endless results of government documents mentioning the site in the context of terrorism.
I somewhat doubt US immigration authorities thwarted any would-be terrorists by asking for their justpaste.it username, but what do I know, perhaps this was an important breakthrough in the global war on terror.
It's pretty easy to think it's harmless if you live in a country where that viewpoint is not uncommon.
If you're putting terrorism related content on justpaste.it, you're probably pretty deep into the whole thing.