It's not just students btw... we're dealing it this too. My wife is a Korean university professor teaching at an American university, and her visa needs to be renewed by next month. I'm Canadian and she has residency in Canada but the Korean embassy in Canada advised her to travel back to Korea to renew it. She got back to Korea end of May to find that the US embassy in Korea had paused appointments. Monday last week she was able to make an appointment for it, and indeed she was advised her social media will be screened.
For anyone who wants a quick recap: South Korea's previous president Yoon had a brain fart and declared martial law last December, citing (among other things) a baseless conspiracy theory that said Chinese agents infiltrated Korean voting system to make the liberal Democratic Party win the previous legislative election.
Thankfully, the lawmakers literally jumped the wall to gather and declare the martial law void, so it was overthrown in hours, and long story short, the constitutional court universally agreed that Yoon committed treason, he was kicked out, we had an election, and (to no one's surprise) we got a new president from the Democratic Party, president Lee Jae-Myung.
There are still a handful of idiots who believe in Yoon's baseless election conspiracy theories. Last time I heard, they were reporting politicians, actors, singers, or basically everyone who came out against the martial law to CIA, for the crime of aiding China.
For some inexplicable reason, CIA isn't launching an immediate intervention to restore Yoon in power. I wonder why.
This is a blatantly false comment. For the sake of other viewers on HN that is not familiar with Korean politics, this is totally fake (and is probably pushing the views of the Korean alt-right).
United States sharply criticized Yoon after his unconstitutional martial law declaration, publishing pretty strong remarks that it was illegimate[0]. They have consistently spoke (in diplomatic language) that they do not support Yoon until he was impeached.
Impeaching Yoon was supported by 75% of the country [1] and anti-Yoon protests were not seen as anti-US nor pro-China at all.
The newly elected president, Lee Jae Myung, is not seen as anti-US nor pro-China in Korea (he does have a less anti-China stance than his predecessor), and any claims of election fraud claim is baseless[2] and without evidence.
The few paragraphs on telegram groups are groups that are run by the alt-right that send reports of anti-Yoon social influencers to the CIA, arguing that they were anti-US and communists[3] (yes, the red fear and the cold war is still a thing in South Korea, thanks to the North Korean regime, no, we do not recognize North Korea as a sovereign state)
Yes people are affected due to the new visa process, PhD students big among the affected, but no, big businesses are not being blocked sending their workers to the US. Samsung is not struggling getting visas.
This is a totally baseless fake news. Please don’t let this information spread. Thanks.
For future HN readers, I did not engage with that comment because I also believed it to be either fake/astroturfing or otherwise, the messages weaved throughout it are...not cogent.
Just for people who are reading this and leading to believe that this might be true, the link that this user is providing[0] is produced by a group called KCPAC[1], a blatantly Korean alt-right group.
Rebutting fake news takes so much more time than spreading them.
I don't get why the US thought that it'd be a good idea to vet social media accounts for visa applications. If someone's having ill intent, one could easily create a burner account and fill in some random content for the sake of getting thru the visa application. Or they could even just purchase an account somewhere on the internet.
No one is pretending this is about terrorism now. They're explicit this is about curbing political activism by foreign students. Some outside the US miss that because few countries would have given foreign students this much room for activism in the first place.
it's strange that you are comparing democracy with a communism.
Wasn't the whole premise of democracy to express yourself freely and the core idea was "rule by the people"?
If country claims that they are democracy, then they should give people to add their opinion to rule the country, China is following its own core idea, ruled by a single party.
People have been detained/face deportation for activism against other foreign countries, so why not? The point is: if the admin wants you gone, or doesn't want to let you in, they'll use anything as pretense.
... That's not remotely true. Hypocrisy on the issue of human rights doesn't negate their existence in frameworks or as ideals that have motivated real progress. And, ignorance of human rights work outside of Europe doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Finally, Europe doesn't have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to human rights hypocrisy either, even if they're some of the best of a bad lot.
No, "the US" does not. Maybe the fascists currently in power are twisting words like that though, just as they twist every other lofty ideal into a rationalization for hurting people.
> why the US thought that it'd be a good idea to vet social media accounts for visa applications.
The catalyst was the campus takeovers by people wearing masks and causing disruption for months. That was a gift for the Republicans, delivered on a silver platter. They made that an issue every day in Congress from October 7 2023 until November 5 2024. It coincided with the resignation of several university presidents.
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik
Cornell Martha Pollack
Liz Magill, University of Pennsylvania
Claudine Gay Harvard
Additionally, the US has a statutory requirement for biometric exit scans when a visitor leaves. It was completely ignored. There were entry scans, but no exit scan.
The simple fact is they don't want anyone not like them coming to the US, and unauthorized entry has diminished significantly. It's also the reason for rejecting birthright citizenship, and deporting unauthorized persons to third country staging areas.
The UK is in the same boat. The UK is currently spending ~£3 billion per year on accommodations, and costs are expected to triple. It's created profiteering companies and waves of human trafficking across Europe. France only recently agreed to stop them when they line up a row of 20 zodiacs to assault Dover.
> If someone's having ill intent, one could easily create a burner account and fill in some random content for the sake of getting thru the visa application.
The timestamps will immediately give it away if you try to pull that though. Not to mention that they could also (if they want) just harvest data on what accounts already exist at what point in time, to detect actions like this. Lots of data brokers have such data already. And they could just do some cursory searches for other accounts you might have too, if you don't deactivate them...
The goal isn't to stop terrorism, or drug trafficking, etc. It's to curb opposition. There's very little difference between someone that's anti-american but keeps their opinions to themself, and someone that has no opinions. Why do you think China cracks down on speech? Is it for shits-and-giggles?
Perhaps you think it's anti-American to believe that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. Perhaps I think it's anti-American to believe that the Jan 6 rioters should have been pardoned.
I'd certainly expect visitors to be held to the same standards as the natives. This is the problem, as a US citizen I don't want to be respectful and quiet, especially when I disagree with my government.
> I'd certainly expect visitors to be held to the same standards as the natives.
Visitors are held to a higher standard than natives. Visitors do not have control, a vote, etc: they are temporarily permitted by the privilege of policy at the time.
> as a US citizen I don't want to be respectful and quiet, especially when I disagree with my government.
Good, don't be! You're not at risk of having a visa revoked or go unissued.
Telling the US government it's broken is a favor to the US government. Freedom of speech is a gift to both the people of this country and the institution itself, helping it be pure and accountable. It's the force that prevents us from becoming like China.
Those who seek to stop that regulating force are undermining what makes America great. Where those voices of dissent were born isn't pertinent.
I feel like this is a ridiculous bad-faith argument. You know damned well that banning people from the country for having a JD vance meme on their phone is not stopping international agents. Arguing by presently demonstrably false hypotheticals as though they were reality makes me think it's a waste of everybody's breath talking to you.
This is akin to the fallacy of saying that the accountability of "real name" policies on web forums make higher quality comments, and then you actually look at the contents of Faceboot. I mean, actual US citizens just voted this tiny-minded failure of a "president" in for the second time, because apparently he hadn't damaged the country enough the first time. Having a stake didn't help there, right? Either people are unaware they are harming themselves (stupidity/anti-intellectualism), don't care because others are getting harmed "more" (spite), or are in social media bubbles pushed by hostile actors (agent provocateurs don't actually need physical presence).
Okay but that's not what this is about. This is saying that a foreigner cannot express private thoughts online at any point before they enter the United States.
I assume someone who goes by "15155" would believe that having private conversations online can be useful. Or do you want to post your identifying information?
You do you, and we'll have the parties at my house then. Enjoy quietly playing Catan or whatever.
Your extrapolation to the national level is fallacious. Many of our academic institutions were deliberately hosting foreigners, with the explicit goal of being melting pots of ideas. That gave the US an exceptional cultural cachet around the globe. This whole thing is an exercise in attacking and destroying our traditional distributed institutions in favor of centralized autocratic control.
Which elected a democratically-elected representative.
That is how democracies work.
If there's anything the executive has power over besides commander in chief, it would be leader in chief of defining what is actually, American.
The fact that prior presidents have actually abdicated this important role, doesn't mean it didn't exist. This is why traditions of the State of the Union, etc exist. The executive gets to call the plays towards unity for Americanism.
discriminating in employment due to one's affiliation is illegal in state and federal employment [1]. That does not mean one can break ToS and for example, publish on a massive public platform, your private opinion (which can be misconstrued as your employer's). Most employers have ToS against online activity during employment, for that reason.
It is also illegal to do the same for students. [2]
Faculty is already protected under tenure rules. And even for the nontenured, who really needs protecting ? Only 5.7% of all faculty are registered as conservative as of 2020 [3]
My point remains. "Filtering out" is illegal. Setting the stage on what is american, is not.
When it comes to allowing foreighn students to come to US, which from my understanding is a likely path to citizenship, the executive branch gets to decide, which is basically elected by 51% of population every 4 years.
I prefer the exec branch over no purity test, or delegating to some other "expert" institution.
51% of the voting population. Not the majority of the population. Big difference in numbers there, only 65.3% participated. So, less than a third of Americans voted for the current president… why people don’t vote, I’ll never understand.
It truly does not matter how this opinion can shift with the political climate: foreigners aren't citizens, no matter how much folks would like this to be the case.
> We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs protection.
Reagan is a hypocritical cunt of course, but how far we've fallen that now you might as well put a chain around Lady Liberty's neck, pull it down like the statues of Saddam Hussein or Assad (or I guess hanging is more appropriate, since the spiritual successors of the Confederancy is now in power), and replace it with a statue of redneck lady giving foreigners the middle finger, with "Fuck off!" written on the base.
Ah yes, because we don't automatically tolerate foreign political activists (or intelligence operatives, who cares, right?), freedom is all but lost, right?
You have managed to conflate vocally anti-genocidal students (exercising their universal human right to freedom of assembly) with "foreign political activists" (as if they came to the US just to try and help us stop enabling genocide) - and then leaped straight to "intelligence operators".
You also seem to be all over this thread insisting that these violations of human rights will only ever be applied to foreigners - even as the executive branch openly works to redefine who counts as a foreigner.
> I don't want foreign students (or otherwise) being "vocal" for literally any reason whatsoever.
Your opinion doesn't trump universal human rights. Nor should it.
> Go to school, become a citizen if you wish, and then participate in the political process.
What if the political issues affect you as a visa holder? Have you actually thought this though?
> I consider the case at hand, not a slippery slope of hypotheticals.
It's not remotely hypothetical [0], and if you don't know that then you really lack the basic table stakes of knowledge to be weighing in on this at all (as also evidenced by your refusal to acknowledge the UDHR).
”I'm not a visa holder. I wouldn't expect to be able to go to China and espouse anti-CCP rhetoric, either.”
You don’t expect to do those things in China because it’s an authoritarian government that doesn’t care about human rights A-Z (all the way from basic labor rights over to internment reeducation camps).
So the question is why are you applying a standard we have for China, which is just slightly above what we expect from North Korea, unto to America?
We are not the country that does shit like what you are describing. This is a temporary dark spot on American history, and you are absolutely on the wrong side of things. All of this joins the embarrassing catalog of American darkness - Japanese internment camps, Chinese exclusion act, segregation, list goes on.
Man, I'm getting emotionally worked up on a Saturday trying to change some [two words removed because hello HN guidelines]'s mind. I hope you're not on the same path as me.
I suggest we let him think what he wants to think. I find it curious anyway when people say they don't consider hypotheticals, humans are all about hypotheticals ("what's going to happen if x happens..."), even apes do so. Not considering them means wanting to be as intelligent as amoebas, and the [term has been deleted] we're trying to converse with seems to be proud of that.
> What is the source of this righteous indignation? You think countries invite foreigners here with the patronizing attitude of “you’re lucky to be here, don’t say a fucking word”?
Yes, I do think that's how countries invite foreigners.
> Try your best to not sound so unfuckable.
Looks like I hit a nerve. I'm sure you're a great houseguest.
Your deportation hearing is now scheduled for next week for anti Americanism disguised as jingoistic patriotism. Hopefully there’s a country that will accept you but if not there are some extraterritorial islands we can parachute you on to
This term "sitting" is doing a lot of work. Have you seen the guy's posture? I guess the term "teetering on the edge of a chair president" doesn't have the same ring to it.
Along with the push for ending birth right citizenship and detaining citizens the goal is a white ethnostate. I doubt Trump is that cognizant of that but Stephen Miller definitely is pushing for that.
It's enshrined in the constitution. You're welcome to try to ammend the constitution to make it a white only nation. Good luck with that. I guess upping the bribes to certain scotus justices also works.
Yeah, I mean, what was that whole we’re going to bring white South African immigrants here and kick brown ones out?
MAGA is a white supremacy movement, but calling this out in America is like trying to tell your best friend her husband is cheating on her. It’s going to be an ugly reveal and difficult conversation, but the facts are the facts.
Because then anyone can be deported at any time without any more process needed since it's visa fraud. Maybe even get your citizenship revoked one day given how things are going.
Entry can be denied if you claim to have no social media accounts, so you can in fact only give one of your choosing to gain entry.
Whether not disclosing any others is visa fraud is a matter of legal consideration iff other accounts are discovered before the collapse of the current administration.
There are plenty of things that are only "legal thing" once they are officially judged to be so. An obvious (to a layman HNer) crime isn't one until legally declared so.
The same standard applies to many of the apparently unconstitutional actions of the current administration.
Please stop with the paranoid "bot" nonsense, my account is over a decade older than yours is.
I think I was clear; your morally based personal conception of "fraud" isn't relevant to what actual practise is, and this is especially relevant to an administration that might not even be acting legally in the first place.
Maybe these things are fraud, or would be judged so if it goes to court, assuming such a right applies, and you aren't illegally deprived of it; maybe these standards aren't even legally valid.
> I don't get why the US thought that it'd be a good idea to vet social media accounts for visa applications.
Since almost all major social media companies are american, and all major social media/tech companies are state/defense companies, the US already "vets" social media accounts of foreigners and most likely americans as well.
This has nothing to do with "vetting" social media accounts. It's about scaring the world so that the world stops criticizing primarily israel.
If we really want to "vet" foreigners, we'd be doing it secretly so that bad actors feel free to expose themselves on social media. This does the exact opposite. It's about controlling the narrative and preventing criticism of israel.
I was wondering if anyone hasn't started such a SaaS yet. Can have an effect of unauthentic MAGA + Israel accounts flooding the social media. However the issue is that it only works if your identity is linked to you, so for most people that would be very embarrassing.
If Americans show flexibility to let you show your allegiance to USA and Israel through anonymous accounts they may be able to flood the social media with fake but real accounts. Bots but real people, if this was Chernobyl they would be called biorobots.
That would be next-gen astroturfing, very hard to detect.
>However the issue is that it only works if your identity is linked to you, so for most people that would be very embarrassing
It could just take the Chinese social media approach of being right on the borderline of satire, but within the realms of what some people really do believe, so a border agent couldn't dismiss it as satire but anyone who knew the poster could.
So many things are being done to protect a single country outside of the USA, even on a different continent, including losing its credibility about free speech and human rights.
This has little to do with a single country and more with the fact that if someone is willing to fight for anything other than the current administration then one day they might fight against the current administration directly. Same reason Stalin sent those who fought in the Warsaw Uprising against the Germans to Siberia. Today it's the Germans, tomorrow it may be the Soviets.
> "if someone is willing to fight for anything other than the current administration then one day they might fight against the current administration directly."
So what? isn't the core idea in democracy "ruled by the people", Why can't you fight against the current administration with your opinion and opposition to their ideas?
I would think things like removing access to research which contained certain keywords could count, as well as things like ordering the removal of images of women and people of colour from military websites for example.
Words like “female” will flag scientific research grant applications for review and any found to be supporting diversity equity and inclusion face being cut
US universities are being punished for allowing free speech of individual members. The federal government is angling to get these groups to self-censor.
Peaceful protest against Israel's destruction of Gaza will get you in trouble.
Research all the anti-LGBTQ legislation at the federal and state levels.
Remember, after all, the 1st amendment covers not only freedom of speech, but also assembly, the press, no establishment of religion, and the ability to petition the government. All of these things have been attacked and will continue to be attacked.
Idaho Teacher ordered to remove “Everybody is welcome” sign in classroom as US government threatens to cut funding for orgs supporting inclusive ideologies (lgbt, “woke”)
It’d been going on for a while: they had embedded people at Twitter, Facebook, etc. to act as liaisons to “protect truth” on subjects such as the origins of Covid, hunter Biden’s laptop, the senility of a certain commander in chief, the discussion on males participating in women’s sports, etc. the movement went so far as preventing speakers with opposing views to speak at universities. The idea of safe spaces itself is about censorship of ideas.
That was just private citizens exercising their own free speech rights, even if you disagreed. Now we have the federal government punishing people with speech and beliefs the president and his cronies don't like. It's a whole different ballgame.
> That was just private citizens exercising their own free speech rights
It was just a 'coincidence' that the US government was putting serious monopoly investigations on every big tech and social media company at the same time it offered these censorship 'suggestions', I'm sure.
1. University funding cancellations because of disfavored but 1A protected protests
2. Attacks on law firms with disfavored clients.
3. Federal law suits against media like NBC, ABC, and investigations of NPR and others.
4. Increased arrest rate for “obstruction” by ICE of people protesting immigration enforcement.
5. Blanket bans on “DEI” speech and retaliation against organizations that promote DEI.
6. An executive Order mandating that schools teach “patriotic” content or lose funding.
7. Banning trans people from the military directly infringing their 1A protected rights to express their identity.
8. Take overs of institutions like the Kennedy Center for the Arts, dismissal of the Librarian of Congress, content regulation of the Smithsonian, take-downs of federal data and images related to disfavored speech.
9. Revoking green cards because of 1A protected cards, denying visas, travel bans - all limiting what speech and associations are available to US citizens.
1. This isn't suppressing free speech. This is classic new deal government. I thought liberals liked that?
2. No one is obligated to work with you, or give you clearances if you're suspected of being against state interests.
3. I thought we were all for government crackdowns on corrupt corporations?
4. Many of these people are obstructionist.
5. DEI is discriminatory. I thought liberals were anti-discrimination?
6. More new deal government. Nothing improper here. You just lost the vote.
7. The military is not obligated to allow anyone to serve. It's a job, like any other. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences, pal.
8. Being selective of what you promote isn't suppression of speech. Is it suppression of speech when Confederate monuments are removed, or did you lose the vote?
9. Those are not citizens.
10. This is regulation to prevent anti-competitive behavior and harassment.
11. Not free speech. You're not obligated to be in a press room
TBH, seems like you care that you lost, not about freedom. Why should I give you any freedom when your goal is to deprive me of mine?
Makes me wonder, do the big social media companies store deleted data? Probably.
And if they do, will that be available to the boarder agents?
Image being denied entry, because you were 16 and made some edgy posts / memes about Trump 10 years ago. Long deleted, to the point you can't even remember them - but now unearthed by CBP agents, and that's that.
Are these people so delusional that they think "social media" sites are even remotely anonymous? Whatever you do, it's up for sale. No wonder meta has billions of active users, most of them with no brain cells. It's extremely concerning that majority of the younger generation has almost no sense of achieving privacy on the internet
The real world isn't this black and white. It is possible to have issues with some American actions or policies without disliking the country or its people.
It seems fairly obvious that few South Korean students harbor deep anti American sentiment, but many are not clear what shitposts would block entrance to the US.
I completely support the vigorous vetting of non-citizen seeking entry into the U.S.A. For any non-citizens entering the U.S.A. is a privilege and not a right. They are guests in the U.S.A. and need to respect their host country and its laws.
Regarding the auditing social media, it's not just about their posts, but who they are friends with and who are friends with them. Point and case, your personal social media profile may be benign photos of kittens and snaps of what you had to eat that day, but your brother could be "friends" with terrorist or member of a criminal gang and that person could use your relationship with your bother to extort you after you enter the U.S.A.
Biden's administration let at least 2700 Tren de Aragua gang members walk across the southern boarder. ICE and DHS have successfully arrested these TDA members, but there are more. These people rape, murder, traffic humans and drugs into the U.S.A. Their criminal network (and therefore profits) have been severely disrupted. It's common sense that they are going to seek new and creative ways to get back in business. As they already extort and exploit on a daily basis in Venezuela, why wouldn't they do the same to potential foreign students?
The criminals will still get in, and the law-abiding foreigners will stay out because "law" is whatever King Donald McFries says nowadays. So congrats, your ensuring the quality of your guests are as shitty as your regime.
It's not about terrorism. It's about keeping people with political views that don't align with Stephen Miller and Donald Trump out. This stuff is actively harming the US.
The drop in tourists from Western Europe certainly appears to be significant. Apparently the US is running a tourism deficit for the first time in a while.
It's not just students btw... we're dealing it this too. My wife is a Korean university professor teaching at an American university, and her visa needs to be renewed by next month. I'm Canadian and she has residency in Canada but the Korean embassy in Canada advised her to travel back to Korea to renew it. She got back to Korea end of May to find that the US embassy in Korea had paused appointments. Monday last week she was able to make an appointment for it, and indeed she was advised her social media will be screened.
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WTF, Yoonies? In my HN?
For anyone who wants a quick recap: South Korea's previous president Yoon had a brain fart and declared martial law last December, citing (among other things) a baseless conspiracy theory that said Chinese agents infiltrated Korean voting system to make the liberal Democratic Party win the previous legislative election.
Thankfully, the lawmakers literally jumped the wall to gather and declare the martial law void, so it was overthrown in hours, and long story short, the constitutional court universally agreed that Yoon committed treason, he was kicked out, we had an election, and (to no one's surprise) we got a new president from the Democratic Party, president Lee Jae-Myung.
There are still a handful of idiots who believe in Yoon's baseless election conspiracy theories. Last time I heard, they were reporting politicians, actors, singers, or basically everyone who came out against the martial law to CIA, for the crime of aiding China.
For some inexplicable reason, CIA isn't launching an immediate intervention to restore Yoon in power. I wonder why.
This is a blatantly false comment. For the sake of other viewers on HN that is not familiar with Korean politics, this is totally fake (and is probably pushing the views of the Korean alt-right).
United States sharply criticized Yoon after his unconstitutional martial law declaration, publishing pretty strong remarks that it was illegimate[0]. They have consistently spoke (in diplomatic language) that they do not support Yoon until he was impeached.
Impeaching Yoon was supported by 75% of the country [1] and anti-Yoon protests were not seen as anti-US nor pro-China at all.
The newly elected president, Lee Jae Myung, is not seen as anti-US nor pro-China in Korea (he does have a less anti-China stance than his predecessor), and any claims of election fraud claim is baseless[2] and without evidence.
The few paragraphs on telegram groups are groups that are run by the alt-right that send reports of anti-Yoon social influencers to the CIA, arguing that they were anti-US and communists[3] (yes, the red fear and the cold war is still a thing in South Korea, thanks to the North Korean regime, no, we do not recognize North Korea as a sovereign state)
Yes people are affected due to the new visa process, PhD students big among the affected, but no, big businesses are not being blocked sending their workers to the US. Samsung is not struggling getting visas.
This is a totally baseless fake news. Please don’t let this information spread. Thanks.
[0]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us-says-south-koreas-yoon-badl...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Yoon_Suk_Yeol#O...
[2]: https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.36RG6PF
[3]: https://koreaherald.com/article/10019148
———— Not trying to shoot the messenger, but the user has a history of getting flagged with far-right racial comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44405917, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44203934, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44203849
They also got flagged previously by arguing the sentiment of the Korean alt-right: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43431867
And also say that they submit AI-generated comments as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pkkkzip
I would not trust this person’s comments.
For future HN readers, I did not engage with that comment because I also believed it to be either fake/astroturfing or otherwise, the messages weaved throughout it are...not cogent.
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We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Also, you can't post generated comments to HN, as your profile claims you've been doing.)
Just for people who are reading this and leading to believe that this might be true, the link that this user is providing[0] is produced by a group called KCPAC[1], a blatantly Korean alt-right group.
Rebutting fake news takes so much more time than spreading them.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/live/p508Q66_zCU
[1]: https://www.cpackorea.com/
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I don't get why the US thought that it'd be a good idea to vet social media accounts for visa applications. If someone's having ill intent, one could easily create a burner account and fill in some random content for the sake of getting thru the visa application. Or they could even just purchase an account somewhere on the internet.
Sad to see what US has become.
No one is pretending this is about terrorism now. They're explicit this is about curbing political activism by foreign students. Some outside the US miss that because few countries would have given foreign students this much room for activism in the first place.
Do you think US embassy will reject political activism if it was against China?
Do you think you would be granted a visa by China if your social media was full of anti-China rhetoric?
> Do you think you would be granted a visa by China if your social media was full of anti-China rhetoric?
I bet you'd be granted a visa by china if your social media was full of anti-israel rhetoric though...
it's strange that you are comparing democracy with a communism.
Wasn't the whole premise of democracy to express yourself freely and the core idea was "rule by the people"?
If country claims that they are democracy, then they should give people to add their opinion to rule the country, China is following its own core idea, ruled by a single party.
People have been detained/face deportation for activism against other foreign countries, so why not? The point is: if the admin wants you gone, or doesn't want to let you in, they'll use anything as pretense.
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> They're explicit this is about curbing political activism by foreign students.
Freedom of assembly is a universal human right; not that anyone seriously expects respect for those from the US any more.
> a universal human right
This concept has been dead outside Europe since at least the 1990s. (It never found purchase in Russia, China or India.)
... That's not remotely true. Hypocrisy on the issue of human rights doesn't negate their existence in frameworks or as ideals that have motivated real progress. And, ignorance of human rights work outside of Europe doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Finally, Europe doesn't have much of a leg to stand on when it comes to human rights hypocrisy either, even if they're some of the best of a bad lot.
Except the US views it as its right to assemble who it wants to allow in. Same right, different perspective.
This is not remotely true. Of course it is denied if you can classify it as violent.
How so?
It doesnt even seem remotely the same.
That would be the right to prevent assembly.
A team assembling on the playground that doesn’t pick all the friends who want to play together has prevented the friends from assembling.
Assembly amongst all groups simultaneously isn’t possible with humans who are not bifurcating bosons.
That doesn't make sense.
Just because you used a word in a sentence doesn't make it so.
> A team assembling on the playground that doesn’t pick all the friends who want to play together has prevented the friends from assembling.
They haven't prevented anything. Just because a team assembled, does not exclude others from being there.
They can exclude, of course, but that has nothing to do with the assembly.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/assembl...
> uncountable noun
> When you refer to rights of assembly or restrictions on assembly, you are referring to the legal right that people have to gather together
It's the gathering thats the assembly, not the exclusion. You just made that up.
No, "the US" does not. Maybe the fascists currently in power are twisting words like that though, just as they twist every other lofty ideal into a rationalization for hurting people.
> why the US thought that it'd be a good idea to vet social media accounts for visa applications.
The catalyst was the campus takeovers by people wearing masks and causing disruption for months. That was a gift for the Republicans, delivered on a silver platter. They made that an issue every day in Congress from October 7 2023 until November 5 2024. It coincided with the resignation of several university presidents.
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik Cornell Martha Pollack Liz Magill, University of Pennsylvania Claudine Gay Harvard
Additionally, the US has a statutory requirement for biometric exit scans when a visitor leaves. It was completely ignored. There were entry scans, but no exit scan.
The simple fact is they don't want anyone not like them coming to the US, and unauthorized entry has diminished significantly. It's also the reason for rejecting birthright citizenship, and deporting unauthorized persons to third country staging areas.
The UK is in the same boat. The UK is currently spending ~£3 billion per year on accommodations, and costs are expected to triple. It's created profiteering companies and waves of human trafficking across Europe. France only recently agreed to stop them when they line up a row of 20 zodiacs to assault Dover.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation
https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-college-presidents-who-ha...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/07/uk-asylum-seek...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2720n2kkjo
Who are the they/them in your last two paragraphs?
I think they call it security theatre.
> If someone's having ill intent, one could easily create a burner account and fill in some random content for the sake of getting thru the visa application.
The timestamps will immediately give it away if you try to pull that though. Not to mention that they could also (if they want) just harvest data on what accounts already exist at what point in time, to detect actions like this. Lots of data brokers have such data already. And they could just do some cursory searches for other accounts you might have too, if you don't deactivate them...
The goal isn't to stop terrorism, or drug trafficking, etc. It's to curb opposition. There's very little difference between someone that's anti-american but keeps their opinions to themself, and someone that has no opinions. Why do you think China cracks down on speech? Is it for shits-and-giggles?
> anti-american but keeps their opinions to themself, and someone that has no opinions
Why do we need to be admitting anti-American individuals to this country for any reason whatsoever?
News flash: visas are a privilege, not a right.
Who gets to define what is anti-American?
Perhaps you think it's anti-American to believe that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. Perhaps I think it's anti-American to believe that the Jan 6 rioters should have been pardoned.
Whose purity test should we apply?
We're talking about foreigners: if you are a guest in someone's country, home, wherever, you should be respectful and quiet.
I don't want any foreigners contributing to any political activism whatsoever, regardless of ideology.
I'd certainly expect visitors to be held to the same standards as the natives. This is the problem, as a US citizen I don't want to be respectful and quiet, especially when I disagree with my government.
> I'd certainly expect visitors to be held to the same standards as the natives.
Visitors are held to a higher standard than natives. Visitors do not have control, a vote, etc: they are temporarily permitted by the privilege of policy at the time.
> as a US citizen I don't want to be respectful and quiet, especially when I disagree with my government.
Good, don't be! You're not at risk of having a visa revoked or go unissued.
Telling the US government it's broken is a favor to the US government. Freedom of speech is a gift to both the people of this country and the institution itself, helping it be pure and accountable. It's the force that prevents us from becoming like China.
Those who seek to stop that regulating force are undermining what makes America great. Where those voices of dissent were born isn't pertinent.
This is naive, it's clear that someone without a stake in a country could just be an agent provocateur.
I feel like this is a ridiculous bad-faith argument. You know damned well that banning people from the country for having a JD vance meme on their phone is not stopping international agents. Arguing by presently demonstrably false hypotheticals as though they were reality makes me think it's a waste of everybody's breath talking to you.
This is akin to the fallacy of saying that the accountability of "real name" policies on web forums make higher quality comments, and then you actually look at the contents of Faceboot. I mean, actual US citizens just voted this tiny-minded failure of a "president" in for the second time, because apparently he hadn't damaged the country enough the first time. Having a stake didn't help there, right? Either people are unaware they are harming themselves (stupidity/anti-intellectualism), don't care because others are getting harmed "more" (spite), or are in social media bubbles pushed by hostile actors (agent provocateurs don't actually need physical presence).
Okay but that's not what this is about. This is saying that a foreigner cannot express private thoughts online at any point before they enter the United States.
I assume someone who goes by "15155" would believe that having private conversations online can be useful. Or do you want to post your identifying information?
You do you, and we'll have the parties at my house then. Enjoy quietly playing Catan or whatever.
Your extrapolation to the national level is fallacious. Many of our academic institutions were deliberately hosting foreigners, with the explicit goal of being melting pots of ideas. That gave the US an exceptional cultural cachet around the globe. This whole thing is an exercise in attacking and destroying our traditional distributed institutions in favor of centralized autocratic control.
Why do you allow then foreign lobby groups?
Or why did you allow Elon to participate in elections, he was a foreigner at some point and he wasn't born in America?
The majority of the people's opinion.
Which elected a democratically-elected representative.
That is how democracies work.
If there's anything the executive has power over besides commander in chief, it would be leader in chief of defining what is actually, American.
The fact that prior presidents have actually abdicated this important role, doesn't mean it didn't exist. This is why traditions of the State of the Union, etc exist. The executive gets to call the plays towards unity for Americanism.
This is what foreign countries do as well.
And next time the Democrats get elected they will filter out all the right wing professors/students, and this will make you happy?
discriminating in employment due to one's affiliation is illegal in state and federal employment [1]. That does not mean one can break ToS and for example, publish on a massive public platform, your private opinion (which can be misconstrued as your employer's). Most employers have ToS against online activity during employment, for that reason.
It is also illegal to do the same for students. [2]
Faculty is already protected under tenure rules. And even for the nontenured, who really needs protecting ? Only 5.7% of all faculty are registered as conservative as of 2020 [3]
My point remains. "Filtering out" is illegal. Setting the stage on what is american, is not.
[1] https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/political-aff...
[2] https://www.nysasa.org/index.php/news/6558-schools-cannot-en...
[3] https://www.thecollegefix.com/democratic-professors-outnumbe...
> for the nontenured, who really needs protecting ? Only 5.7% of all faculty are registered as conservative
Plenty of right wingers are granted visas to spread nonsense in America. It would make sense to put them on visa bans.
> next time the Democrats get elected they will filter out all the right wing professors/students, and this will make you happy
Yes, actually. We have the precedent. Both for the action and for these people being dangerous to our safety and civil society.
When it comes to allowing foreighn students to come to US, which from my understanding is a likely path to citizenship, the executive branch gets to decide, which is basically elected by 51% of population every 4 years.
I prefer the exec branch over no purity test, or delegating to some other "expert" institution.
51% of the voting population. Not the majority of the population. Big difference in numbers there, only 65.3% participated. So, less than a third of Americans voted for the current president… why people don’t vote, I’ll never understand.
Anti American is a fluid term
Is it anti American to oppose annexing Canada? Careful what you reply, may affect your visa application
It truly does not matter how this opinion can shift with the political climate: foreigners aren't citizens, no matter how much folks would like this to be the case.
> We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs protection.
Reagan is a hypocritical cunt of course, but how far we've fallen that now you might as well put a chain around Lady Liberty's neck, pull it down like the statues of Saddam Hussein or Assad (or I guess hanging is more appropriate, since the spiritual successors of the Confederancy is now in power), and replace it with a statue of redneck lady giving foreigners the middle finger, with "Fuck off!" written on the base.
Ah yes, because we don't automatically tolerate foreign political activists (or intelligence operatives, who cares, right?), freedom is all but lost, right?
You have managed to conflate vocally anti-genocidal students (exercising their universal human right to freedom of assembly) with "foreign political activists" (as if they came to the US just to try and help us stop enabling genocide) - and then leaped straight to "intelligence operators".
You also seem to be all over this thread insisting that these violations of human rights will only ever be applied to foreigners - even as the executive branch openly works to redefine who counts as a foreigner.
> conflate vocally anti-genocidal students
I don't want foreign students (or otherwise) being "vocal" for literally any reason whatsoever.
Go to school, become a citizen if you wish, and then participate in the political process.
> will only ever be applied to foreigners
I consider the case at hand, not a slippery slope of hypotheticals.
> I don't want foreign students (or otherwise) being "vocal" for literally any reason whatsoever.
Your opinion doesn't trump universal human rights. Nor should it.
> Go to school, become a citizen if you wish, and then participate in the political process.
What if the political issues affect you as a visa holder? Have you actually thought this though?
> I consider the case at hand, not a slippery slope of hypotheticals.
It's not remotely hypothetical [0], and if you don't know that then you really lack the basic table stakes of knowledge to be weighing in on this at all (as also evidenced by your refusal to acknowledge the UDHR).
0 - https://www.npr.org/2025/01/23/nx-s1-5270572/birthright-citi...
> Your opinion doesn't trump universal human rights. Nor should it.
Guess what? You don't have a universal human right to a visa, even if you do have a right to free speech.
> What if the political issues affect you as a visa holder
I'm not a visa holder. I wouldn't expect to be able to go to China and espouse anti-CCP rhetoric, either.
> refusal to acknowledge the UDHR
Visas aren't a human right, try again.
”I'm not a visa holder. I wouldn't expect to be able to go to China and espouse anti-CCP rhetoric, either.”
You don’t expect to do those things in China because it’s an authoritarian government that doesn’t care about human rights A-Z (all the way from basic labor rights over to internment reeducation camps).
So the question is why are you applying a standard we have for China, which is just slightly above what we expect from North Korea, unto to America?
We are not the country that does shit like what you are describing. This is a temporary dark spot on American history, and you are absolutely on the wrong side of things. All of this joins the embarrassing catalog of American darkness - Japanese internment camps, Chinese exclusion act, segregation, list goes on.
Man, I'm getting emotionally worked up on a Saturday trying to change some [two words removed because hello HN guidelines]'s mind. I hope you're not on the same path as me.
I suggest we let him think what he wants to think. I find it curious anyway when people say they don't consider hypotheticals, humans are all about hypotheticals ("what's going to happen if x happens..."), even apes do so. Not considering them means wanting to be as intelligent as amoebas, and the [term has been deleted] we're trying to converse with seems to be proud of that.
> Your opinion doesn't trump universal human rights. Nor should it.
Universal legal rights don't exist. They are an opinion.
> What if the political issues affect you as a visa holder? Have you actually thought this though?
Yes, that's the entire point.
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> What is the source of this righteous indignation? You think countries invite foreigners here with the patronizing attitude of “you’re lucky to be here, don’t say a fucking word”?
Yes, I do think that's how countries invite foreigners.
> Try your best to not sound so unfuckable.
Looks like I hit a nerve. I'm sure you're a great houseguest.
Your deportation hearing is now scheduled for next week for anti Americanism disguised as jingoistic patriotism. Hopefully there’s a country that will accept you but if not there are some extraterritorial islands we can parachute you on to
Are we now adding US to the list of countries cracking down on free speech?
Obviously yes.
Yes. The moment you must show allegiance to a sitting president, your rights to free speech have been abridged.
I am sure there are many more examples.
This term "sitting" is doing a lot of work. Have you seen the guy's posture? I guess the term "teetering on the edge of a chair president" doesn't have the same ring to it.
For me it has already been on there for quite a while now. Is has just been getting quite a bit worse, since Trump 2
Along with the push for ending birth right citizenship and detaining citizens the goal is a white ethnostate. I doubt Trump is that cognizant of that but Stephen Miller definitely is pushing for that.
> Along with the push for ending birth right citizenship
Which other countries in the world allow pregnant vacationers to birth citizens?
It's enshrined in the constitution. You're welcome to try to ammend the constitution to make it a white only nation. Good luck with that. I guess upping the bribes to certain scotus justices also works.
So is "shall not be infringed"
It appears most of the western hemisphere (Canada, USA, Mexico, most of South America).
> western hemisphere
oh yea to outnumber the native population they were taking over during colonial times.
ironically it came back to bite them now that they are on the receiving end of replacement.
Yeah, I mean, what was that whole we’re going to bring white South African immigrants here and kick brown ones out?
MAGA is a white supremacy movement, but calling this out in America is like trying to tell your best friend her husband is cheating on her. It’s going to be an ugly reveal and difficult conversation, but the facts are the facts.
Doing that would be visa fraud.
Why create any rule if ppl can commit fraud anyways?
Why ask for educational qualifications for h1b because ppl can create fake certificates( many do) ?
Because then anyone can be deported at any time without any more process needed since it's visa fraud. Maybe even get your citizenship revoked one day given how things are going.
Would it? What makes aSM account "official"? If I make a burner account, it's still my account.
you have reveal all social media accounts not one of your choosing.
ppl commenting here without even checking the basics :(
Entry can be denied if you claim to have no social media accounts, so you can in fact only give one of your choosing to gain entry.
Whether not disclosing any others is visa fraud is a matter of legal consideration iff other accounts are discovered before the collapse of the current administration.
fraud is only fraud iff its discovered?
are you a bot ? i am having hard time believing a normal adult human would come up with that .
There are plenty of things that are only "legal thing" once they are officially judged to be so. An obvious (to a layman HNer) crime isn't one until legally declared so.
The same standard applies to many of the apparently unconstitutional actions of the current administration.
Please stop with the paranoid "bot" nonsense, my account is over a decade older than yours is.
> An obvious (to a layman HNer) crime isn't one until legally declared so.
ok so what? Go ahead commit fraud in visa applications?
plenty do already and get visas approved, like i said in my own comment. I've seen ppl get h1b/f1 visas based on fake education certifications.
ppl already know that they can commit fraud. So again, what is that you are even saying?
> Go ahead commit fraud in visa applications?
That would be "fraud", not fraud.
> what is that you are even saying?
I think I was clear; your morally based personal conception of "fraud" isn't relevant to what actual practise is, and this is especially relevant to an administration that might not even be acting legally in the first place.
Maybe these things are fraud, or would be judged so if it goes to court, assuming such a right applies, and you aren't illegally deprived of it; maybe these standards aren't even legally valid.
And if you deactivate the others?
It says "from the last five years"
> I don't get why the US thought that it'd be a good idea to vet social media accounts for visa applications.
Since almost all major social media companies are american, and all major social media/tech companies are state/defense companies, the US already "vets" social media accounts of foreigners and most likely americans as well.
This has nothing to do with "vetting" social media accounts. It's about scaring the world so that the world stops criticizing primarily israel.
If we really want to "vet" foreigners, we'd be doing it secretly so that bad actors feel free to expose themselves on social media. This does the exact opposite. It's about controlling the narrative and preventing criticism of israel.
> It's about scaring the world so that the world stops criticizing primarily israel.
You should back up this assertion with facts and evidence otherwise nobody will take it at face value and it will be categorized as drivel.
It’s a green account whose entire comment history is railing on a single topic without ever citing sources. Flag and move on.
I am taking a second to audibly thank the people who were arguing that privacy still mattered in the age of the internet.
People often don't realize how much they take for granted (like perfect forward freedom of speech) until it is gone.
Students applying from Pakistan are also asked to make their socials publicly accessible for vetting.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1920307/us-consulates-in-pakistan-...
I was wondering if anyone hasn't started such a SaaS yet. Can have an effect of unauthentic MAGA + Israel accounts flooding the social media. However the issue is that it only works if your identity is linked to you, so for most people that would be very embarrassing.
If Americans show flexibility to let you show your allegiance to USA and Israel through anonymous accounts they may be able to flood the social media with fake but real accounts. Bots but real people, if this was Chernobyl they would be called biorobots.
That would be next-gen astroturfing, very hard to detect.
>However the issue is that it only works if your identity is linked to you, so for most people that would be very embarrassing
It could just take the Chinese social media approach of being right on the borderline of satire, but within the realms of what some people really do believe, so a border agent couldn't dismiss it as satire but anyone who knew the poster could.
So many things are being done to protect a single country outside of the USA, even on a different continent, including losing its credibility about free speech and human rights.
Israel
This has little to do with a single country and more with the fact that if someone is willing to fight for anything other than the current administration then one day they might fight against the current administration directly. Same reason Stalin sent those who fought in the Warsaw Uprising against the Germans to Siberia. Today it's the Germans, tomorrow it may be the Soviets.
> "if someone is willing to fight for anything other than the current administration then one day they might fight against the current administration directly."
So what? isn't the core idea in democracy "ruled by the people", Why can't you fight against the current administration with your opinion and opposition to their ideas?
Yes. I think you missed the point of my comment.
The US is not only restricting the free speech of their own citizens but also from citizens of other countries...
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I would think things like removing access to research which contained certain keywords could count, as well as things like ordering the removal of images of women and people of colour from military websites for example.
Words like “female” will flag scientific research grant applications for review and any found to be supporting diversity equity and inclusion face being cut
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/02/05/n...
US universities are being punished for allowing free speech of individual members. The federal government is angling to get these groups to self-censor.
US citizens themselves restrict the free speech of other US citizens, the governing bodies don't have to do much.
Peaceful protest against Israel's destruction of Gaza will get you in trouble.
Research all the anti-LGBTQ legislation at the federal and state levels.
Remember, after all, the 1st amendment covers not only freedom of speech, but also assembly, the press, no establishment of religion, and the ability to petition the government. All of these things have been attacked and will continue to be attacked.
Idaho Teacher ordered to remove “Everybody is welcome” sign in classroom as US government threatens to cut funding for orgs supporting inclusive ideologies (lgbt, “woke”)
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/education/article3...
It’d been going on for a while: they had embedded people at Twitter, Facebook, etc. to act as liaisons to “protect truth” on subjects such as the origins of Covid, hunter Biden’s laptop, the senility of a certain commander in chief, the discussion on males participating in women’s sports, etc. the movement went so far as preventing speakers with opposing views to speak at universities. The idea of safe spaces itself is about censorship of ideas.
All in the name of stopping “misinformation”.
That was just private citizens exercising their own free speech rights, even if you disagreed. Now we have the federal government punishing people with speech and beliefs the president and his cronies don't like. It's a whole different ballgame.
> That was just private citizens exercising their own free speech rights
It was just a 'coincidence' that the US government was putting serious monopoly investigations on every big tech and social media company at the same time it offered these censorship 'suggestions', I'm sure.
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Europe has blasphemy laws
The mythical single entity known as Europe
Some say that they even call themselves a “union of those who are European”
And this "union" has a blasphemy law, does it?
(It does not).
(And even if it did, that wouldn't in any way make the decades long crackdown on free speech in America one single iota better).
Who does? Are brits European?
No, Brits are livestock
He just asked for examples? Can you give some?
1. University funding cancellations because of disfavored but 1A protected protests
2. Attacks on law firms with disfavored clients.
3. Federal law suits against media like NBC, ABC, and investigations of NPR and others.
4. Increased arrest rate for “obstruction” by ICE of people protesting immigration enforcement.
5. Blanket bans on “DEI” speech and retaliation against organizations that promote DEI.
6. An executive Order mandating that schools teach “patriotic” content or lose funding.
7. Banning trans people from the military directly infringing their 1A protected rights to express their identity.
8. Take overs of institutions like the Kennedy Center for the Arts, dismissal of the Librarian of Congress, content regulation of the Smithsonian, take-downs of federal data and images related to disfavored speech.
9. Revoking green cards because of 1A protected cards, denying visas, travel bans - all limiting what speech and associations are available to US citizens.
10. FTC merger rules forbidding coordinated boycotts.
11. Banning the Associated Press from the press room. General attacks on the media as “the enemy of America.”
1. This isn't suppressing free speech. This is classic new deal government. I thought liberals liked that?
2. No one is obligated to work with you, or give you clearances if you're suspected of being against state interests.
3. I thought we were all for government crackdowns on corrupt corporations?
4. Many of these people are obstructionist.
5. DEI is discriminatory. I thought liberals were anti-discrimination?
6. More new deal government. Nothing improper here. You just lost the vote.
7. The military is not obligated to allow anyone to serve. It's a job, like any other. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences, pal.
8. Being selective of what you promote isn't suppression of speech. Is it suppression of speech when Confederate monuments are removed, or did you lose the vote?
9. Those are not citizens.
10. This is regulation to prevent anti-competitive behavior and harassment.
11. Not free speech. You're not obligated to be in a press room
TBH, seems like you care that you lost, not about freedom. Why should I give you any freedom when your goal is to deprive me of mine?
I list several instances of the government coercing speech. You conclude that taking away my freedom is a legitimate goal. Strange.
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• https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-us-justice-dept-policy-...
• https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/anti-protest...
• https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/25/pro-palestin...
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> help me permanently delete data
Surprise surprise. There is no such thing. About time people start understanding the grave consequences of their reckless actions
Makes me wonder, do the big social media companies store deleted data? Probably.
And if they do, will that be available to the boarder agents?
Image being denied entry, because you were 16 and made some edgy posts / memes about Trump 10 years ago. Long deleted, to the point you can't even remember them - but now unearthed by CBP agents, and that's that.
> that she felt “stressed."
Are these people so delusional that they think "social media" sites are even remotely anonymous? Whatever you do, it's up for sale. No wonder meta has billions of active users, most of them with no brain cells. It's extremely concerning that majority of the younger generation has almost no sense of achieving privacy on the internet
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The real world isn't this black and white. It is possible to have issues with some American actions or policies without disliking the country or its people.
It seems fairly obvious that few South Korean students harbor deep anti American sentiment, but many are not clear what shitposts would block entrance to the US.
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I completely support the vigorous vetting of non-citizen seeking entry into the U.S.A. For any non-citizens entering the U.S.A. is a privilege and not a right. They are guests in the U.S.A. and need to respect their host country and its laws.
Regarding the auditing social media, it's not just about their posts, but who they are friends with and who are friends with them. Point and case, your personal social media profile may be benign photos of kittens and snaps of what you had to eat that day, but your brother could be "friends" with terrorist or member of a criminal gang and that person could use your relationship with your bother to extort you after you enter the U.S.A.
Biden's administration let at least 2700 Tren de Aragua gang members walk across the southern boarder. ICE and DHS have successfully arrested these TDA members, but there are more. These people rape, murder, traffic humans and drugs into the U.S.A. Their criminal network (and therefore profits) have been severely disrupted. It's common sense that they are going to seek new and creative ways to get back in business. As they already extort and exploit on a daily basis in Venezuela, why wouldn't they do the same to potential foreign students?
This is just one example.
The criminals will still get in, and the law-abiding foreigners will stay out because "law" is whatever King Donald McFries says nowadays. So congrats, your ensuring the quality of your guests are as shitty as your regime.
It's not about terrorism. It's about keeping people with political views that don't align with Stephen Miller and Donald Trump out. This stuff is actively harming the US.
The drop in tourists from Western Europe certainly appears to be significant. Apparently the US is running a tourism deficit for the first time in a while.
A deficit?! Tariff the tourists!