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U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

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Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#141

Post by paxy »

dboreham wrote: post #58

One thing to know is that apparently the reason for having seemingly idiotic questions on immigration forms ("are you a terrorist?", "are you a nazi war criminal?") is not that the government is stupid but rather that they're there in order to be able to deport someone for answering the question incorrectly in the event that the government wants to deport them but lacks sufficient evidence to pursue a criminal case.…

This is such a stupid explanation. Do people really think the government is going to go "You're a terrorist, but we can't deport you for that. But look here, you checked this form wrong.."

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#143

Post by TOGoS »

komali2 wrote: post #91
justicezyx wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the US political structure was designed to make such things happen.

Can you elaborate?

Well, for starters, we have 2 political parties that dominate most elections. Everyone is told that if they don't like what those parties stand for they need to hold their nose and vote for the one of the two that they dislike less, lest the worse one win.

My personal favorite (to draw attention to) contributing factors are:

- Plurality voting (the possibility of third parties 'splitting the vote' helping otherwise generally unpopular candidate winning)

- Money money money money money. There's not much to stop someone with lots of it from influencing elections by e.g. running attack ads against the person they don't want to win. We talk a big talk about the voters having power, but when most people don't have the time or energy after spending it all making money for the guy who's going to run those ads, they're not going to be well informed.

And there's no incentive for this system to change on its own. Our politicians and the people/corporate entities who pay for them care more about staying in power than they do about 'freedom' or 'democracy' or their constituents' general well being. Our best hope is that people will come to realize that the problem is systemic and start demanding systemic change.

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#144

Post by ameister14 »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #114
ceejayoz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You will have to pardon us if things like visas aren't at the top of the agenda right now. I'm a lefty Democrat, but this is a cop-out. We've been shit on drone strikes and mass surveillance long before the Trump emergency was even a hint over the horizon. There's extensive bipartisan cooperation in Congress on intrusive surveillance via the NSA, ICE, etc.

Democrats at least have a large faction who are willing to complain about things like drone strikes and mass surveillance even when it is their guy doing it. Unfortunately that faction isn't yet large enough to get Democratic politicians to stop doing that kind of thing, but there is some hope that if that faction consistently shows up in primaries for a while they might eventually be able to get some change. Republi…

I seem to remember a solo republican filibustering about drone strikes, continuing to do so about FISA and also fighting the appointment of a CIA Director that not only found torture acceptable but ran a black site. Ron Wyden's the only Democrat that's been there every step of the way.

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#145

Post by hacknat »

dragonwriter wrote: post #106
hacknat wrote: post #98

I’ve gone through the naturalization process myself, and it’s already offensively invasive, this doesn’t seem out of step with what they already do.

Visa applications are a far broader class than people going through the naturalization process, and, while there may be an argument that the naturalization process is excessively invasive, an application for citizenship does justify more depth of scrutiny than a visa application.

Really? I think the opposite. The first gate should be the hardest to he through, especially if you get a visa that is a guaranteed path to citizenship like an H1B (H1B to Green Card to Citizen).

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#146

Post by jbros »

adventured wrote: post #69
ajeet_dhaliwal wrote: post #6

When the United States does something like this others start doing it too, sometimes seemingly just to reciprocate or spite. The US contributes so much to the world with respect to tech, business, culture and science but it’s also an exporter of increasing bureaucracy.

I agree, this is very obviously a policy area where the US should be leading (or at least not setting new negative standards). It's curious though, as the popular thing to claim today is that China is obviously the future. They're going to supposedly dominate everything, from AI to robotics to insert-tech-thing-here. Article after article proclaimed that China would take advantage of Trump's immigration policies to d…

And when the capitalists, (elite, the 1%) see how good the cpc has it, that they can milk everyone else, they will try the same here. I call for economic and miltary containment of China.

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#147

Post by techsin101 »

TillE wrote: post #87
nacho2sweet wrote: post #48

The social media companies are US companies. Why are they hurting their own companies. Why would I want to have a social media account if every country wants to look at what I consider my personal life. Having accounts won't be worth it. Fuck that. I already work at a large university that can't use anything hosted on US servers because of their shitty homeland security server laws. So many cloud services out of huge…

> every country Mostly the US and the UK, it seems. For example the EU Blue Card system is generally quite reasonable: if you have high qualifications and can find a job, you get a work visa, which eventually turns into permanent residency. US and UK immigration tends to be overcomplicated, draconian, and paranoid.

Usually when you screw enough people you have to remain paranoid. There is a reason countries like USA, France, and Uk are always targeted whereas countries like Denmark, Canada, Norway, and so on are never in the news despite being easier to get in, same philosophy, and more wealthy.

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#148

Post by piqalq »

freehunter wrote: post #130
aurelian15 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GitHub is explicitly listed as "social media" on the optional question that is on the ESTA [1] form since 2016. If I remember correctly, the wording is relatively broad, so I would guess that HN and Reddit count as well. [1] https://www.evisaonline.com/en/usa/esta.html

Since when did GitHub stop being a code repository and start becoming a social network? Am I using GitHub wrong?

What do you think commits are?

git commit -m -S “just having my 4th Oreo milkshake haha”

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#149

Post by maerF0x0 »

scottybowl wrote: post #62
dmode wrote: post #32

Trump administration has been increasingly hostile to legal immigrants, so this doesn’t surprise me one bit. Everyday there is a new policy change in USCIS designed to screw immigrants, whose only crime is working on high paid jobs. I am on the verge of losing my work permit after having lived here for 12 years and working in high tech jobs in leading companies.

Why do you deserve a job over a resident with equal skills?

willing to work for less money could be one reason.

besides equal skills could be bringing a valuable experience (eg: Knows the market better than a national)

Re: U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants

#150

Post by rovr138 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #118
elcapitan wrote: post #50

"Sir, we have reviewed your git commit history of the last 5 years and come to the conclusion that you would be gravely endangering the code quality of this country."

I'm OK with making spaces (instead of tabs) a visa requirement.

Got a new project today. Wasted so much time until I figured there’s tabs and spaces mixed in there.
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