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US demands social media details from visa applicants

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Re: US demands social media details from visa applicants

#141

Post by godelski »

Swizec wrote: post #85
diveanon wrote: post #13

I meet a lot of tourists on a daily basis, and I have not heard anyone say they want to visit the United States in a very long time. I can't imagine how much worse it is for people that are forced to travel there for business. If the United States is trying to isolate itself from the rest of the world it is definitely succeeding. As a side note, I have not spoken to a tourist from the US on the island where I live in…

Have you seen how many vacation days most americans get? It’s not a lot and most of it goes towards visiting family around the major holidays.

Also add in that household income is (fairly) stagnant[0] but costs are increasing.

Anecdotally the only people I know that visit other countries either are: not from the US; come from a wealthy family; or have little money and that's just what they spend their money on. I know very few middle class people that visit other countries (outside of work related tasks). The excuse is always "I can't afford it." For me, that's my excuse. But that's not only money but time (which is correlated). I mean a round trip from my location to London is about $2.5k (similar cost for anywhere in Europe, Japan, or New Zealand). If I had a couple grand to drop on a vacation I'd do it. Though I'll say that I can get a round trip to Malaysia for under $2k, which is more reasonable (especially considering expenditures while there are less).

[0] https://www.advisorperspectives.com/images/content_image/dat...

Re: US demands social media details from visa applicants

#142

Post by mLuby »

refurb wrote: post #125
beached_whale wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is spoiled. Definitely better than here in North America, but is isn't spoiled to be afforded basic human rights of not being treated like cargo when crossing an imaginary line.

This is a ridiculous argument. There is a huge demand for people to immigrate to the US and it has every right to screen people looking for visa’s however it wants.

This is a ridiculous argument. First, in theory any sovereign country can do whatever it wants, but it definitely shouldn't. Second, the comment is about simply visiting (or god forbid having a connecting flight in) the US, not applying for visas (which certainly deserve more thorough handling). Third, the richest and most powerful nation on Earth should be setting a high standard for humane treatment of all people, especially when that same country espouses such beliefs as freedom and human rights.

Re: US demands social media details from visa applicants

#143

Post by dang »

icxa wrote: post #56

[flagged]

Please do not take HN threads into nationalistic or political flamewar. Would you mind reviewing the site guidelines and following them when posting here? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20078978 and marked it off-topic.

Re: US demands social media details from visa applicants

#144

Post by dang »

jasonlotito wrote: post #117
godzillabrennus wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nativism is a reaction to the decline of the middle classes prospects. Half of America is not doing well and has been overlooked. The better educated amongst us are blinded by their own progress and weren’t looking inward. We will see more focus on nativist policies in our lifetime as automation continues to eat jobs.

> Half of America is not doing well and has been overlooked. I wasn't aware they were looking for government handouts to fix their own failings. Instead of waiting for the government to give them government jobs, they should instead take some personal responsibility for their current state. > The better educated amongst us are blinded by their own progress and weren’t looking inward. Seems to me like the better educa…

This comment breaks the site guidelines. Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: US demands social media details from visa applicants

#145

Post by billforsternz »

I travelled to the US recently for the first time in 20 years or so. I had to apply for a Visa waiver (ESTA) and from memory they had a social media section that was flagged as "optional". I'm not big on social media and decided that my rarely used accounts would be of no use or interest to anyone. If I remember correctly though I did put my Github account on there (unless my memory is playing vicious tricks on me, yes Github was listed). Call me crazy but I decided that if the US government was interested in my C++ chess code, great!

I did gird my loins for a horribly unwelcoming experience at the airport (semi off topic but widely discussed here). At JFK it was actually super nice, but we were first off the plane and there was no queue to hit. We did take a side trip to Canada and had to enter the US again at O'Hare and that was a different story entirely. Seemingly a million planes arriving at once. Even miserable looking and bemused cabin crew queuing from here to eternity. When we finally got to the head of the queue(s) the over-worked, under manned staff were perfunctory but non unpleasant. I haven't seen anything as disorganised and shambolic in arrivals at a European airport ever, but maybe I've just been lucky.

Re: US demands social media details from visa applicants

#146

Post by jMyles »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #122
jMyles wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1 - no. The constitution explicitly only applies to US citizens / on US soil. Why on earth do you say such things? Like, seriously, what's the point of saying something so easily refuted? Is this just to be inflammatory for the sake of it? The suggestion that the US Bill of Rights only applies to citizens is so unbelievably toxic and contrary to the history of the country I am saddened to even read the words. The B…

> Why on earth do you say such things? Like, seriously, what's the point of saying something so easily refuted? Is this just to be inflammatory for the sake of it? I imagine your reply came from a good place and you're genuinely trying to improve the knowledge out here, but I just want to take a moment to address something that comes up often: this tone is very combative and it makes it incredibly hard for someone to…

You're right of course.

But I also think that there is a palpable and strange injection into the zeitgeist a notion that non-citizens are less human - and it comes at the same time that a lot of racism and anti-immigrant ideology is reaching its way into public policy.

I'm finding myself with decreased patience for it than I might have for other falsehoods making their way through echo chambers.

But yeah, that's probably my bad.

Re: US demands social media details from visa applicants

#147

Post by mLuby »

makecheck wrote: post #101

This was stupid when it was just potential employers expecting this information, and it’s even stupider here. Let’s see how many bad reasons for this I can come up with in 30 seconds: 1. Social media may be popular but it is not universal (I still know people without a Facebook profile for instance). Thus, while the government should expect that someone may truthfully answer “I don’t have social media accounts”, I’ll…

>if I were to set up a secret club or criminal enterprise, do you think I’d be writing about it on Twitter and Facebook

You'd be surprised… :D

>In other words, this policy can definitely hurt legitimate applicants and is not likely to add any useful information when screening applicants that “should” be denied.

Exactly, I think that's the point. "Give me six lines written by an honest man and I will find something in them which will hang him." (~Card. Richelieu) All that extra content from social media will give decisionmakers plenty of latitude to justify whatever decision they already wanted.

Re: US demands social media details from visa applicants

#148

Post by godelski »

refurb wrote: post #130
godelski wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but what terrorist is going to say "Damn, they check for terrorists? I guess I won't apply." I don't think you even need the context of America's presence in the Middle East to figure out that terrorism is illegal. It isn't like it is only illegal in America. Same for things like human trafficking. I can see that with the "have you ever done drugs" question, but terrorism or human trafficking? That's quite…

Those just cover the gov’ts ass. Of course no one will answer yes, but if the govt finds out later you did commit a terrorist act, they have the power to boot you out.

But that circles back to my original question. How does the gov not have the power to boot you out (or jail) just from committing the terrorist act in itself? OR even just from finding out that said person has terrorist ties? I don't buy the answer of needing the question to boot someone out. You can already boot them out for committing crimes. And I'm sure there's a question along the lines "Do you intend to commit a crime while in the US?" (I'm sure this is already on there) The above questions definitely fall under this. So I don't understand how these questions don't just become noise. I'd imagine noise in these forms leads to more mistakes too.

Re: US demands social media details from visa applicants

#149

Post by godelski »

jorblumesea wrote: post #108
godelski wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. I don't think it is black and white. While I'd say that there are isolationist aspects it isn't like how China has been (probably deserved considering the British). There's definitely a scale. We clearly aren't North Korea, which is what people think of when they think of an isolationist country. But I also can't think of a country that isn't at least a little isolationist. So I wouldn't say that isolatio…

I don't think you understand, the US has a long and well established history of this, even to the point of formal political policies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_non-intervention... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Doctrine_of_Unstabl...

I wouldn't really call a country that is stereotyped as meddling in the affairs of everyone else strictly (key word) isolationist. Seems like the opposite stereotype of the Hermit Kingdom.

Re: US demands social media details from visa applicants

#150

Post by justinjlynn »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #104
godelski wrote: post #80

This seems isolationist. Why would we want to isolate ourselves? For a country that was founded upon immigrants, that extremely benefited (and continues to) from diversity of thought and ideas, why would we want to stop that? I'm just under 30 and I still remember growing up how I was told that a major part of what made America great was the melting pot. In academia and at labs I've seen this be a huge benefit. But I…

Nativism is a reaction to the decline of the middle classes prospects. Half of America is not doing well and has been overlooked. The better educated amongst us are blinded by their own progress and weren’t looking inward. We will see more focus on nativist policies in our lifetime as automation continues to eat jobs.

> has been overlooked

You mean exploited?

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