Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 304 posts

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#221

Post by vidarh »

andsoitis wrote: post #160
vidarh wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an actual point that doesn't involve me divulging private information of people who are not part of this conversation? My identity is on my profile; identifying the people in question would be rather easy. If what you're suggesting is that the US is not being more draconian than most, you're free to make an actual claim about how. I'll note that this article is about people eligible for the visa waiver pr…

For one: the US is way more permissive than the EU when it comes to visa duration. Common to get a 10 year US visa. Schengen visa? For the duration of your visit (for which you have to have bought plane tickets and accommodation before showing up for a visa appointment). The EU also charges pretty hefty fees for a Schengen visa, which I view as a racket and/or xenophobia. Don’t even get me started on the requirement…

> Common to get a 10 year US visa. Schengen visa? For the duration of your visit

Both of these are possible. Neither are nearly that simple.

For starters the validity period depends on the country, and the type of visa, and since you mentioned Africa, applicants from the vast majority of African states are limited to single entry visas with 3 months validity for B-visas. A few can get 4-5 years, and a handful (I think Morocco, Botswana, South Africa) can get 10 years.

Given that, it's rather odd that you used specifically African countries as the basis for comparison and then pulled out 10 year duration.

On the other side, it is reasonably uncommon to be limited to just the stay for Schengen visas, though it can certainly happen, especially for applicants from poorer countries. And validity can be up to 5 years. But you certainly can

> The EU also charges pretty hefty fees for a Schengen visa, which I view as a racket and/or xenophobia.

The standard cost for a Schengen visa is 90 euros or 105 USD. If you've paid more that has been service fees to application centres, not the EU fees.

The application fee for a US B-visa is 185 USD, in addition there is an issuance fee for some countries, most of them African.

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#222

Post by egorfine »

tavavex wrote: post #218
egorfine wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My sympathies are with you! Is there anything you can do about it?

What do you expect from them? Unless saxenaabhi is code for "US CBP Commissioner" or some position of an equivalent power, there is very little that an HN user can do about it at this point.

"What can I do alone?!", said 100m+ people.

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#223

Post by hermitcrab »

cess11 wrote: post #115
daveoc64 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Besides, why would you want to come if you don’t like it here? There's a difference between saying that you disagree with the way that a country is being run, and wanting to be violent or pursue criminal activity against that country or its people. What you're missing is that the former should be legal in any democracy (and is in the UK), and the latter shouldn't be legal anywhere (and isn't in the UK). You're claim…

'You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech.' Voicing support for the group Palestine Action has been met with quite harsh responses in the UK, even though that group is arguably non-violent in that its criminal actions are directed towards property…

>Voicing support for the group Palestine Action has been met with quite harsh responses in the UK, even though that group is arguably non-violent

That was my opinion. However one of them was alleged at a recent trial to have hit and injured a policewoman with a sledgehammer.

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#224

Post by morkalork »

yolo3000 wrote: post #47
rckt wrote: post #30

This whole thing worldwide will lead to division in the society and to people having secret social media accounts. Only the most lazy and stupid ones will be handing over their private data to any gov security forces.

With so much browser fingerprinting and the biggest social networks being US companies, I wouldn't be surprised if already a company like Palanti has a dataset with all your history

They don't need fingerprinting, all the American social media has probably already been given a sealed FISA order to hand over account lists with ip access logs.

I feel like it's the same as the "I am not a terrorist" declaration check-box. You know your socials, they know your socials. They want to see if you lie.

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#225

Post by hermitcrab »

daveoc64 wrote: post #163
rayiner wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech. Free speech means the country must tolerate what citizens say; it does not mean the country can't exercise its discretion over its borders to bar entry to foreigners who say things citizens don't like.

That's certainly a stance you can take, but it's not one I'd expect to see from a US administration that's repeatedly (including from the president less than 48 hours ago) got on its high horse to criticise what it perceives as a government crackdown on freedom of speech in European countries.

Yes, the hypocrisy is off the scale. Free speech, as long as it is something I agree with.

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#226

Post by gizzlon »

DaSHacka wrote: post #167
SanjayMehta wrote: post #111

Sounds like a good plan to improve the tourism industry of other countries.

It's a win-win, the way I see it. We offload the riffraff onto other countries, and they get a minor bump in GDP.

with riffraff you mean.. what exactly? All tourists?

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#227

Post by vinni2 »

rayiner wrote: post #118
vinni2 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have managed to scare me off at least. So I will spend my money elsewhere.

Good thing international tourism counts for only about half of a percent of U.S. GDP: https://wttc.org/news/us-economy-set-to-lose-12-5bn-in-inter...

Who said I visit US for tourism?

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#228

Post by notrealyme123 »

DaSHacka wrote: post #153
notrealyme123 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Freedom of speech" i can really feel how free it is over there. Freedom to not let people in with other opinions, and freedom to force your opinion onto other countries. Really great.

> Freedom to not let people in with other opinions Yeah, that's more or less what it means to have a border. > and freedom to force your opinion onto other countries. Really great. They are free to reject it, as we have theirs. You should be happy USAID was shut down.

Crazy how china became the good guys here. Well played.

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#229

Post by rayiner »

embedding-shape wrote: post #164
rayiner wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Probably most people are in a dire enough situation that they cannot afford to protest, and are busy enough trying to figure out how to re-organize their living situation. What is your mental model of the median American citizen?

Boiled down and greatly simplified; someone who struggles to afford food, housing, and child care. Seems most independent analysts highlight the large swaths of people unable to get basic necessities, just one example of many: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/in-every-corner-of-the-co... > The nation’s affordability crisis has not spared middle-class families, one-third of which struggle to afford basic necessities…

> Boiled down and greatly simplified; someone who struggles to afford food, housing, and child care.

This is not a good description of the median American. Your article is about the income required to afford a "comfortable life," which is a vague target. You can get a concrete idea of what this target seems to mean by looking at the calculator they use: https://www.epi.org/resources/budget/.

For a 2 adult/2 child household in the Baltimore metro area, the calculator estimates you need a household income of $126,000 to meet this "comfortable life" benchmark. For a single person with no kids, the standard is $54,000 a year. It does not make sense to say that someone making $50,000 a year or a family making $100,000 a year in Baltimore (which is a cheap area) is "struggling." My sister-in-law's friend, a 20-something who works as a nanny, probably makes less than that and she has time and money to go out, travel, etc.

The basic error in this analysis is that it bakes in a number of assumptions about standard of living. It assumes that people with significantly below-median incomes (it defines middle class as the middle 60%, so someone at the 25th percentile is counted as middle class) can live alone in a median house, etc., send their kids to corporate daycares, etc. But people with below-median incomes live in below-median houses, they have roommates, they rely on family for childcare, etc. My sister-in-law's friend has roommates, which frees up a lot of money to go do stuff.

If you applied this standard to Europe, you would probably conclude that people are quite desperate there, though of course they are not. In Spain and Italy, half of adults 25-34 live with their parents. They probably couldn't afford to live by themselves in a median-priced apartment. But does that mean they're struggling and would have no time to protest?

Re: US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

#230

Post by rayiner »

andor wrote: post #143
rayiner wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech. Free speech means the country must tolerate what citizens say; it does not mean the country can't exercise its discretion over its borders to bar entry to foreigners who say things citizens don't like.

Free speech is generally considered a human right that should apply to anyone, not just citizens. It's the basis of democracy, and a healthy democracy does not reject a visitor just because they criticized its government.

To the contrary, it's pro-democratic. In a healthy democracy, people should be able to vote to create the kind of society they want. That includes being able to exclude, through their government, outsiders who don't share their values.
Post reply on HN