
New US visa requires applicants for social media handles from the last 5 years - esistgut
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336042-white-house-approves-social-media-checks-for-visa-applicants-report
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merricksb
Previous discussion of Reuters story linked from this article:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14465534](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14465534)
(84 points, 50 comments)

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nabla9
>The new questions are reportedly voluntary, but the form says that failure to
provide the information may delay or prevent the processing of an individual
visa application.

What I suspect will happen is that if you are European with typical European
name, probably no delay if you don't report. If you are from a Muslim country,
visa is denied.

This kind of thing is typical for autocratic governments. You make lots of
rules and regulations that are typically not enforced. Their sole purpose is
to cause difficulties for people rulers don't like. "We just follow the
regulations."

~~~
rogerbraun
If you are European you're probably part of the visa waiver program anyway.

~~~
SSLy
I am an European, and am not part of the program (I have a passport issued by
Polish government.)

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danieltillett
As someone who has to travel to the USA for business I welcome all this
activity - it is so much more enjoyable to have the seat next to you empty
when you fly. I do wonder how long the airlines can continue to fly on half
load.

~~~
msl09
Does this affect the process for all visas? Including tourism?

~~~
Svip
Yes. It's part of ESTA. I did not fill my social media accounts in - because I
don't have any - when made an application, and to my surprise it was approved.
Still a question of whether I get to enter the US next week, though.

~~~
chinathrow
You do have a HN account though.

What's listed within ESTA at the moment?

~~~
Svip
HN is not one of the sites listed. Although, you could select 'other', but I
did not consider HN social media. Maybe my definition of 'social media' is a
lot narrower than the US government's. I mean, does being a member of a
classic bulletin board count?

~~~
l33tbro
Which social media are listed outside of FB, Twitter, and IG? Can't seem to
find this. The article mentions it includes email. Is this included?

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k-mcgrady
Social media companies need to fight this. If they don't and it becomes
widespread all my SM accounts will be deleted and I'm sure I won't be the only
one. I'm not wasting time having two accounts or taking chances lying. I'm
just going to delete the accounts. Global travel + my privacy is more
important to me.

~~~
scarlac
I don't like it but honestly, how would social media companies fight it?

~~~
tajen
A good donation to EFF for a freedom campaign would go a long way at
coordinating the fight. And boost their image.

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heisenbit
The US destined travel is down since October and the trend downwards is
consistent. Square who should have fairly up-to-date stats recently published
their stats: [https://medium.com/foursquare-direct/coming-to-
america-52831...](https://medium.com/foursquare-direct/coming-to-
america-528312934221)

At one point these trends will be impacting main street but by then it will be
too late.

~~~
lotsofpulp
It already has in NYC. Look up hotel room rates tonight for Manhattan, they're
in the $150s even for full service hotels. In my experience, for a sunny
summer Saturday night in Manhattan, a lot of hotels used to have minimum 2
night stay restrictions, and only Sat nights would be $300+ per night. There
were tons of more rooms built, but still, demand was not expected to drop this
quickly this much.

~~~
misiti3780
how do you know the low rates are not the result of competition from Airbnb ?

~~~
lotsofpulp
I work in the space, and while I can't conclusively state that it isn't,
industry reports indicated a downturn in demand or increase in supply mostly
towards the end of last year (via reduced occupancy percentages and average
daily rate). Airbnb has been around for a while in NYC, and if anything, per
news reports, I would expect their listings to actually be fewer or holding
steady based on the local governments restrictions. Even if it was increased
supply, there seems to be a more sudden drop in average daily rate in the past
6 to 9 months than before.

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eddyg
Why is everybody blaming this on the current administration?

from June 2016:

Agency Information Collection Activities: Arrival and Departure Record (Forms
I-94 and I-94W) and Electronic System for Travel Authorization [1]

Comments were accepted up until August 22, 2016 on the proposed changes.

[1]
[https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/06/23/2016-14...](https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/06/23/2016-14848/agency-
information-collection-activities-arrival-and-departure-record-
forms-i-94-and-i-94w-and)

~~~
maxerickson
_Why is everybody blaming this on the current administration?_

That doesn't seem to be especially true (so far here people are mostly
discussing the details of the implementation).

In any case, the current administration is responsible for choosing to
continue existing policies. That doesn't make the current administration
solely responsible for the trajectory of US immigration policy, but it shares
the power to change things with Congress and so will of course be a focus of
criticism.

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razzaj
What is really worrying though is the normalization of privacy devaluation.
Soon the uk will follow suite and then others. And sooner than later we ll be
"back" to 1984

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draugadrotten
"Consular officials can now request all prior passport numbers, five years of
social media handles, email addresses and phone numbers from applicants, as
well as addresses, employment and travel history stretching back 15 years"

Heck, I don't even keep records of my old passport numbers and much less
travel history stretching back 15 years. As I travel weekly or bi-weekly, the
list is not easily remembered or reconstructed. Does travel include ferry,
boat, car or bike rides or is it just air travel?

~~~
lotsofpulp
Everyone in the world should enable Google location history tracking, just in
case they want to travel to the USA in the future.

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highprofit
Is the US trying to be the most immigrant unfreindly place to discourage new
immigrants and there by reduce immigration?

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maga
I don't use Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/etc, but ordinary people seldom believe
it ("come on, you are a programmer, how come you don't use web?!") and often
assume I don't want to share my profile with them. I'm afraid the gov agencies
will take the same approach and automatically assume the absence of the social
media as an attempt to hide something. Luckily in this case, though, I hope
not to have to visit USA anytime soon.

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CM30
Hmm, this is worrying. Certainly makes it less appealing to move to the US any
time soon.

Though I also wonder whether you can avoid this by simply having two accounts,
one with a fake name and details that the controversial stuff goes on and one
with your real name that's mostly squeaky clean. How much do they research
this stuff?

~~~
tempay
The problem then is that you've made a knowily declared false information
which itself is a crime a could reasonably be used to investigate further. If
you wish to visit the US these are the rules you have to accept. Personally
I've decided to not attend conferences in the US or visit for the foreseeable
future.

~~~
cm2187
For me it is the accumulation of all these annoyances together, not each
individually, which makes a trip to the US now really unappealing. Long queues
for passports on arrival, long queues at the security, laptop & tablet ban
(some planes are still using VCR based flight entertainment, and most movies
suck), this attitude that airports, airlines and law enforcement have of
ending each interaction with their customers with a threat. Now this. Some
people actually like to spend their holidays in some boot camp where they will
be shouted at and get their ass kicked. I myself don't enjoy that.

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polack
This was already "optional" information requested in the ESTA application
since at least last year, so what's changed since? That it states more
explicit that a failure to enter the information could prevent you from
getting approved?

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dboreham
Is it just me or does the headline fail to parse? "requires applicants
for..."???

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discombobulate
Another example of bullshit from governments. Last time I said something,
someone told me to slow my roll.

People's freedom is being eroded an inch at a time! (Or ~2.5 cm if you prefer
the metric system).

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steve371
Thank god. They don't want my HN account.

~~~
tajen
Especially our HN accounts where we say the NSA/TSA/FBI are threats to our
safety (depending on context) and we use false names with burner phone-based
authentication on Facebook. Honest question, I still wonder what is so bad
that I'm now using the same protections as criminals, apart from hiding that I
don't want to be tracked.

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Keyframe
As if they don't know already? Check out Canadian immigration papers as well -
same thing.

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hobarrera
No mention of them requiring a password as well though.

I wonder what happens when I don't remember -- I deleted my facebook account
over a year ago, and legitimately don't remember my handle. All I can say is
that my usual username (hobarrera) was taken.

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kzrdude
Does this impact citizens from visa waiver countries?

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Havoc
Yeah they need to fill in the ESTA forms which asks for social media. Last
time I saw the form it was marked as optional though - unsure whether that
part changed

