United States visa applicants now required to hand over social media usernames

The State Department is now requiring nearly all applicants for US visas to submit their social media usernames, previous email addresses and phone numbers.

Key points:

Travellers will have to surrender their handles for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube
Critics say it will unfairly target immigrants and travellers from Muslim-majority countries
The change is expected to affect about 15 million foreigners who apply for visas to the US
It's a vast expansion of the Trump administration's enhanced screening of potential immigrants and visitors.

The department says it has updated its immigrant and non-immigrant visa forms to request the additional information, including "social media identifiers".

United States visa applicants now required to hand over social media usernames

This will be interesting. The question that I have that does not seem to be addressed is what happens if you do not have any social media handles? I do not have a facebook profile or twitter handle or any such thing. in fact the only social media presence I have is on a few old school discussion forums like this one, non of which I will be letting any government officials know about. I joined ATS years ago with a burner e-mail and most always run a VPN when I'm online. No way I'm telling anyone from the US governent about that.

Next year I might be travelling to the US to visit a good friend of mine. I plan on bringing no tech with me apart from a camera. Be interesting to see how I go getting through customs.

It is quite worrying the extent our social media use is being used to make assumptions about us and screen us in the real world. And that ranges from prospective employees being searched and observed through online medium to get an idea and feel for the candidate through to examples such as this with US visas. And then there is China with their social scoring...

The only socil media I have is a LinkedIN profile for work purposes (headhunting executives to cold call!) and a disabled facebook account that allows me to just use the messenger function.

a reply to: harold223

I wouldn't give them anything.

Actually I don't have any accounts other than FB and I can't remember the last time I logged in to that account.

It's getting to be ridiculous!

For some people all I can say is "I told you so!" The main reason I didn't create a hundred and one social media accounts is because I always worried about it coming back to haunt me.

in my opinion it's not a fair way to judge a person's character. Seriously how many times are posts made after having a few drinks? Sometimes a person may write something being sarcastic or thinking it's a joke but it may not come across that way to whoever reads the comment. It happens on this site.

Even those with a visa , its been a 3 day waiting period before one can fly out of their country for a background check.
The whole world is becoming a police state. And this is a fact, unless you have political connections in Govt. your travels some day will be limited.
All govt. will control all aspects of ownership went that happens. Airplanes, cruise ships, you name it and your friendly anti-patriot official will call the shots if you want to travel.
They already have "kill switches " on cars, right?

Says everybody who complacently allowed the Patriot Act to pass along with the NDAA and so on.

We all traded freedom for security, and NOW you want to get "outraged"??????

You better put on your "I'm Complicit" hat and realize everything that came after our collective apathy CAN and WILL come home to roost!

You can willfully ignore that fact if you want.

DOESN'T MATTER.

Pandora is out of the box, and no political figure no matter what side is going to put her back, short of the People overthrowing the existing government, CONSTITUTIONALLY or otherwise.

So with that being said, LOGICALLY you should be giving this two thumbs up.....this is what we wanted, this is what we get.

Quite frankly, its absolutely necessary!

You are ASTONISHINGLY naive to think otherwise.

a reply to: IAMALLYETALLIAM

What about those of us who don't use social media, or who have political sensitive accounts and can't risk doxing themselves?

Could a journalist or activist trust that their identity would be safe?

I don't have any social media accounts. This is pretty much the extent of my 'online presence'. I have heard there are employers who won't hire people that don't have social media because either they don't believe them or they think you have something to hide. I didn't grow up with social media so I never felt the need to start having accounts. Hell, I don't even like cell phones. I pay a company $100 bucks a year to keep my name off the internet. I like my privacy.

I wonder what would happen to someone like me with no social media presence.

a reply to: EternalShadow

What the hell, dude? I sure as heck didn't want the 'Patriot Act', but at the end of the day no one gave a damn what I thought and they just implemented it anyway. Don't blame people on here...there wasn't a thing any of us could.

originally posted by: Metallicus
I don't have any social media accounts. This is pretty much the extent of my 'online presence'. I have heard there are employers who won't hire people that don't have social media because either they don't believe them or they think you have something to hide. I didn't grow up with social media so I never felt the need to start having accounts. Hell, I don't even like cell phones. I pay a company $100 bucks a year to keep my name off the internet. I like my privacy.

I wonder what would happen to someone like me with no social media presence.

Thats actually my main concern. Will my refusal to adopt social media some day come back and bite me by limiting employment opportunities and my ability to travel? Ridiculous. There is a serious part of me that wants to go full luddite and reject everything digital; go full analogue. Trouble is, the information online is so valuable. There is always libraries though.

a reply to: harold223

Really? Can’t they just sign in with Facebook?

Who really is the fool.

Ever since i went onto the internet i have had 2 social media IDs.

One bland for employers to see. As i had a top secret clearance.

One for my real use.

All it takes i one letter misspelled to hide your dirty social media account.

a reply to: harold223

I'm sure social media presence will eventually become akin to a person's credit. For whatever reason there are plenty of employers out there that won't hire you without a credit check. Not to mention it's pretty much impossible to buy a house or car or even rent an apartment now without a credit card tied to your name.

God forbid someone can actually live within their means and not be in debt.

This is just another level of control they're implementing over society. By requiring a credit score it means you're indebted to TPTB. By requiring a social media presence it means they potentially have information with which they can blackmail you.

We've seen all these reports of ransomware in the news recently, but if you think about it our government has already deployed a more subtle form of ransomware against every single person in this country.

time for the rest of the world to ask the same from USA citizens …. they form an big risk too…!

"critics say" lol. They should have opened their pie holes when this was ramping up in 1993 and then 2001. Maybe Muslim countries should have got their crazies in check before this got out of hand as well.

I do think the intel community is searching for "seditious" activity. I find it more than interesting, actually telling, that they don't shine the light on themselves. Since they have been the key players working against the constitution, the president, the people and the rule of law using the media, imported drugs, the education and pharmaceutical industries as their propaganda driving and enforcement engines.

BTW, asking for your social media names is just to confirm that you are honest with them. I agree it's invasive, but they did this with me in 1986 when I started working with the military. They wanted all my hacking aliases and the teams I worked with like TDT and the gang of five. This is just a natural progression in information gathering.

I don't really care personally what they do as far as information gathering as I know what they are, since I worked for them in CI, weapons development and military strategy. Anyway, I already have quite a large file and have 2+9 natsecs against me, so I am already on the books. (waves at Jim and Gary at CSIS).

Cheers - Dave

A friend of mine is a Lawyer in a South America country who helps his clients get US Visas. Here is his official take on these changes, what he tells his clients:

Translated by Google:

This demand is fine. We always recommend telling the truth when applying for a visa. Prudence for those who boast of anti-imperialists on social networks but dream of going to Disney with their children and shopping at a mall in Florida.

The United States does not want to give visas to those who hate the country.

They would like you friends to be allowed to enter their countries, where you live with their families, foreigners who hate and criticize them in their country and who are "forced" because their places of origin "are paradise" but Are they ruined by corrupt governments? No, if they come to our countries it is to respect them. It's what the United States is asking for. If we do not have anything against the United States, this requirement should not worry us. "Which owes nothing fears nothing."

People aren’t gonna like this reply in all probability .

But it’s our house play by the rules or don’t come.

Kind of like when you visit somebody’s house and they want you to take your shoes off.

Their house their rules .

a reply to: harold223

Don't have any social media-media accts, nor remember even 1/4 of old user names, emails or passwords...

a reply to: DanDanDat

from your translation

The United States does not want to give visas to those who hate the country.

They would like you friends to be allowed to enter their countries, where you live with their families, foreigners who hate and criticize them in their country and who are "forced" because their places of origin "are paradise" but Are they ruined by corrupt governments? No, if they come to our countries it is to respect them. It's what the United States is asking for. If we do not have anything against the United States, this requirement should not worry us. "Which owes nothing fears nothing.

LOL. Now tell me the difference between the above and the regime in China which cracks down on dissidents;

And they call it the land of the Free.

Twitter, Facebook, Youtube banning users and now the US Government wants your passwords.

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

The difference is that my friend is just a citizen of a south American country giving his opinion and advice to his clients. He is not a government official from ether his country, the US nor China.

a reply to: mysterioustranger

Same here. No Facebook, No Instagram. All I have is LinkedIn for business purposes.

I was thinking about this before though.. What if someone who is applying for Visa in USA just temporarily disables their account for 14 days? lol Loophole found.