Us Could Ask Foreign Tourists for Five-Year Social Media History Before Entry
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The US is considering asking foreign tourists to hand over their five-year social media history before being allowed entry, sparking a lively debate about the potential impact on tourism and national security. While some commenters joked about the impending 2026 World Cup and its potential to be a litmus test for this new policy, others pointed out that tourists may be deterred from visiting the US if they're subjected to invasive screening or unpleasant treatment at the border. One commenter noted that people may still visit the US to see family or experience aspects of the country they enjoy, despite disagreeing with the current administration. The discussion highlights the tension between national security concerns and the potential chilling effect on tourism.
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FIFA World Cup 2026 will be hosted in the US, Mexico, and Canada.
I don’t go to UK anymore for example.
Visit family.
That's not mentioning you can dislike the current administration without disliking other aspects of the US. The US is big and diverse.
Okay, that's your job then. It's not mine or anyone else's job to just hand everything over.
A few things that's happened to me as a citizen after invoking right to remain silent to CBP
1) Told I could not enter the country. Held up for 3-24 hours in holding areas. Officials come in and claim they will revoke my passport under "national security"-esque grounds. Lots of bluffing and huffing and puffing. Diesel therapy of being made to go back and forth to interrogating officers and then constantly prodded to be deprived of sleep. After a few shifts no one is left that know why you were being fucked with so you then [hopefully] get let go.
2) Dogs constantly come in, none of them alert. Eventually they get tired of finding nothing and write up a fraudulent affadavit for a warrant claiming one alerted anyway. Strip searched, hands cuffed and feet chained, imprisoned in a holding cell with people you can't speak the language of, diesel therapy again in prisoner van driven all over the state. Taken to two different private hospitals where CBP officers claim there is drugs up my ass. Cursed and touched without consent by hospital staff. Hospital staff rack up bills, which are sent to me privately and go to collections. Medical records state nothing was found but they "Think I'm packing drugs" anyway despite absolutely no medical evidence.
My sympathies are with you!
Fact is hardly anyone believes these things until it happens to them, because they don't want to believe we live in such a dystopia.
> A few things that's happened to me as a citizen after invoking right to remain silent to CBP
What happened that caused you to “invoke your right to remain silent”? When you enter a country, including the US, you are asked some pretty standard questions that would be weird to refuse to answer.
What question did you not want to answer?
This caused me to be fucked with mercilessly for about 10 years. Eventually I was investigated by an HSI officer who seems to have determined I'm just a crazy libertarian or something, now I tend not to get held up terribly long.
And this happened 10 years ago? I do not see how that connects to discussion of the current tightening of immigration rules, to be honest.
Is there anything you can do about it?
Probably US Customs and Border Protection.
What are some of the complications? what country are they from?
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 program, which does not include any African countries - travelling to the US from African countries is also far more draconian than what is outlined in the article, so it's unclear why you think the comparison is relevant.
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 to hand over your passport at hotels in Europe!
My point is that characterizing the US as “more draconian than most” is quite far from reality, which is a lot more nuanced.
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.
Interesting that threats to national security and "antisemitism" are put on an equal footing and clearly above everything else; also makes me wonder what is "unlawful antisemitic harassment"- the US considers every speech lawful as far as I understand. Or is it saying that harassment against any other group is fine?
Not a rhetorical question - there are already forms that ask for social media info, e.g. student visa applications. Surely some of the applicants just don't have any social media profiles. Maybe some of them are reading this. I'm curious about their experiences.
If you truly don't have social media, their search won't show any hits, and there isn't much you can do about it. Just make sure you're actually answering the question truthfully.
The anime avi posters will have to level up their OPSEC
Did we really forgot about what happened back in 2013 so quickly? Did people assume all these agencies suddenly stopped doing what they've been doing for decades? Nothing you do on the internet with regular network connections are hidden to these entities, don't live falsely under the impression that you can.
Am I not allowed to say that?
As an enemy to free speech, you wont be allowed in.
Besides, why would you want to come if you don’t like it here?
- Jordan Parlour for Facebook posts that were deemed ‘hateful.’
- Bernadette Spofforth for a post with a “mild inaccuracy”
- Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine, after raising concerns in a private parents’ WhatsApp group about the hiring process of their daughter’s school
- Lucy Connolly, for a post calling for mass deportation and to set fire to hotels housing immigrants
- Norbert Gyurcsik, for having “extreme right wing music”
Germany, you too.
A quick search suggests that the photo with the gun was the cause of the arrest, given there were stalking allegations "involving serious alarm or distress" from someone he had a conflict with, where the gun was one part of what caused the complainint to (claim to) feel threatened. Police may well have overreacted due to the gun post, but your framing leaves out rather relevant details.
> - Jordan Parlour for Facebook posts that were deemed ‘hateful.’
Appears to have incited violence by advocating an attack on a hotel, something he pleaded guilty to.
> - Bernadette Spofforth for a post with a “mild inaccuracy”
Was arrested for posting a fake name for an attacker, but released and faced no further action.
Calling potentially putting a target on the back of someone innocent by connecting them to a violent crime a "mild inaccuracy" is at best wildly misleading.
> Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine
These people did get a wrongful arrest payout, but the claim was most certainly not just raising concerns in a private parent's WhatsApp group. The claims including harassment, and causing a nuisance on the school premises. The claim was still wrong, and the payout reflects that the police should not have been so quick to believe the allegations before making an arrest. But your claim is still hyperbole.
> - Lucy Connolly, for a post calling for mass deportation and to set fire to hotels housing immigrants
At least in this one you admitted the arrest was over incitement to violence.
> - Norbert Gyurcsik, for having “extreme right wing music”
No, for buying and distributing albums whose lyrics breach terrorism legislation and intended to incite racial hatred.
I have plenty of issues with UK terror legislation, which I believe is being abused to shut down legitimate speech at times, but framing this the way you did is again wildly misleading and hyperbolic.
But even if none of your claims were wildly misleading, none of them support your initial claim:
> You are allowed to say it. Unlike UK, you won’t be arrested. But you won’t be allowed in.
... about a comment referring to criticism of the government.
None of the cases above were relevant to that. Most of them are relating to classes of speech that are not protected in the US either.
Family, work, others in the group who enjoy it, the level of enjoyment might still be above the level of frustration, wanting to help, emergencies, etc. I could think of many reasons one would want to go to a country even though you disagree with ~50% the population + current leaders.
I've been in North Korea as an example, but I'd never claim to support the ideas and politics of their leader(s).
What makes you say that? Granted, I'm just an outside observer trying to see what's going on, but since the majority isn't protesting as far as I can tell, it doesn't seem like the majority doesn't care too much currently. 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.
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 such as food, housing, and child care.
> Across the 160 U.S. metro areas studied, at least 20% of middle-class earners cannot afford to live in that place, after adjusting for local income ranges and price variations.
When you don't know how to afford food for the week or pay the next rent, you're hardly interested in going out on the street and protest. Been there and done that, and politics, no matter how aggressive or "against you" it can feel, is really the last thing on your mind in those situations.
A lot of it's that. Our GDP is inflated by bullshit like over-paying for healthcare to the tune of double-digit percentages of total GDP, among other things, so we're flat-out not as rich as we look on paper, as a country. Our social safety net is really bad, government retirement systems and disability are sub-par by OECD standards, and we may have as few as zero paid vacation days or ability to refuse a shift (without being fired for it).
Anyone under the top 20% or so in the US is struggling, or at least stressed out by knowing that one bad month can mess them up for years and years and ruin any long-term plans they had.
We're also a lot more spread out than most countries. It's a lot more expensive and time-consuming to go protest in DC when you live in, say, Colorado, than it is for someone in Marseilles to go attend a protest in Paris. So they go to some local protest with 50 people instead, or maybe to one in Denver with a couple thousand, and you never hear about it. And the protests don't get rowdy (they might get teargassed anyway, of course) because see above about the "one bad month" thing—an arrest without charges of a working adult can easily end up making their family homeless, because they lose their job and can't get another one fast enough (and it's much, much worse if even very low-level charges are filed, even if the charges don't stick or are dropped—our legal system is great at eating thousands of dollars for what ends up being nothing, besides further schedule disruption bringing further risk to employment)
A "vast majority"... where? On bluesky? In Europe? Cuz it sure as hell ain't here
This lack of nuance is exactly one of the major flaws of American society, it's either team red or blue, in-group or out-group, black-and-white thinking is rather childish...
Freedom to not let people in with other opinions, and freedom to force you opinion onto other countries. Really great.
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.
Half things people criticize the current administration for enforcing wouldn't fly in China either (and more), but the real and final blackpill is we really should be copying them in more ways than one.
And we don't even have things like hidden police officers stalking influencers that conveniently drop by to check on them when they show something problematic on stream. (See: Hasan's recent trip to China, where officers surrounded him to check his phone within 30 seconds of him showing a Xi Jinping meme to his stream)
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 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.
I know which side of the pond I'd rather be on.
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 with the aim of slowing actual violence.
There are other similar developments in UK state policy.
That was my opinion. However one of them was alleged at a recent trial to have hit and injured a policewoman with a sledgehammer.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-obhMBSWi4c
BBC reporting:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1dzq41n4l9o
The accused person claims to have panicked due to how the police were interfering. If I understand the article correctly the cop was off work for three months due to the injury.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2025/12/the-filton-t...
It's the basis of democracy, and a healthy democracy does not reject a visitor just because they criticized its government.
I understand your point, I just have a different theory of rights. Just because something is logically conistent doesn't mean I agree with the starting premises.
Personally, are any of your beliefs or statements things that could ban you for entry into the US? Because I have quite a few things that I have said on social media which would likely prevent my entry. It certainly doesn't make me feel like a "member of a body politic" when that body treats my beliefs as intrusive and foreign.
The idea you'll be arrested for mere criticism of the government in the UK is utter nonsense.
Good ol "if you don't love it, leave it" argument. Nothing beats that!
I like plenty of folks in, for instance, Texas. I still think the government there is illegitimate in foundation and criminal in action.
(And you are misled by assumptions of privilege, any readers who think this could never happen to you. Your social non-conformity (rejection of social media) is quirky and geeky and completely harmless; and surely the nice government man will understand this).
https://apps.bea.gov/scb/issues/2025/02-february/0225-travel...
California does bring in more tourism money, but it's still less percentage wise.
Don’t want any negative comparisons being made
What, precisely, are they hoping to learn, here?
(I'm not just saying this to be inflammatory. We already know the administration has been going after legal immigrants on the basis of criticisms of Israel. This is a completely reasonable connection to this social media policy.)
The reason they are creating all sort of censorship and unconstitutional rules to prevent criticism of Israel is, surprise!, to benefit Israel. It's otherwise incredible how Israel happens to be always the lucky recipient of all sorts of benefits and favours that are all intended for some other purpose. Come on.
What? Because MAGA hates Muslims and libs, that's why. What's confusing about that?
Yes a lot of the policies are designed to benefit Israel, however that's completely distinct from being designed to benefit Jews. The administration doesn't care about ant-semitism on its own merits, but it does care about protecting Israel.
Do some reading on the theological love affair between American evangelicals and Israel to understand the distinction more clearly. The short version is that evangelicals need Israel to be controlled by Jews in order for their end-world prophecies to come true. Said prophecy includes all the Jews being left here on earth post-rapture to face 7 years of horror.
Yes, people do literally believe this and yes, it is a significant force in American politics.
No, evangelicals need all the Jews to go back to Israel for their end of the world prophecy to come true. So why don't they just pass laws to expel them from the US? It would be criminal of course, but coherent with their goals. The fact is, coherence stops when it stops benefitting zionists. They are nutters but their folly is well directed.
Not sure why you feel the need to specify that Jews and zionists are not the same. Nobody has mentioned Jews so far (except for the frankly naive idea that this preoccupation with "antisemitism" is actually about Jews- the most accomplished, safe and protected group in the US- rather than about Israel.
Not according to literally any evangelical I've ever spoken to, nor any mainstream evangelical in US theo-politics.
> you're claiming that Israel is getting some specially favourable treatment by sheer chance
I made no such claim.
My claim is that they're getting "favorable" treatment as a purely instrumental means to an end. In this case (the visas) the end is to exclude Muslims and libs. In other cases it's to bring back kamikaze Jesus. None of it has to do with actually liking Jews.
> Finally, why you feel the need to specify that Jews and zionists are not the same.
Because otherwise a person literally can't parse the factual statement that American evangelicals love Israel but don't care for Jews?
They already have sovereignty, so why don't evangelicals lobby to withhold all aid to Israel unless they get to work and rebuild the temple?
> I made no such claim. My claim is that they're getting "favorable" treatment as a purely instrumental means to an end.
That's exactly the claim I was talking about. You strive to justify every favorable treatment Israel gets as the fortuitous side-effect of something that has nothing to do with those actually materially benefit from it- that is, those who live in Israel or consider the promised land of their own people. Isn't that a bit suspicious to you?
> Because otherwise a person literally can't parse the factual statement that American evangelicals love Israel but don't care for Jews?
I understand this, but can't help thinking that this alliance with religious fanatics is too lucky to be random. I mean "they want absolutely nothing from me except giving me money and protecting me politically and militarily? That is great, how do I get more of these? Who can I finance and boost to spread this religion even more?"
Sure: Because rebuilding the temple would trigger a regional war and evangelicals want Israel to win that war, ergo cannot withhold aid.
More generally, because despite people actually believing these things, they find it much harder to put into real logical action. Same reason people who believe the end times are fast-approaching for some reason aren't selling all their belongings and knocking off their bucket list.
> Isn't that a bit suspicious to you?
No not really. My theory explains both the rampant anti-semitism throughout the GOP and the extreme pro-Israel sentiment within the GOP. Your theory fails to explain half of it.
Not sure how to parse your last paragraph. Who said it's random? It's not random at all: there's a clear lineage between evangelical and Jewish belief systems. It's super not-random! Their prophesies are intertwined because they're derived from the same sources.