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Twitter, Reddit Challenge US Rules Forcing Visa Applicants To Disclose Their Social Media Handles (techcrunch.com) 47

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
Twitter and Reddit have filed an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit challenging a U.S. government rule change compelling visa applicants to disclose their social media handles. From a report: The lawsuit, brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the Brennan Center for Justice, and law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, seeks to undo both the State Department's requirement that visa applicants must disclose their social media handles prior to obtaining a U.S. visa, as well as related rules over the retention and dissemination of those records. Last year, the State Department began asking visa applicants for their current and former social media usernames, a move that affects millions non-citizens applying to travel to the United States each year. The rule change was part of the Trump administration's effort to expand its "enhanced" screening protocols. At the time, it was reported that the information would be used if the State Department determines that "such information is required to confirm identity or conduct more rigorous national security vetting."
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Twitter, Reddit Challenge US Rules Forcing Visa Applicants To Disclose Their Social Media Handles More

Twitter, Reddit Challenge US Rules Forcing Visa Applicants To Disclose Their Social Media Handles

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  • I'm not sure this amounts to much of anything? I mean, if you're a U.S. citizen already, you should have some rights and freedoms that cover things like government agencies demanding to know what handles you use on web sites and services. But we're talking about VISA applicants here.

    Seems like with the prevalence of social media today, it's not unreasonable to collect this information so they can take a look at what kind of comments a person was posting for all to read? This isn't demanding they turn ove

    • It is sort of ridiculous though - what if you don't have a social media presence? Will they believe you?

      Some platforms they can search, some are more difficult (/. for example - not impossible to link handles to RL but not as trivial as say, FB)

      I don't have accounts on any of the major things (I only made an account here after the AC thing, which I think is ridiculous) - but I bet they would consider that more of a red flag than having accounts. At least I'd be worried about it when filling out the form.

      A

      • It is sort of ridiculous though - what if you don't have a social media presence? Will they believe you?

        Perhaps they will not, but if they find it later, then lying on your visa application may be grounds for being deported or losing your U.S. citizenship (example - John Demjanjuk).

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Calydor ( 739835 )

        More to the point; what if you forget about one? What if you had that one secondary Youtube account back in 2010 where you posted a couple of videos and then never logged in again? What if you made some anonymous throwaway accounts on Reddit for the exact purpose of not being linked to your real name or location?

        • I don't think they would care about that anyways. Either way, this isn't a civil rights thing, it's the government vetting non-citizens entering the country for national security purposes. It's pretty commonly accepted internationally that every country has the right to decide who may enter their borders, and the US is no exception.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        It is sort of ridiculous though - what if you don't have a social media presence? Will they believe you?

        The main point of the form is that lying or omitting anything required on the form is a crime in itself, if for some reason you become a subject of investigation they don't have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you committed a crime in the US. Like if I remember correctly one of them was whether you planned to seek illegal employment in the US. That way they don't have to prove you worked illegally, only that you made an attempt and off to jail you go. There was a bunch of others too asking for a str

        • Exactly like criminalizing conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor as a felony. I heard about that being tried a long time ago. No idea how it played out.

    • I'm not sure that the Taliban is dumb enough to give the State Department their Facebook account that's filled with "Death To America!" comments. They'll probably give them the "other" Facebook account that they use for sharing kid pictures to your relatives instead.

  • Whether these social media companies like it or not, at the border you have absolutely zero rights. It's that way by design. Border guards can detain or do anything they want to you.

    If you have social media accounts, you'd be wise to delete them or change the password to something inane. Change it back once you get through.

    And it's like this in any country.

    • Errr. No it's not. I've never handed over any social media handles to any border official any time I've entered or left the UK, Ireland or the Isle of Man (my limited sphere of movement).

      • The comment is most likely a reference to the 100 mile border zone [aclu.org] in the US. Where warrantless search and seizure is allowed as part of federal border search exception on both non-citizens and citizens. The only probably cause necessary is that the officer suspects you might be traveling or meeting with someone traveling in the future.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Wait, ICE enforces laws against time travel now? When did this happen? Is it all forms of time travel or just the type that causes paradoxes?

            Maybe the US government hates Whovians. At least the TSA is going to have a lot of fun searching the TARDIS.

      • Errr. No it's not. I've never handed over any social media handles to any border official any time I've entered or left the UK, Ireland or the Isle of Man (my limited sphere of movement).

        That's probably because you don't look like a terrorist, have ties/visited to countries that promote terrorism, and are probably a boring old IT guy.

        Grow a beard, repeatedly travel to the Middle East for extended trips, and dress like a Muslim and I can guarantee you won't get the same treatment at the border.

    • This is untrue. Rights apply everywhere under US jurisdiction. Ie, the entire country up to and including the invisible border, and also US territories, embassies, and airspace. Rights apply to citizens, residents, legal vistors, and illegal visitors. Even duly convicted criminals still serving time retain a lot of rights.

      The snag in this case is the the US government does not recognize a right to privacy, and visa applications are alo usually made by people not already on US soil.

  • Easy, create a two handles, one you use to post lol kitties and invite everyone in the world to that one, and another for real use.

    Truly amazing how stupid the pols and law people are about on-line activity. Like the bad people will tell the truth anyway.

    • It's there so that in the future if they have an axe to grind with you and find out you lied on the official forms that they can threaten to charge you with a very serious crime. It's still a stupid law though, because even if they do manage to find some undisclosed account later, anyone who's up to no good has probably already accomplished whatever ill intent they had planned.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by lgw ( 121541 )

      Easy, create a two handles, one you use to post lol kitties and invite everyone in the world to that one, and another for real use.

      Truly amazing how stupid the pols and law people are about on-line activity. Like the bad people will tell the truth anyway.

      You have failed to understand the most important rule of security: security isn't binary. Methods that catch most or even some bad guys can still be great methods! As long as they're not too costly for the benefit you derive.

      And most bad guys are really stupid. Yes, the lock on my front door does almost nothing to deter a criminal who is either motivated enough to break a window, or knows the first thing about locks. But locking my front door makes a big difference in practice (fun fact: the best home s

    • Easy, create a two handles, one you use to post lol kitties and invite everyone in the world to that one, and another for real use.

      So @POTUS and @realDonaldTrump, but which is which?

      • Clearly "realDonaldTrump" is the fake one. It sounds as fake as "Master of Disaster", "Ultra Laser" or "Doctor Doom".

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by thomst ( 1640045 )

          DontBeAMoran sneered:

          Clearly "realDonaldTrump" is the fake one. It sounds as fake as "Master of Disaster", "Ultra Laser" or "Doctor Doom".

          "Doctor Doom?"

          I'm a Latverian citizen, you insensitive clod ... !

  • Twitter (Score:5, Funny)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @03:09PM (#60121894)

    Twitter is the only entity not afraid of Trump.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Twitter is the only entity not afraid of Trump.

      Considering Trump is addicted to Twitter, I don't see why Twitter can't take advantage of that.

      I'm sure whatever Trump wants to do to Twitter will disintegrate the moment Twitter starts making it harder for Trump to spread his message.

      After all, there are so many other avenues Trump could pursue to replace Twitter, yet he hasn't. I'm assuming he's intelligent enough to realize that point and that most of his followers will move if he does.

    • > Twitter is the only entity not afraid of Trump.

      If Trump *REALLY* wants to destroy Twitter, all he has to do is quit Twitter and Join gab.com https://gab.com/ [gab.com] Twitter will lose a ton of attention and corresponding ad revenue.

  • Trump got rid of the pandemic response team and brought about this pandemic .. now he's ditching the WHO what do you think will happen long term? It's not going to help us find emerging asymptomatic viruses. When Ebola happened in 2014 and the first round of SARS happened in 2003 we stopped it by helping out right when it started .. instead of saying "it's their problem lol" and allowing it to spread. Ebola was more contagious than COVID-19 we controlled that. The original SARS (2003) was just as contagious

  • Yup, you would definitely get their real social media names if they where up to no good, I mean everyone knows people don't have more than one account, am I right?

    • I mean everyone knows people don't have more than one account.

      Absolutely! After all, it's written in the terms of service that you can only have one account per person!

  • The con artist should never be allowed in another country. That is all this is about, to see if someone said anything mean about the con artist such as the illegitimate child he had with that illegal immigrant in his failed tower in New York.

  • One for them to find, one to keep. Same goes for social media accounts - make two. One you disclose on your application, one you use for real.

  • I'm sure there's something in Twitter's list of prohibited uses that can be construed as applying to this use case. Twitter should make every effort to block government IPs or other IP addresses linked to mass surveillance.

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