Almost the only thing I have is LinkedIn, which is always only as up to date as the last time I changed jobs, which I don't do often.
No Facebook, insta, snap, twitter, tiktok. I subscribe to maybe five channels on YouTube.
My HN account isn't linked to my main 'identity' email address so I could hide it just by having a clean phone (which I do for international travel anyway).
I feel like I'd be suspicious due to the lack of traceability. I've had work colleagues say that they couldn't find a trace of me online (although that was a while ago now, and not colleagues who are adept at online sleuthing).
My age may be just enough to be believably not terminally online.
Wouldn't an HN account need to be mentioned, once this platform is made visible enough, so that the bozos in charge, in the US, take it seriously? A social media ICE would love to dig into such.
Then just say that. Customs has some list that's automatically generated based on a Google search or something like that, and all they're doing is trying to catch you lying. Like the TSA, this screening is done by the lowest common denominator of government employee to catch the lowest common denominator of terrorist or foreign subversive.
My social media is full of rants about the ongoing trend of bringing fascism to the US and the authoritarian and repressive tendencies of the current president.
There's no right to entry at US borders; you can be arbitrarily refused (or much worse) for any subjective suspicion.
(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).
Tying this into the Paul Krugman post about social media tech giants running the US [1], perhaps it's the US running the tech giants for mass surveilance? Especially of foreigners, of course.
Governments around the world criticise social media and tech giants but they still work with them because they want the concentration of power to enable surveillance.
Of course. And it's not just surveillance, it's censorship and narrative shaping -- doing a convenient end-run around the first amendment's prohibition on government infringing speech.
"Officers were instructed to screen for those "who advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to national security; or who perpetrate unlawful anti-Semitic harassment or violence"."
Okay, that's your job then. It's not mine or anyone else's job to just hand everything over.
That's like saying aircraft inspections is the FAA's job and it's not Boeing's job "to just hand everything over." Entering into a country's borders is a privilege and you submit to an inspection in doing so. One of the very first things the American founding fathers did in 1789 was to create a customs service to perform border inspections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Customs_Service.
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, if some speech is indeed unlawful, is it going to matter only if that speech is against Jews or Israel?
Sure but they'll make your day extremely unpleasant before deporting you or if a USC letting you in.
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 shift rotations 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 private hospital staff (oh you can complain to the board as I did, lol, the state board just claims since CBP told them to their license isn't in jeopardy). 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.
What is classed as a social media? I expect they'd want to view by personal instagram, but what about my old business Xitter account that I can't even get into because something went wonky with the 2fa? What about my github? My HN account? Do they want to see my discord history? How will they find my accounts anyway? Not all of them are under the same account name, real name or email address
The answer to all of those is "yes" and they will not bother to find them, they will ask you to list them. Omitting information or providing false information on your visa application is a felony.
It's the same logic as behind the "Are you a terrorist?" question. Lying is itself a crime, and can be used to prosecute you in the future.
What happens if you declare that you don't have any social media accounts?
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.
Then they'll do a quick lookup to confirm if you actually don't have any accounts, and if they find any, they'll reject you because you lied. US agencies already are keeping track of what individuals have what online accounts, so they're asking to confirm, not to learn.
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.
Considering the amount of people who always go to the World Cup yet is skipping the US-specific events of 2026, I'm not sure it'll be so interesting after all. Will more or less be like how Las Vegas seems to be today, a former shadow of itself.
These timelines are dangerously close to the background investigation I had to go through to get a security clearance as a US Citizen. The fact they want this from tourists is appalling.
Non-Americans: Do not come here. America is not safe.
Americans: The proposal is up for public comment at the moment. The document asks for comments to be sent to CBP_PRA@cbp.dhs.gov.
Precisely speaking, they're looking to catch any critique of Israel because it'll provide a broad dragnet that will exclude a lot of Muslims and libs.
(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.)
My anecdote is that my wife and I are the only people who live in a large condotel (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/condotel.asp) in Florida mostly year round[1]. Everyone else who owns units see them as investments/second homes.
When the owners got together once a year or on FB you could tell that most of them were pro-Trump and I just kept quiet to keep the peace. But now every single one of them and the management company are seeing their rental rates plummet with the drop in tourism because people from especially Canada are not coming down to Florida during the winter. But also tourism has dropped from other countries.
Still none of the owners will address the elephant in the room and the property management company has to address it. But they walk on eggshells.
[1] We only leave for extended periods of time during spring break and the summer when rates are high because of spring break and summer break and we travel and I work remotely anyway.
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
What do you mean, secret? Your every action online is stored in massive data centres either operated by the US government or American mega corporations.
I can’t believe people STILL believe there is anonymity left online!
Unless you take some “enemy of the state”(great movie btw) level actions, they know everything worth knowing about you.
Funny that people are mostly discussing the details of what social media would be scanned. My question is more: why would I ever want to enter US again?
The government will be able to bury the impact of its international tourism pariah status in some sort of claim about people not wanting to fill this in. But the reality is visitor numbers are going to tank no matter what.
People from the UK in particular visit the USA because it is the USA: brash, welcoming, colourful, vibrant, thriving, free, fun. It's a holiday from being reserved and quiet. Things are louder, bigger and brighter, less apologetic, more colourful.
I guess it is low on the administration's priority list, but Trump is building a USA that no one from the UK in particular will want to visit. You should see the comments on the increasingly desperate attempts to advertise discount flights on Facebook. We'll go elsewhere.
> who advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to national security; or who perpetrate unlawful anti-Semitic harassment or violence
The regime will simple classify pro-LBQT, anti-MAGA, and anti-Trump comments as "threats to national security" or as supporting terrorism.
Also funny how anti-Semitic harassment is emphasized, while other forms such as anti-black or anti-Latino harassment is not.
> Also funny how anti-Semitic harassment is emphasized, while other forms such as anti-black or anti-Latino harassment is not.
That's because they're using "perpetuating antisemitism" as code for "being mean to Israel". It's not really about fighting discrimination, that's just a cover framing which sells better than mandatory allegence to a foreign state.
> The regime will simple classify pro-LBQT, anti-MAGA, and anti-Trump comments as "threats to national security" or as supporting terrorism.
Did they not already?
Antifa, which doesn't exist as a formal organization, literally means "anti-fascism" and is now a terrorist organization. Of course these are the same people who want to arrest people for treason when they said "You do not have to follow illegal orders"
It's just mental gymnastics of Olympic-level proportions.
Another buckwild measure for absolutely nothing. Since being directly affected by this in my real life, my resentment for these measures has grown ten-fold. These enforcement agents are costing my family friends everything in real value and real sentimental time.
Because of recent anti-immigration measures in the new Administration, a great Mexican family friend of mine has a dying uncle here in the States - with only a few months to live. And with a vast majority of his relatives in Mexico, almost none of them can get visa approval to see him and say goodbye. Not even Humanitarian Parole program visas are being accepted for ANY one of the family members; and they are good, upstanding people who took the process seriously.
I have absolutely nothing nice to say about the rule-writers for immigration in this Administration - and most past ones, and I have nothing mean to say about otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants in America - until the process for legal immigration becomes necessarily easier.
So, hypothetically, if I were to say that the Israeli government is committing genocide and Trump is a fascist, would they not let me in? Well, I don't want to travel to the US while it's reigned by a fascist government anyways, so let's go: The Israeli government is committing genocide and Trump is a fascist.
Your comment history is very odd. You talk about America as though you are a citizen but several of your comments have grammatical errors that indicate you are a foreigner.
I visited in June 2025, roadtrip down the West coast. I was somewhat concerned about immigration, but surprised we were able to use the Mobile Passport Control app and utilise the fast-line to skip a 3~ hour immigration queue.
I was surprised at how few international tourists there were. I had read about a decline, but everywhere we went felt quite empty...
On the other hand, the actual conversations I hear my friends having about business-trips to US are more stressed than conversation my dad used to have with my mom when he was traveling to do business for banks in India, Pakistan or Russia decade or two ago.
You seem to be one of those silly people who conflate antisemitism with disliking how the state of Israel behaves under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu.
The media is generally fairly complacent about it - the drama is good ratings material. And you can't link angry blue sky posts or substacks really.
Occasionally someone does comment about it and get flagged, ofc? and this article is part of the news about it, just like the discussion of the WB buy out and how paramount was going to offer trump control of a news channel for the same one or etc
I wonder if this is a media bubble thing, because basically all I see online is the opposite. The difference between the screaming outrage there and the complete absence of news reporting it tends to get pretty freaky.
I mean, we've got 20 point swings in special elections and mass protests ranging from large to huge all over the place and you'd barely know if you were looking at the evening news.
Political discussions have always been frowned upon in HN. Any discussion just leads to whataboutism. What’s the point?
On the other hand, this is what a large part of the country has always been about. The establishment has just been able to keep the worse parts of it down and do everything through dog whistles instead of outright racism.
I’ve seen people afraid to talk about politics for financial reasons. Everything from Micheal Jordan’s “Republicans buy shoes too” to James Thompson of Stratechery who euphemizes that Trump is “transactional” instead of just outright saying “he openly accepts bribes from companies” - referencing the $15 million Paramount gave him directly for the merger to go through.
> Even here on Hacker News. It's just not discussed. US citizens are either championing MAGA or just acting like everything is normal or they're disinterested.
That is BS. Hacker News is full of it. My FB feed is full of it. The US media I see is full of it. Anything but silence.
> Even here on Hacker News. It's just not discussed. US citizens are either championing MAGA or just acting like everything is normal or they're disinterested.
Or their accounts were banned for being too contrarian, or they were systematically downvoted into invisibility.
BLKNSLVR|2 months ago
Almost the only thing I have is LinkedIn, which is always only as up to date as the last time I changed jobs, which I don't do often.
No Facebook, insta, snap, twitter, tiktok. I subscribe to maybe five channels on YouTube.
My HN account isn't linked to my main 'identity' email address so I could hide it just by having a clean phone (which I do for international travel anyway).
I feel like I'd be suspicious due to the lack of traceability. I've had work colleagues say that they couldn't find a trace of me online (although that was a while ago now, and not colleagues who are adept at online sleuthing).
My age may be just enough to be believably not terminally online.
M95D|2 months ago
Those people wouldn't want to travel to a police state anyway.
netfortius|2 months ago
nh43215rgb|2 months ago
rayiner|2 months ago
bilekas|2 months ago
OccamsMirror|2 months ago
akie|2 months ago
Am I not allowed to say that?
techblueberry|2 months ago
unknown|2 months ago
[deleted]
any101|2 months ago
[deleted]
perihelions|2 months ago
(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).
flowerthoughts|2 months ago
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46204100
Edit: Krugman
graemep|2 months ago
Governments around the world criticise social media and tech giants but they still work with them because they want the concentration of power to enable surveillance.
quantummagic|2 months ago
joquarky|2 months ago
an0malous|2 months ago
[deleted]
JKCalhoun|2 months ago
Okay, that's your job then. It's not mine or anyone else's job to just hand everything over.
rayiner|2 months ago
throw310822|2 months ago
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, if some speech is indeed unlawful, is it going to matter only if that speech is against Jews or Israel?
mothballed|2 months ago
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 shift rotations 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 private hospital staff (oh you can complain to the board as I did, lol, the state board just claims since CBP told them to their license isn't in jeopardy). 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.
Have fun!
carlosjobim|2 months ago
ChrisArchitect|2 months ago
State Department to deny visas to fact checkers and others, citing 'censorship'
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46156979
voidUpdate|2 months ago
FabCH|2 months ago
The answer to all of those is "yes" and they will not bother to find them, they will ask you to list them. Omitting information or providing false information on your visa application is a felony.
It's the same logic as behind the "Are you a terrorist?" question. Lying is itself a crime, and can be used to prosecute you in the future.
flotzam|2 months ago
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.
embedding-shape|2 months ago
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.
Artoooooor|2 months ago
TavsiE9s|2 months ago
rjsw|2 months ago
dogemaster2028|2 months ago
I don’t go to UK anymore for example.
SirFatty|2 months ago
rayiner|2 months ago
embedding-shape|2 months ago
stego-tech|2 months ago
These timelines are dangerously close to the background investigation I had to go through to get a security clearance as a US Citizen. The fact they want this from tourists is appalling.
Non-Americans: Do not come here. America is not safe.
Americans: The proposal is up for public comment at the moment. The document asks for comments to be sent to CBP_PRA@cbp.dhs.gov.
rsynnott|2 months ago
What, precisely, are they hoping to learn, here?
estearum|2 months ago
(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.)
ChrisArchitect|2 months ago
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/10/2025-22...
snthd|2 months ago
"EU-US Privacy Shield" and similar are a crock of shit.
MSFT_Edging|2 months ago
The amount of talent wasted on building ad-networks is mind blowing.
cindyllm|2 months ago
[deleted]
singularity2001|2 months ago
raw_anon_1111|2 months ago
When the owners got together once a year or on FB you could tell that most of them were pro-Trump and I just kept quiet to keep the peace. But now every single one of them and the management company are seeing their rental rates plummet with the drop in tourism because people from especially Canada are not coming down to Florida during the winter. But also tourism has dropped from other countries.
Still none of the owners will address the elephant in the room and the property management company has to address it. But they walk on eggshells.
[1] We only leave for extended periods of time during spring break and the summer when rates are high because of spring break and summer break and we travel and I work remotely anyway.
rckt|2 months ago
yolo3000|2 months ago
Gud|2 months ago
I can’t believe people STILL believe there is anonymity left online!
Unless you take some “enemy of the state”(great movie btw) level actions, they know everything worth knowing about you.
SanjayMehta|2 months ago
DaSHacka|2 months ago
We offload the riffraff onto other countries, and they get a minor bump in GDP.
oktcho|2 months ago
dragonwriter|2 months ago
exasperaited|2 months ago
The government will be able to bury the impact of its international tourism pariah status in some sort of claim about people not wanting to fill this in. But the reality is visitor numbers are going to tank no matter what.
People from the UK in particular visit the USA because it is the USA: brash, welcoming, colourful, vibrant, thriving, free, fun. It's a holiday from being reserved and quiet. Things are louder, bigger and brighter, less apologetic, more colourful.
I guess it is low on the administration's priority list, but Trump is building a USA that no one from the UK in particular will want to visit. You should see the comments on the increasingly desperate attempts to advertise discount flights on Facebook. We'll go elsewhere.
random9749832|2 months ago
lawn|2 months ago
The regime will simple classify pro-LBQT, anti-MAGA, and anti-Trump comments as "threats to national security" or as supporting terrorism.
Also funny how anti-Semitic harassment is emphasized, while other forms such as anti-black or anti-Latino harassment is not.
jsheard|2 months ago
That's because they're using "perpetuating antisemitism" as code for "being mean to Israel". It's not really about fighting discrimination, that's just a cover framing which sells better than mandatory allegence to a foreign state.
arczyx|2 months ago
probably because they don't have their own AIPAC.
k_roy|2 months ago
Did they not already?
Antifa, which doesn't exist as a formal organization, literally means "anti-fascism" and is now a terrorist organization. Of course these are the same people who want to arrest people for treason when they said "You do not have to follow illegal orders"
It's just mental gymnastics of Olympic-level proportions.
HaZeust|2 months ago
Because of recent anti-immigration measures in the new Administration, a great Mexican family friend of mine has a dying uncle here in the States - with only a few months to live. And with a vast majority of his relatives in Mexico, almost none of them can get visa approval to see him and say goodbye. Not even Humanitarian Parole program visas are being accepted for ANY one of the family members; and they are good, upstanding people who took the process seriously.
I have absolutely nothing nice to say about the rule-writers for immigration in this Administration - and most past ones, and I have nothing mean to say about otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants in America - until the process for legal immigration becomes necessarily easier.
saubeidl|2 months ago
Can't make this shit up...
poulpy123|2 months ago
josefritzishere|2 months ago
maxerickson|2 months ago
gherkinnn|2 months ago
Data remains, but the moral interpretation changes over time. And more and more data will be used against you.
shafyy|2 months ago
ochronus|2 months ago
aa_is_op|2 months ago
[deleted]
DaSHacka|2 months ago
dogemaster2028|2 months ago
[deleted]
lurk2|2 months ago
fjghajkhdfgjlk|2 months ago
[deleted]
echelon_musk|2 months ago
nness|2 months ago
I was surprised at how few international tourists there were. I had read about a decline, but everywhere we went felt quite empty...
a-saleh|2 months ago
On the other hand, the actual conversations I hear my friends having about business-trips to US are more stressed than conversation my dad used to have with my mom when he was traveling to do business for banks in India, Pakistan or Russia decade or two ago.
_menelaus|2 months ago
decremental|2 months ago
[deleted]
cheraderama|2 months ago
[deleted]
sjsdaiuasgdia|2 months ago
These are not equivalent concepts.
raw_anon_1111|2 months ago
s_dev|2 months ago
[deleted]
phantasmish|2 months ago
nemomarx|2 months ago
Occasionally someone does comment about it and get flagged, ofc? and this article is part of the news about it, just like the discussion of the WB buy out and how paramount was going to offer trump control of a news channel for the same one or etc
the_pwner224|2 months ago
Though yeah, it is a bit eerie how out in the real world it's just business as usual.
parrellel|2 months ago
I mean, we've got 20 point swings in special elections and mass protests ranging from large to huge all over the place and you'd barely know if you were looking at the evening news.
raw_anon_1111|2 months ago
On the other hand, this is what a large part of the country has always been about. The establishment has just been able to keep the worse parts of it down and do everything through dog whistles instead of outright racism.
I’ve seen people afraid to talk about politics for financial reasons. Everything from Micheal Jordan’s “Republicans buy shoes too” to James Thompson of Stratechery who euphemizes that Trump is “transactional” instead of just outright saying “he openly accepts bribes from companies” - referencing the $15 million Paramount gave him directly for the merger to go through.
unknown|2 months ago
[deleted]
graemep|2 months ago
That is BS. Hacker News is full of it. My FB feed is full of it. The US media I see is full of it. Anything but silence.
TimorousBestie|2 months ago
Or their accounts were banned for being too contrarian, or they were systematically downvoted into invisibility.