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Korean students seek 'digital undertakers' amid US visa social media screening

64 points by djoldman

by neom

1 subcomments

It's not just students btw... we're dealing it this too. My wife is a Korean university professor teaching at an American university, and her visa needs to be renewed by next month. I'm Canadian and she has residency in Canada but the Korean embassy in Canada advised her to travel back to Korea to renew it. She got back to Korea end of May to find that the US embassy in Korea had paused appointments. Monday last week she was able to make an appointment for it, and indeed she was advised her social media will be screened.

by jan_Sate

8 subcomments

I don't get why the US thought that it'd be a good idea to vet social media accounts for visa applications. If someone's having ill intent, one could easily create a burner account and fill in some random content for the sake of getting thru the visa application. Or they could even just purchase an account somewhere on the internet.
Sad to see what US has become.

by gorjusborg

0 subcomment

I am taking a second to audibly thank the people who were arguing that privacy still mattered in the age of the internet.
People often don't realize how much they take for granted (like perfect forward freedom of speech) until it is gone.

by pythonbase

0 subcomment

Students applying from Pakistan are also asked to make their socials publicly accessible for vetting.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1920307/us-consulates-in-pakistan-...

by mrtksn

1 subcomments

I was wondering if anyone hasn't started such a SaaS yet. Can have an effect of unauthentic MAGA + Israel accounts flooding the social media. However the issue is that it only works if your identity is linked to you, so for most people that would be very embarrassing.
If Americans show flexibility to let you show your allegiance to USA and Israel through anonymous accounts they may be able to flood the social media with fake but real accounts. Bots but real people, if this was Chernobyl they would be called biorobots.
That would be next-gen astroturfing, very hard to detect.

by tuyguntn

2 subcomments

So many things are being done to protect a single country outside of the USA, even on a different continent, including losing its credibility about free speech and human rights.

by ognarb

1 subcomments

The US is not only restricting the free speech of their own citizens but also from citizens of other countries...

by efitz

3 subcomments

I hope that social media screening looks for any signs of scrubbing, and that scrubbing results in a “no”.
If you don’t like America, it seems hypocritical for you to come here for personal benefit.

by udev4096

0 subcomment

> help me permanently delete data
Surprise surprise. There is no such thing. About time people start understanding the grave consequences of their reckless actions

by TrackerFF

0 subcomment

Makes me wonder, do the big social media companies store deleted data? Probably.
And if they do, will that be available to the boarder agents?
Image being denied entry, because you were 16 and made some edgy posts / memes about Trump 10 years ago. Long deleted, to the point you can't even remember them - but now unearthed by CBP agents, and that's that.

by udev4096

0 subcomment

> that she felt “stressed."
Are these people so delusional that they think "social media" sites are even remotely anonymous? Whatever you do, it's up for sale. No wonder meta has billions of active users, most of them with no brain cells. It's extremely concerning that majority of the younger generation has almost no sense of achieving privacy on the internet

by aaron695

0 subcomment

by danielktdoranie

2 subcomments

I completely support the vigorous vetting of non-citizen seeking entry into the U.S.A. For any non-citizens entering the U.S.A. is a privilege and not a right. They are guests in the U.S.A. and need to respect their host country and its laws.
Regarding the auditing social media, it's not just about their posts, but who they are friends with and who are friends with them. Point and case, your personal social media profile may be benign photos of kittens and snaps of what you had to eat that day, but your brother could be "friends" with terrorist or member of a criminal gang and that person could use your relationship with your bother to extort you after you enter the U.S.A.
Biden's administration let at least 2700 Tren de Aragua gang members walk across the southern boarder. ICE and DHS have successfully arrested these TDA members, but there are more. These people rape, murder, traffic humans and drugs into the U.S.A. Their criminal network (and therefore profits) have been severely disrupted. It's common sense that they are going to seek new and creative ways to get back in business. As they already extort and exploit on a daily basis in Venezuela, why wouldn't they do the same to potential foreign students?
This is just one example.