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Comment by xaviex | Hacker News Reader

Do people who travel to other countries REALLY have the gall to post something threatening to the country they are traveling too?

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I don't think this is what concerns most people at all - a bigger concern is how broadly defined whatever measure they use for "anti-American" social media posts is.

There's no shortage of harmless anti-Trump social media posting throughout the world - how long before we read a press story covering someone who tweeted a tame criticism of the president being denied entry? Twelve months ago I'd have found the idea hard to believe; today, not so much.

I absoultely agree that this is a horrible ivasion of privacy and that thinking of this happening sounded crazy months ago, yet now i wouldnt be surprised, my appologies if my tone was off in the original comment, the point i was making is that this is only going to hurt the people who have done no actual harm

Define "threatening". It's a slippery slope. Yeah, maybe "Allahu Akbar death to America" is an obvious one, but what about "Fuck Trump for pulling out of the Paris climate accord" - is that "anti-American"?

> "Fuck Trump for pulling out of the Paris climate accord" - is that "anti-American"?

Name one country that will grant you VISA if you start yelling similar things about their president.

Not all countries have a president.

The United States needs dissenting opinions to function as a democracy. I don't care one iota what other countries do in that situation.

If we start seriously saying "but it's okay for China to do it, why not us!" we've already reached terminal velocity sliding on that slope.

Any European country will

Assuming you agree that this would be a valid reason to deny a visa to the US, are you able to provide examples of other phrases that should get you denied entry to the US?

And phrases that might be critical of the President, but not enough to deny entry?

I'm curious to know where you see the line between acceptable and unacceptable...

Ireland

You can say that about the UK Prime Minister and still get entry.

Most if not all European ones will, in fact. First, they wouldn't even know you were "yelling" that on Facebook, second, the border guards who can barely be bothered to make sure your photo matches your face definitely won't care either.

They're not insecure about themselves, as societies, the way America seems to be lately. So sensitive!

I agree, thats why this is a horrible way to check intent as its purely subjective 90% of the time, this is really only going to hurt the people that have done nothing wrong

No, but US customs rejects people all the time for shit like... you admit to smoking weed once 15 years ago.

There's all sorts of "harmless" things that could be on your Facebook profile that could get you rejected.

I agree, and thats horroble, the idea of this requierment is only going to hurt the people that have done nothing wrong is the badly worded point I was trying to make

Sure. I never found it a issue to post my opinion about democratic western countries openly. Surely I wouldn't do that with Thailand or other developing nations with slightly unstable political situation

I already posted this, but the San Bernadino female did. We just missed it. The Obama ordered review of the process probably revealed this social media by fiat was inevitable.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/us/san-bernardino-attacks...

I don't post anything public on facebook. What will they say? Or will they breach my privacy right away and have a look anyways? From the outside it is not even clear how old the acc is.

Facebook alone is a poor example as private accounts are the norm, at least among most folks I know.

Twitter on the other hand is used far more widely with public accounts, and is commonly used as a platform for political discourse. The few "hate speech" style cases I've read (great example is the infamous "twitter joke" trial in the U.K.) have almost always stemmed from Twitter accounts. Instagram is similarly much more commonly used with public accounts.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Joke_Trial

Let me correct this, the idea of forcing checks is a horrible idea mostly because it only hurts the people that have done nothing, and is a massive invasion of privacy

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