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Comment by laluser | Hacker News Reader

Getting access to your social media handles is now part of the application process for many different kinds of visas. To me, it's just another way for CBP agents to make arbitrary decisions. There's not even much accountability as-is. They have the ultimate say if they want to let you in or not. Now, it's even crazier since simply liking a page 5 years ago could turn into a disaster if that page evolves into something 'anti-american'. God-forbid you get hacked and someone sabotages your online persona'.

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The usual speach goes like "If you don't have anything to hide...". But do you know if your friend on facebook has anything to hide that will connect you by association? The privacy debate got stuck on the "If YOU don't have..." but that is not the whole problem.

I personally don't use Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. If i applied and left all these fields blank i do wonder if they would believe me or maybe think i was withholding information and reject me on that ground....

Me too. I think the situation we are seeing now was very predictable and started with government ambitions to gain access to internet communication. But neither political side had any ambition to strike that down. Certainly worth remembering.

I would have never predicted this from a western country to act like this. But I guess the Anglo-Saxon countries were always leaning on the controlling side.

At least EU still has some sort of values.

I won't be traveling to the US soon, unless I really need to.

I think the EU currently has much worse ambitions for digital spaces that makes the US truly the beacon of the free world again.

I host private services withing the EU because of sensible privacy protections but for anything with public content, I would pick something far, far away.

Some member states already banned and sanctioned people for jokes. There is just one direction from here and it fits neatly into European patterns of past mistakes. There are also monetary interests in sanitizing certain spaces of the net and that is welcome honey for our current political class on any side of the political spectrum.

Nope, the probability of good digital policies from within Europe is pretty low.

The principle of data privacy and rights is really much more important than pointy policies, it's an underlying foundation and framework of thinking how data should be treated with safeguards for you, as an individual, to be more in control of it.

The EU has a lot of flaws as it's so massive and pervasive but saying that the US is the beacon of the free world makes me think you have been living under a rock for a while.

> but for anything with public content, I would pick something far, far away.

Yeah, Article 13 really messed stuff up here.

But as for the privacy, I don't consider "give me your login and password" a digital policy.

Yes, you can be denied a visa for misrepresentation, however it will be up to the Consular officer. Thus far, the Consulates don't seem that concerned with social media and haven't appeared to be fans of this addition, but CBP likes it clearly.

It wouldn't be misrepresentation if it were true though.

Which then raises the question of where the onus lies regarding proof.

I suppose ultimately the US can deny access to whomever they please, so you have to jump through whatever hoops they please.

US(and UK, and many other countries) can already ask you to provide password for an encrypted file and jail you if you refuse. The thing is, there is no way to prove that a file is indeed encrypted, or just a collection of random bits - in fact they can just say you used stenography to hide something in a completely normal .jpg file, and you need to provide them with means to decode that. You cannot prove that it doesn't exist, all it takes is their expert saying that "we can prove beyond resonable doubt that the file is encrypted" and you are screwed.

> all it takes is their expert saying that "we can prove beyond resonable doubt that the file is encrypted" and you are screwed.

I'm pretty sure this wouldn't fly in the UK, wouldn't the expert need to demonstrate to a Jury and the defence council how he "proved beyond reasonable doubt" so the proof could be refuted?

In fact it might not work in the US. I remember a pedo trial collapsing because the feds were unwilling to explain in open court how they tracked people via the dark web.

Problem is not just getting the Visa, its the border check. Here, agents have literally unlimited decision power and you have no recourse.

A random agent would assume you have a different real account you didn’t reveal.

This story agains underscores that you should only enter the US carrying a clean burner phone, and either not use any social media at all, or block your own access to it until you're safe again.

A clean burner phone is doubly suspicious. To really avoid detection you would need a carefully constructed burner identity, ensuring that the people who get through are the most sophisticated criminals with the greatest resources backing them.

This comment again underscores that it's naive to imagine technical solutions to political problems.

Clean burner phone? No social media account? Both look suspicious, and if they search and find your old account, they'll know you lied and can shut down your visa/entrance. Not to mention lying to a federal agent is a felony, and they could trivially ask "Do you have a social media account?".

I have plenty of (pretty much inactive) social media accounts that I don't even remember the user-handle or password to -- usually created to take look at the service, user-interface and goof around a bit -- I don't think I'll ever remember any of these (also, they were usually created with throwaway-email accounts).

I don't plan to travel to the US -- pretty much because of the reasons outlined here. But if I were I'd pretty much either had to lie or tell them that I don't remember any of my logins -- since I had them at one time, but I don't have any active social media presence anymore.

And what about github, stackoverflow, hn... are they social media -- I don't think so. But not mentioning other accounts that could be classified as social media is also a lie -- at least its an omission.

You're right. A carefully curated social media account that you only use for travel, is a much better idea. Follow a few safe people, post a few harmless things, and before any trip, log out from your usual account and switch to this one.

For all the guys having clever strategys to hide their passwords or data: if you are not a us citizen, then you have zero rights.

If anything at all looks evem a little suspicious, the agent cant deny you entry and you can do precisely nothing. Theoretically if he has a bad day, even. It says so multiple times when you apply.

This is of course mostly a problem when you come from the wrong country or religion.

So Id rather create a facebook account if I didnt have one, than delete or hide one.

And if you think youll make it through with a clean phone, you really have no idea how this works, at least for non europeans.

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