Yeah…no expectation of privacy during the application process.
I hope this encourage more people to minimize their social media footprint. Not sure how the US government will investigate deleted Instagram stories or accounts under pseudonyms though.
Just my two cents, everyone should have at least one or two normal accounts to give to anyone asking for them. Keep the actual opinions behind closed doors or accounts not tied to your identity.
Even if I wanted to go to the USA and risk ICE detention, that’s probably 20 different usernames for me. Not one of them was in my name.
I honestly already would have trouble remembering all of them! 
So, no visit to the U.S. anytime soon, I guess.
Like, who is going to remember all their social media usernames? Do I need to give out my throwaway accounts as well?
Too complicated to be enforced. Hopefully, the next administration can revert this or literally every single student can be rejected for forgetting about one single username.
That reminds me, perhaps this is intentional. Having plausible deniability to reject anyone they don’t like even if their backgrounds or motivations won’t otherwise be grounds for rejection.
One can always make another one right now and use it casually just to add a few casual posts and pictures here and there.
But I wonder how they will think and deal with folks who don’t have social media for folks who are middle aged and older or even younger who maintain a healthy digital lifestyle.
I’m sure there are middle-aged academics, aspiring graduate students, and scholars who may be impacted by these visa changes! Chances are, everyone has at least one dead social media account. The only real explanations for this not being the case would be never owning an account in the first place or to actively delete them all. The latter possibility is more likely and therefore will appear suspicious.
I think the main assumption is that: everyone MUST have some social media account. Gen Z is almost guaranteed to have one. If you don’t, it will look suspicious. A lot of visa interviews are purely based off vibes (for example, if they think you are likely to overstay a student visa if you namedrop a US relative for some reason)
What’s scary is that they say you can’t deactivate your account.
Also, you can get denied a visa simply for omitting information. For e.g., if you don’t declare that you have any social media accounts, but they find out that you do, they could deny you entry.
I could also imagine a scenario where the US requires you share your LinkedIn profile, which is a social media that most people have. Any information there could be misconstrued and used against you, like the fact that you have a lot of Middle Eastern friends on it, for example.
Also, imagine if AI becomes cheap and sophisticated enough to cross-reference your LinkedIn data with existing databases and find your other social media profiles. That’s scary.
Most people don’t know that you can’t deactivate a LinkedIn account. You can only delete it, which most people are unlikely to do.
Exactly.
You also gotta remember that social media covers a lot of things. Not just social networks, but messaging apps. I don’t know if this is still the case, but messaging apps in apps store used to be categorized as social media, including WhatsApp and Signal.
Imagine being denied entry because you hearted a documentary criticizing the president on Letterboxd.
Just scrape everything then consult archives. The NSA has that capacity with their exabytes of storage.
Makes sense. Bulk data collection is a lot easier to do for non-citizens living abroad (and explicitly allowed by law).
Thanks FISA!
So what happens if you don’t have social media of any sort? Automatically denied? Not that I have plans to visit The Fourth Reich any time soon. Pity those planning to attend the 2026 World Cup though.
As my main phone is degoogled, I have 2nd one, with playstore account and apps that don’t work without it well or at all (bank, insurance, whatsapp, navigation…). And 2nd SIM card, for services that require PN, and 2nd bank account, where I deposit small amounts from time to time. That phone usually has no mobile internet, so it’s online only at home, on wifi. I do buy some data packages when traveling. I carry it to places and events with higher chances of my phone being lost or taken (e.g. beach). Also with the 2nd wallet, with small amount of cash, debit card (from 2nd bank) and driver’s license instead of ID (as that one is more important where I live).
On that 2nd phone I have some history - whatsapp messages (mostly for work though), one or two mail accounts, some family photos, browser history, even social network app. It’s more or less the same as any phone of ordinary users. And if I had to travel to US, China, Russia… I would leave my main one at home and bring this one.
For laptop, it’s a bit harder, as a clean one is suspicious. But in that case I would probably carry Steam deck with me, as I wouldn’t expect anyone to check desktop mode. Or even clean the desktop mode before, that is not suspicious, I suppose most of the owners don’t use it anyway.
In theory, I could have all my data back to my phones and PCs from 2 keepass databases (80KB in total), and that can be hidden easily. (Un)fortunately, I still didn’t have chance to test it
I’ve been wondering if, even with this huge amount of data, it would theoretically be possible to identify third, fourth etc “spam” social media accounts you might have used with anonymous username(s) at some point. My educated guess is, without clear similarities (friends/subscriber lists, profile picture, mail) its nearly impossible.
First and foremost, gathering an applicant’s self-submitted aliases is comically absurd security theater.
Second, my name is not really Machkiel. Who would have guessed?
Third, do the bureaucrats consider this forum to be social media? I do not see it as social, but I do consider it academic discussion about a serious topic.
Seriously, have a unique alias for every aspect of your life. Every site deserves its own separate username. If I do not have a thousand different usernames in KeePassXC, it would surprise me.
So if someone gives them their OnlyFans username, will the US Embassy pay for the subscription fee? Asking for a friend…