US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1dz0g2ykpeo

by neversaydie • 7 months ago

135 235 7 months ago

bbc.co.uk

TavsiE9s• 7 months ago

The worldcup next year is going to be interesting.

rjsw2• 7 months ago

Some changes in tourism numbers should be visible from US ski resorts before then.

testing223213• 7 months ago

Go have a look at Vegas right now. It’s a ghost down. Tourism across the US is down to the tune of tens of billions.

SirFatty• 7 months ago

All is ok now that Trump received the FIFA Peace Prize trophy and wearable medallion.

exasperaited2• 7 months ago

FIFA's comical attempt to bribe him with a bauble might be a lot about them trying to persuade him not to do this, among other things that will mean nobody will want to attend games.

embedding-shape10• 7 months ago

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.

rayiner19• 7 months ago

The what now? Is that like the superbowl?

andsoitis8• 7 months ago

Soccer, just the biggest sport on earth.

North America will host the FIFA World Cup 2026 with events in the US, Mexico, and Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_FIFA_World_Cup

timbit424• 7 months ago

The SuperBowl is peanuts compared to FIFA.

dogemaster20284• 7 months ago

Why would tourists want to come to a place they dislike?

I don’t go to UK anymore for example.

s_dev• 7 months ago

Why would tourists want to come to a place they dislike?

Visit family.

That's not mentioning you can dislike the current administration without disliking other aspects of the US. The US is big and diverse.

tavavex6• 7 months ago

It's not even about like or dislike. Some people dislike the UK, but I imagine that few feel threatened by the prospect of having to cross its border. It's an easier sell to make someone come to the country despite whatever they don't like to attend a big event. But with the US, who knows at this point? The system had been shaken up so much in the last year that there's no telling what's going to happen to any given entrant (especially someone from one of the "disfavored" countries), or what the rules are going to be like tomorrow. It's not preference, it's preference combined with fear.

poulpy123• 7 months ago

no thanks

JKCalhoun3• 7 months ago

"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.

mothballed5• 7 months ago

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.

Have fun!

saxenaabhi• 7 months ago

Wait what did I just read? This sounds horrible and pure evil and not worthy of america.

My sympathies are with you!

fluidcruft3• 7 months ago

To clarify: CBP is Canadian Border Patrol and you are a Canadian citizen re-entering Canada when this happened?

rayiner19• 7 months ago

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.

JKCalhoun3• 7 months ago

One has quite a bit more to do with privacy. And stifling free speech.

carlosjobim• 7 months ago

A tourist (to any country) has no right to enter. If you don't cooperate they can simply deny your entry.

vidarh8• 7 months ago

Yes, but few other countries are as draconian about this as the US seems to want to be, and it is relevant to want to discuss how it will affect the US to make itself a less attractive place to travel to.

throw3108226• 7 months ago

perpetrate unlawful anti-Semitic harassment

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?

Artoooooor• 7 months ago

citing national security as a key reason Yes, "national security", "terrorists" or "protecting the children" and you can push any law.

flotzam2• 7 months ago

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.

embedding-shape10• 7 months ago

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.

huhtenberg• 7 months ago

How exactly are they going to link accounts with no real names, personal info or identifiable emails to a person?

bilekas• 7 months ago

I'm going to assume it's then going to be considered suspicious if you don't happen to have any social media for at least the last 5 years ?

OccamsMirror• 7 months ago

I wonder if they'll accept "all I have is a Hacker News account".

dmd• 7 months ago

Hacker? Straight to jail.

akie• 7 months ago

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.

Am I not allowed to say that?

watwut• 7 months ago

You are suppressing free speech of fascists by doing that. Your speech might make them feel bad and free speech is defined by your willingness to defend fascists.

As an enemy to free speech, you wont be allowed in.

dogemaster20284• 7 months ago

You are allowed to say it. Unlike UK, you won’t be arrested. But you won’t be allowed in.

Besides, why would you want to come if you don’t like it here?

embedding-shape10• 7 months ago

Considering that fascism is the de facto political ideology of the administration and the people who elected it, being against it would definitively be seen as "Anti-American" which seems to be something that is about to become illegal, and probably labeled as "terrorism" in the near future. See https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/coun...

Edit: Ah, and of course, I forgot the most obvious pointer; being against fascism in the US literally labels you as a "domestic terrorist" for some reason, although the US traditionally been against fascism up until this point. What, why and how people are accepting the whole "If you're against fascists, you're a terrorist" charade will probably forever be a mystery to me. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/desi...

pandaman4• 7 months ago

All the cases of people being turned away at the border over social media posts that I have seen reported were about illegal work. I am afraid even the CBP agents might not be bored enough to read some rando's political screeds. But it's impossible to tell for sure as your admission is solely the matter for the officer who would be handling your arrival.

perihelions2• 7 months ago

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).

vinni23• 7 months ago

I couldn't care less about that privilege. I would rather stay away.

techblueberry3• 7 months ago

I have to assume the real goal is just to tank tourism.

mnky9800n• 7 months ago

But why? Tourism is like 3% gdp for USA. That’s like hundreds of billions of annual dollars. Losing that would hurt.

https://apps.bea.gov/scb/issues/2025/02-february/0225-travel...

timeon• 7 months ago

First climate-friendly policy.

rsynnott• 7 months ago

Well, that'll be great for the tourism industry.

What, precisely, are they hoping to learn, here?

estearum7• 7 months ago

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.)

throw3108226• 7 months ago

And why would they exclude muslim and liberal tourists?

The reason they are creating all sort of censorship and unconstitutional rules to prevent criticism of Israel is, surprise!, to benefit Israel. It's otherwise incredible how Israel happens to be always the lucky recipient of all sorts of benefits and favours that are all intended for some other purpose. Come on.

tavavex6• 7 months ago

Israel, or the US and its current admin? While it's pretty obvious that these two countries have ties like no others, it would seem weird if they were looking for criticism of a foreign state first rather than their own, despite the circumstances.

flowerthoughts• 7 months ago

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.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46204100

Edit: Krugman

quantummagic• 7 months ago

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.

graemep• 7 months ago

They have common interests.

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.

joquarky2• 7 months ago

Pretty sure this is why Microsoft acquired Skype.

lawn• 7 months ago

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.

arczyx• 7 months ago

while other forms such as anti-black or anti-Latino harassment is not

probably because they don't have their own AIPAC.

jsheard• 7 months ago

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.

BLKNSLVR4• 7 months ago

It's the same as when they say "the free market".

The free market is the one with the winners they've chosen. And the winner is Israel and the losers are all the other minorities.

I'm not antisemitic, I'm anti-killing-in-general; I'm anti-collateral-damage; I'm anti-kidnapping-of-anyone-especially-children. I could go on.

There's a lot of bad on both sides. Only acknowledging the bad on one side is a denial of reality, and denying reality is never a sustainable position.

k_roy• 7 months ago

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.

voidUpdate2• 7 months ago

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

FabCH• 7 months ago

Laws are not enforced by machines, but by humans.

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.

mothballed5• 7 months ago

I think the point to many of those questions/requirements are to ensure absolutely everyone can be prosecuted or deported because it's basically impossible to complete the immigration process or just about any other complicated government process without doing something that could possibly be construed in the most uncharitable way as being answered incorrectly.

rjsw2• 7 months ago

You used to be asked "Are you a gunrunner?", we all had to lie about that.

blurbleblurble• 7 months ago

Since when was any of this arbitrary stuff "law"? It's just rules the executive branch is making up.

rckt• 7 months ago

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.

yolo3000• 7 months ago

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

morkalork2• 7 months ago

They don't need fingerprinting, all the American social media has probably already been given a sealed FISA order to hand over account lists with ip access logs.

I feel like it's the same as the "I am not a terrorist" declaration check-box. You know your socials, they know your socials. They want to see if you lie.

Gud• 7 months ago

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.

BLKNSLVR4• 7 months ago

What of those who have virtually no footprint?

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.

rayiner19• 7 months ago

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.

embedding-shape10• 7 months ago

to catch the lowest common denominator of terrorist or foreign subversive

My guess from the outside, is that none of these actions are actually meant to "capture" or even "detect" any of those things, the methods are likely to inefficient and small to be able to do so.

What they're trying to do, is make those people not even consider going to the US in the first place, because they're scared of getting caught. Same as a lot of the ICE actions and other things going on. They're not meant to be efficiently solving some concrete issue with their action, they're meant to scare the rest of the populace into being docile and accepting more and more control over time.

BLKNSLVR4• 7 months ago

How could this be weaponised against someone you don't like?

How easy is it to set up a <any social network> account under someone else's name, post a bunch of inflammatory opinions, AI some photos of them at a Free Palestine rally, and then sit back and await the inevitable border crossing horror story?

Mental note: Research yourself (and your traveling companions) thoroughly before visiting the US.

netfortius• 7 months ago

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.

rsync• 7 months ago

I don’t consider hacker news to be social media… And I wouldn’t expect others to, either.

belter• 7 months ago

If you have advocated for Linux you must be a communist....

M95D• 7 months ago

What of those who have virtually no footprint?

Those people wouldn't want to travel to a police state anyway.

jamesponddotco• 7 months ago

But they might have to.

I’m on the same boat and told management at work that I won’t be traveling to the US while Trump is in power, which they seem to be fine with, but who knows if that’ll last.

ericmay• 7 months ago

Those people wouldn't want to travel to a police state anyway.

I fall into this camp (little to no social media besides LinkedIn) and I've had no issues traveling to the EU or UK or really any other police state for that matter. Plan to do more this upcoming year.

tavavex6• 7 months ago

Some people have to travel for work. For Canadians, lots of international flights connect through the US (especially if you're flying on the cheapest routes), and there's no way to transit through without "properly" entering the country. While the thing in the post doesn't yet apply to Canada (due to us not requiring an ESTA), it very well could become a thing soon. That would be pretty awful for everyone.

nh43215rgb• 7 months ago

"It warns that if any social media information is not listed, it could lead to both current and future visas being denied."

shafyy• 7 months ago

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.

gherkinnn• 7 months ago

Yet another reminder that "I have nothing to hide" is a bad argument.

Data remains, but the moral interpretation changes over time. And more and more data will be used against you.

snthd• 7 months ago

It's good to have real feeling behind the "abstract" incompatibility of EU data rights and US law.

"EU-US Privacy Shield" and similar are a crock of shit.

josefritzishere• 7 months ago

This is excessive.

MSFT_Edging• 7 months ago

The greatest spy network in human history was built to sell us shitty subscriptions and other garbage.

The amount of talent wasted on building ad-networks is mind blowing.

SanjayMehta• 7 months ago

Sounds like a good plan to improve the tourism industry of other countries.

DaSHacka5• 7 months ago

It's a win-win, the way I see it.

We offload the riffraff onto other countries, and they get a minor bump in GDP.

gizzlon• 7 months ago

with riffraff you mean.. what exactly? All tourists?

singularity2001• 7 months ago

15 years ago they already interviewed me about some tweet that I made they don't need to ask tourists anything to get their data

maxerickson• 7 months ago

Mr. Trump, tear down this wall!

raw_anon_111111• 7 months ago

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.

exasperaited2• 7 months ago

We were going to visit!?

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.

ochronus• 7 months ago

Yet another reason to not travel there... :/

random9749832• 7 months ago

Ironically, anyone else face random hostility recently from American tourists? Made me not want to go there for a long while.

saubeidl• 7 months ago

Coming from the people that keep lecturing Europe about Free Speech: Speech-based harassment at the border.

Can't make this shit up...

ChrisArchitect2• 7 months ago

State Department to deny visas to fact checkers and others, citing 'censorship'

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46156979

ChrisArchitect2• 7 months ago

A Notice by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection on 12/10/2025

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/10/2025-22...

HaZeust• 7 months ago

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.

oktcho• 7 months ago

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?

dragonwriter• 7 months ago

Discouraging foreign entrants is a major part of the point.

stego-tech• 7 months ago

The proposal in question: https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-22461.pdf

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.

US could ask foreign tourists for five-year social media history before entry

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