We know how dangerous forwarding of fake news can be: it can result in widespread misinformation, cause attacks; even sway elections. Now it would seem that there is one more reason to be careful about what you post on or forward via social media – your United States visa application.
About 14 million people apply for visas to the United States each year. Now apart from all the other information they ask for, authorities will be calling for other information such as social media ID, email and present and past phone numbers. So, even those travelling to the US for business or education will now have to reveal their Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and other usernames.
Earlier, only people identified as needing extra scrutiny (travelling from terrorist controlled areas etc.) were asked to furnish these details. Now, practically all visa applicants will have to provide these details. This “extensive security screening” is meant to promote national security and to “protect US citizens”.
According to this US immigration attorney, providing inaccurate information or withholding of details can result in a visa being held up and the applicant may also be rejected on grounds of fraud and misrepresentation.
The United States claims to be the land of the free and home of the brave. A lot of people feel that policies such as these belie these tenets.
George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four envisaged an oppressive, invasive regime that policed every aspect of a citizen's life, including their thoughts. Some have likened the US visa ‘extreme vetting’ as a way to police people's thoughts; similar to the Orwellian notion of thought crime.
The Trump administration's propensity for alarmism with regard to immigrants and their efforts to keep out /expel immigrants it sees as undesirable has resulted in several policy decisions including this one, feel commentators.
Several commentators feel that it isn’t a big deal that applicants have to provide these details. Social media is about exhibitionism in a sense. So why should people have a problem providing details?
However, it is also pointed out that any terrorist with nefarious plans is unlikely to declare his intentions on social media; that such a person would be much more likely have created fake social media profiles that fit the approved profile.
It is fairly easy to create fake IDs on social media. In fact a lot of social media viciousness is precisely because of the anonymity that these platforms provide.
There were those non-Americans who were quite angry and indicated that they would not subject themselves to unwarranted scrutiny just to get a visa.
Denying people visas or making the process more tedious would discourage those who want to visit the country and this could negatively impact tourism.
For this commentator, the irony of the visa vetting decision made by an administration led by a Twitter-Troll-In-Chief was rather acute.
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