by barbazoo 12 hours ago
If one didn’t have an account with meta they just wouldn’t get the visa then or how does it work?
Does the government have any direct link to meta re what accounts people actually have. I’m surprised people aren’t up in arms about this, I guess it affects mostly visitors and immigrants but the fact that the government needs to see your activity on a private company’s web app is wild to me.
"I don't use social media" is probably a good answer, it just has to be true.
If they ask you "well, do you use any social media?" You'd presumably have to answer with HN, which maybe doesn't sound all that great :)
You could say you use Y Combinator's news comment board.
HN isn't social media, any more than a bus is a car.
I don't think you want to try that argument with immigration officials, although it might just keep your incorrect answer from being straight up fraud or willful misrepresentation.
I mean, some US govt immigration forms asking for your social media usernames include pastebin sites like "justpaste.it". See for example: https://static.feber.se/article_images/42/10/92/421092_1280....
Knowing that, it's crystal clear HN falls strictly within that definition of "social media", although it might not be as clear if you don't know what that particular site is.
I love how bad that list is.
For what it's worth, the somewhat hilarious reason justpaste.it is on the list is likely that it used to be a favourite of Islamic State terrorists a decade ago. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/islamic-stat...
Googling 'site:gov "justpaste.it"' also brings endless results of government documents mentioning the site in the context of terrorism.
I somewhat doubt US immigration authorities thwarted any would-be terrorists by asking for their justpaste.it username, but what do I know, perhaps this was an important breakthrough in the global war on terror.
You'd be surprised at the number of people who willingly give up their social media accounts, only for immigration officials to find comments in support of terror attacks in the Middle East.
It's pretty easy to think it's harmless if you live in a country where that viewpoint is not uncommon.
It can be an easy charge of “lying to the government on an official form” when they discover you have a user account somewhere that you didn’t disclose, even if they can’t get anything else to stick.
Yes, it did occur to me that there would be no way to verify it. But it felt like it was in my best interest to at least provide something.
You would have to make sure your search footprint supported that. IE - fully private, non-publicly-visible profiles everywhere.
