The Trump administration is proposing to ask visitors from several dozen nations that enjoy visa-free travel to the U.S. to submit additional personal information before entering the country, including five years of their social media history, the Department of Homeland Security said in a notice this week.
Citizens of 42 countries enrolled in the visa waiver program can generally come to the U.S. for up to 90 days for tourism or business travel, without needing to apply for a visa at an American embassy or consulate, a process that can take months or even years.
The list of countries in the visa waiver program includes many European nations like the United Kingdom, Germany and France, as well as some U.S. allies around the world, including Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.
Trump: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/28/travel-spending-us-from-overseas-tourists-to-fall-in-2025.html
Also Trump: $12B projected loss? Hold my beer.
The list of countries in the visa waiver program includes many European nations like the United Kingdom, Germany and France, as well as some U.S. allies around the world, including Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.
Side note: interesting that European countries are not included in the list of allies.
The trump administration can kiss my dick.
There. This is part of my social media history now.
Perhaps 10 years ago I seriously thought that moving to USA might improve my life.
So, I guess it’s been foreign tourists who have been planting pipe bombs and shooting up our schools?
Exactly. That tourist may look harmless with their camera and suitcase. But there are actually pure blooded chaos agents sent to destroy our beautiful nation. -s
How is Chile the only country in the Americas in the Visa Waiver Program? (Minus French Guiana)
People should not be coming to the US. They are likely to be chained and sent back by these fascist.
Sent back if they’re lucky. Otherwise sent to concentration camps, El Salvador, or just never seen again at all.
More like chained, thrown into concentration camps, and forgotten about/ lost/ killed. Travelling to this country is an existential threat.
Okay so at customs and immigration? They say hand over your phone? Like I’m sorry what the actual fuck is this?
Honestly, I suspect this is a sneaky way to get CBP access to what ever data sharing shit the social media companies have with the rest of the spooks. Simply by attempting to enter the US someone “agrees” to an automatic search of their social data.
Yea, after reading the article, this is an overall of the electronic application process that needs to happen before entry. And it’ll include not just social media handles, but also email addresses. Seems reasonably easy for a “bad guy” to skirt.
No, you apply for an ESTA weeks/months beforehand.
There is currently an optional box to provide social media info.
No doubt anything you provide is reviewed by CBP in the weeks leading up to your trip.
How the fuck they’d be able to find out if you have an account if you don’t provide anything I’m not sure. Or if you don’t provide them with burner email addresses.
I suspect the tech companies will be complicit.
I had assumed that data trawling being what it is, there’s probably a clear record of all social media accounts without you providing anything. Hell, maybe even pre assessment by AI of your profile like the Chinese social rating based on what you’ve wrote, read and even lingered over without clicking on
Its fucking diabolical if that ends up being true.
I get when it might be useful for actual visa applicants wanting to live and work there, but the prospect of being barred from going to Disneyland because I laughed at a clip of his tiny mushroom dick in an episode of South Park is just bullshit.
All it means is I’ll be not returning to America until 2029 at the earliest. Ive always wanted to visit Canada tbh
This is protection. Protection for a snowflake trump administration against JD Vance memes. Egos in this government are too fragile for repeated meme attacks and therefore they must be stopped at the borders at all costs. God I wish this was a joke
“Sir, the memes are coming from inside the house!”
Because we are all required to use social media?
No, but if you do, the (American) social media companies will tattle on you, guaranteed.
Not required to use, just access to all your social media. In addition, the rules want your phone history, including texts and 10 years of emails. Also remember, this (Lemmy) is considered social media. So, good luck if you have ever posted anything on a forum that a bunch of Nationalist Christians, or Nat-c’s for short, don’t like.
And how exactly do they enforce this? I’m just curious, like you get off the plane, walk to customs and immigration, and they say you need to hand over your phone?
Yes, they already do that. That said, if you have good op-sec, you’re not going to have your social media on your phone. At least, not your real social media, or if you do, you’ll have it behind a password they can’t break and that you’re not going to give them, so this is not really about getting into everyone’s social media per se, it’s more about providing them more excuses to detain people they don’t like, increasing surveillance of people who they know are probably not really doing anything wrong to begin with, and the chilling effect that surveillance provides in controlling those people who are not really doing anything wrong.
I’ve been through customs and immigration and I’ve never saw them ask for anyone’s phone before. That said, no one knows what they’ll do anymore, maybe just shoot us in the face 🤔
I know people who have had to give them the phone. It doesn’t happen every time, it doesn’t happen to everyone, it doesn’t happen often, but it definitely does happen, and from what I understand, they can refuse you entry if you do not. I’m not in a position to say how common or widespread it is, but there are enough anecdotal stories to convince me it’s probably decently widespread, albeit occasional and possibly targeted. Like you said though, no one knows what they’ll do anymore, maybe just shoot you in the face. And that’s kind of the point. They want that environment of uncertainty and not knowing when the bullet is going to come for you.
They are revamping ESTA. Currently, many countries citizens do not need a visa, but must get the electronic ESTA, to travel to the US. You can’t just walk off a plane and gain entry, you must have prior approval. They are going to try to check everyone through some AI bullshit and make it hard or scary to even come to the states, denying you entry before you even get on the plane. This just fits right in with making America a bigger shithole and destroying it.
Why would anyone agree to providing them with ten years of emails. That’s insane. It’s private. Just absolutely no way ever.
This is why you don’t use your real name online.
And a throw away email.
This is why governments are pushing age verification to track you while pretending it’s to protect the children.
its to silence dissent against israel, and right wingers, and young people are the most avid at using social media to communicate thier displeasure of govts.
that too
Yeah how are they supposed to know this is my account? How are you even supposed to provide them with all of this info? And how are they going to review all of this data if they can even obtain it in the first place?
AI.
Yes. If you don’t, they’re gonna label it as suspicious
Iv unironically not been hired for jobs because of this. Because of how well I separate my online and offline life and my entirely non use of Facebook, Twitter, etc. iv had background companies report me as suspicious due to lack of information.
It’s fucked up.
Sir, please refrain from any discussion, just hand us over your Facebook.
People need to seriously stop coming here. Pull out any and all business you are able and cut America off. If we’re going to act like a walled garden, why support it? Help keep this cancer contained and stay the fuck away from anything America or American.
You could not pay me to go to the US. Id sooner visit Syria.
You’d probably be safer there.
And the rest of us boycott in solidarity.
“I don’t use social media.”
You can’t prove a negative. Shift the onus back onto them. Any attempt at them trying to connect the dots should be met with “That user is not me, any similarities in their name is purely coincidental.”
Create a bogus email not tied to any social media and they won’t have a leg to stand on.
Not to mention how incredibly difficult that enforcing such a policy would be. Could you imagine the manpower required for people to trawl through 5 years of social media history searching for verboten political speech against Dear Leader? Wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to use AI for this, since they’d have a hard time finding enough die-hard Trump loyalists to pack into the DHS to actually perform the background checks at the rate they would need to happen…
Better yet, just avoid coming to this rapidly declining country in the first place.
You have to provide all your email addresses for the last 10 years and the names, phone numbers and addresses of all your family members as well.
BTW, Lemmy is social media.
They’re going to have AI look this shit over. No person will look unless AI flags it I bet
They’ll just say you’re lying, detain you, and charge you with withholding evidence.
But how many people are dumb enough to have their phones searched with their social media apps on them?
Most people. The vast majority of people. Because most people aren’t that “paranoid”(if you can call it that when the threat is real)
Yup, exactly. And they know this.
Can someone ELI5 why their map of visa free countries doesn’t include Canada? Canada doesn’t need a visa
For now…
It’s probably because entry for Canadians is specified by a different program. Even the State Department website seems to exclude Canada from the VWP.
I don’t know why anybody still chooses to go to the Untied States
They are stupid would be my assumption. This said as an American.
Seriously. Don’t come here. Humanity needs to resolve it’s billionaire crisis first.
Reading the comments in a forum in an Australian newspaper, about 1/2 the people are ok with it and are still going.
