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New US visa rules will force foreign students to unlock social media profiles

(www.theguardian.com)
523 points sva_ | 1 comments | 18 Jun 25 23:11 UTC | HN request time: 0.326s | source
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angst ◴[18 Jun 25 23:50 UTC] No.44314242[source]▶
also, "lack of a social media profile could prompt US visa denial"

source https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/study/now-lack-of-a...

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throwaway2037 ◴[19 Jun 25 08:30 UTC] No.44316606[source]▶
This looks taken out of context. First, Economic Times is a shitty news source. The original was reported by Bloomberg, a much better news source. (What is their SEO dept doing to get ahead of Bloomberg in Google search results?)

The exact quote: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/immigration/rubio-orders-tough...

    > Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday ordered more scrutiny of the social-media profiles of any foreigners seeking to visit Harvard University, telling US consular officers that applicants’ lack of an online presence might be enough evidence to deny a visa.
This part is important: "any foreigners seeking to visit Harvard University"

Is Rubio's cable sent to US embassies worldwide public? It would be nice to see the full text.

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Cipater ◴[19 Jun 25 09:59 UTC] No.44317067[source]▶
There is now a notice on each and every US Embassy website visa home page that says:

Effective immediately, all individuals applying for an F, M, or J nonimmigrant visa are requested to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to ‘public’ to facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States under U.S. law.

Pick any at random to verify.

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1. throwaway2037 ◴[22 Jun 25 08:42 UTC] No.44345157[source]▶
Hat tip: Great follow-up. I asked Google AI about those visa types and it told me:

    > F, M, and J visas are all nonimmigrant visas for foreign nationals seeking to study or participate in exchange programs in the United States.
Tangent: US must have 5x the number of visa types compared to most other highly developed nations. Whenever there is a US visa discussion on HN, I always learn about a few more types! Plus they have all sorts of weird carve-outs for various nations: Looking at you Australia and Singapore.