The US is not only restricting the free speech of their own citizens but also from citizens of other countries...
replies(1):
Sad to see what US has become.
If Americans show flexibility to let you show your allegiance to USA and Israel through anonymous accounts they may be able to flood the social media with fake but real accounts. Bots but real people, if this was Chernobyl they would be called biorobots.
That would be next-gen astroturfing, very hard to detect.
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/education/article3...
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2025/02/05/n...
Research all the anti-LGBTQ legislation at the federal and state levels.
Remember, after all, the 1st amendment covers not only freedom of speech, but also assembly, the press, no establishment of religion, and the ability to petition the government. All of these things have been attacked and will continue to be attacked.
2. Attacks on law firms with disfavored clients.
3. Federal law suits against media like NBC, ABC, and investigations of NPR and others.
4. Increased arrest rate for “obstruction” by ICE of people protesting immigration enforcement.
5. Blanket bans on “DEI” speech and retaliation against organizations that promote DEI.
6. An executive Order mandating that schools teach “patriotic” content or lose funding.
7. Banning trans people from the military directly infringing their 1A protected rights to express their identity.
8. Take overs of institutions like the Kennedy Center for the Arts, dismissal of the Librarian of Congress, content regulation of the Smithsonian, take-downs of federal data and images related to disfavored speech.
9. Revoking green cards because of 1A protected cards, denying visas, travel bans - all limiting what speech and associations are available to US citizens.
10. FTC merger rules forbidding coordinated boycotts.
11. Banning the Associated Press from the press room. General attacks on the media as “the enemy of America.”
Why do we need to be admitting anti-American individuals to this country for any reason whatsoever?
News flash: visas are a privilege, not a right.
All in the name of stopping “misinformation”.
MAGA is a white supremacy movement, but calling this out in America is like trying to tell your best friend her husband is cheating on her. It’s going to be an ugly reveal and difficult conversation, but the facts are the facts.
Perhaps you think it's anti-American to believe that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. Perhaps I think it's anti-American to believe that the Jan 6 rioters should have been pardoned.
Whose purity test should we apply?
Regarding the auditing social media, it's not just about their posts, but who they are friends with and who are friends with them. Point and case, your personal social media profile may be benign photos of kittens and snaps of what you had to eat that day, but your brother could be "friends" with terrorist or member of a criminal gang and that person could use your relationship with your bother to extort you after you enter the U.S.A.
Biden's administration let at least 2700 Tren de Aragua gang members walk across the southern boarder. ICE and DHS have successfully arrested these TDA members, but there are more. These people rape, murder, traffic humans and drugs into the U.S.A. Their criminal network (and therefore profits) have been severely disrupted. It's common sense that they are going to seek new and creative ways to get back in business. As they already extort and exploit on a daily basis in Venezuela, why wouldn't they do the same to potential foreign students?
This is just one example.
I don't want any foreigners contributing to any political activism whatsoever, regardless of ideology.
Reagan is a hypocritical cunt of course, but how far we've fallen that now you might as well put a chain around Lady Liberty's neck, pull it down like the statues of Saddam Hussein or Assad (or I guess hanging is more appropriate, since the spiritual successors of the Confederancy is now in power), and replace it with a statue of redneck lady giving foreigners the middle finger, with "Fuck off!" written on the base.
Are these people so delusional that they think "social media" sites are even remotely anonymous? Whatever you do, it's up for sale. No wonder meta has billions of active users, most of them with no brain cells. It's extremely concerning that majority of the younger generation has almost no sense of achieving privacy on the internet
Visitors are held to a higher standard than natives. Visitors do not have control, a vote, etc: they are temporarily permitted by the privilege of policy at the time.
> as a US citizen I don't want to be respectful and quiet, especially when I disagree with my government.
Good, don't be! You're not at risk of having a visa revoked or go unissued.
I prefer the exec branch over no purity test, or delegating to some other "expert" institution.
Freedom of assembly is a universal human right; not that anyone seriously expects respect for those from the US any more.
Which elected a democratically-elected representative.
That is how democracies work.
If there's anything the executive has power over besides commander in chief, it would be leader in chief of defining what is actually, American.
The fact that prior presidents have actually abdicated this important role, doesn't mean it didn't exist. This is why traditions of the State of the Union, etc exist. The executive gets to call the plays towards unity for Americanism.
This is what foreign countries do as well.
You also seem to be all over this thread insisting that these violations of human rights will only ever be applied to foreigners - even as the executive branch openly works to redefine who counts as a foreigner.
(It does not).
(And even if it did, that wouldn't in any way make the decades long crackdown on free speech in America one single iota better).
I don't want foreign students (or otherwise) being "vocal" for literally any reason whatsoever.
Go to school, become a citizen if you wish, and then participate in the political process.
> will only ever be applied to foreigners
I consider the case at hand, not a slippery slope of hypotheticals.
It was just a 'coincidence' that the US government was putting serious monopoly investigations on every big tech and social media company at the same time it offered these censorship 'suggestions', I'm sure.
The catalyst was the campus takeovers by people wearing masks and causing disruption for months. That was a gift for the Republicans, delivered on a silver platter. They made that an issue every day in Congress from October 7 2023 until November 5 2024. It coincided with the resignation of several university presidents.
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik Cornell Martha Pollack Liz Magill, University of Pennsylvania Claudine Gay Harvard
Additionally, the US has a statutory requirement for biometric exit scans when a visitor leaves. It was completely ignored. There were entry scans, but no exit scan.
The simple fact is they don't want anyone not like them coming to the US, and unauthorized entry has diminished significantly. It's also the reason for rejecting birthright citizenship, and deporting unauthorized persons to third country staging areas.
The UK is in the same boat. The UK is currently spending ~£3 billion per year on accommodations, and costs are expected to triple. It's created profiteering companies and waves of human trafficking across Europe. France only recently agreed to stop them when they line up a row of 20 zodiacs to assault Dover.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation
https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-college-presidents-who-ha...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/07/uk-asylum-seek...
Your opinion doesn't trump universal human rights. Nor should it.
> Go to school, become a citizen if you wish, and then participate in the political process.
What if the political issues affect you as a visa holder? Have you actually thought this though?
> I consider the case at hand, not a slippery slope of hypotheticals.
It's not remotely hypothetical [0], and if you don't know that then you really lack the basic table stakes of knowledge to be weighing in on this at all (as also evidenced by your refusal to acknowledge the UDHR).
0 - https://www.npr.org/2025/01/23/nx-s1-5270572/birthright-citi...
Guess what? You don't have a universal human right to a visa, even if you do have a right to free speech.
> What if the political issues affect you as a visa holder
I'm not a visa holder. I wouldn't expect to be able to go to China and espouse anti-CCP rhetoric, either.
> refusal to acknowledge the UDHR
Visas aren't a human right, try again.
I suggest we let him think what he wants to think. I find it curious anyway when people say they don't consider hypotheticals, humans are all about hypotheticals ("what's going to happen if x happens..."), even apes do so. Not considering them means wanting to be as intelligent as amoebas, and the [term has been deleted] we're trying to converse with seems to be proud of that.
Yes, I do think that's how countries invite foreigners.
> Try your best to not sound so unfuckable.
Looks like I hit a nerve. I'm sure you're a great houseguest.
2. No one is obligated to work with you, or give you clearances if you're suspected of being against state interests.
3. I thought we were all for government crackdowns on corrupt corporations?
4. Many of these people are obstructionist.
5. DEI is discriminatory. I thought liberals were anti-discrimination?
6. More new deal government. Nothing improper here. You just lost the vote.
7. The military is not obligated to allow anyone to serve. It's a job, like any other. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences, pal.
8. Being selective of what you promote isn't suppression of speech. Is it suppression of speech when Confederate monuments are removed, or did you lose the vote?
9. Those are not citizens.
10. This is regulation to prevent anti-competitive behavior and harassment.
11. Not free speech. You're not obligated to be in a press room
TBH, seems like you care that you lost, not about freedom. Why should I give you any freedom when your goal is to deprive me of mine?
Universal legal rights don't exist. They are an opinion.
> What if the political issues affect you as a visa holder? Have you actually thought this though?
Yes, that's the entire point.
It doesnt even seem remotely the same.
That would be the right to prevent assembly.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1920307/us-consulates-in-pakistan-...
People often don't realize how much they take for granted (like perfect forward freedom of speech) until it is gone.
Assembly amongst all groups simultaneously isn’t possible with humans who are not bifurcating bosons.
And if they do, will that be available to the boarder agents?
Image being denied entry, because you were 16 and made some edgy posts / memes about Trump 10 years ago. Long deleted, to the point you can't even remember them - but now unearthed by CBP agents, and that's that.
It is also illegal to do the same for students. [2]
Faculty is already protected under tenure rules. And even for the nontenured, who really needs protecting ? Only 5.7% of all faculty are registered as conservative as of 2020 [3]
My point remains. "Filtering out" is illegal. Setting the stage on what is american, is not.
[1] https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/political-aff...
[2] https://www.nysasa.org/index.php/news/6558-schools-cannot-en...
[3] https://www.thecollegefix.com/democratic-professors-outnumbe...
The timestamps will immediately give it away if you try to pull that though. Not to mention that they could also (if they want) just harvest data on what accounts already exist at what point in time, to detect actions like this. Lots of data brokers have such data already. And they could just do some cursory searches for other accounts you might have too, if you don't deactivate them...
I bet you'd be granted a visa by china if your social media was full of anti-israel rhetoric though...
Wasn't the whole premise of democracy to express yourself freely and the core idea was "rule by the people"?
If country claims that they are democracy, then they should give people to add their opinion to rule the country, China is following its own core idea, ruled by a single party.
So what? isn't the core idea in democracy "ruled by the people", Why can't you fight against the current administration with your opinion and opposition to their ideas?
Since almost all major social media companies are american, and all major social media/tech companies are state/defense companies, the US already "vets" social media accounts of foreigners and most likely americans as well.
This has nothing to do with "vetting" social media accounts. It's about scaring the world so that the world stops criticizing primarily israel.
If we really want to "vet" foreigners, we'd be doing it secretly so that bad actors feel free to expose themselves on social media. This does the exact opposite. It's about controlling the narrative and preventing criticism of israel.
Those who seek to stop that regulating force are undermining what makes America great. Where those voices of dissent were born isn't pertinent.
You should back up this assertion with facts and evidence otherwise nobody will take it at face value and it will be categorized as drivel.
It could just take the Chinese social media approach of being right on the borderline of satire, but within the realms of what some people really do believe, so a border agent couldn't dismiss it as satire but anyone who knew the poster could.
This concept has been dead outside Europe since at least the 1990s. (It never found purchase in Russia, China or India.)
Yes, actually. We have the precedent. Both for the action and for these people being dangerous to our safety and civil society.
Plenty of right wingers are granted visas to spread nonsense in America. It would make sense to put them on visa bans.
Your extrapolation to the national level is fallacious. Many of our academic institutions were deliberately hosting foreigners, with the explicit goal of being melting pots of ideas. That gave the US an exceptional cultural cachet around the globe. This whole thing is an exercise in attacking and destroying our traditional distributed institutions in favor of centralized autocratic control.
Just because you used a word in a sentence doesn't make it so.
> A team assembling on the playground that doesn’t pick all the friends who want to play together has prevented the friends from assembling.
They haven't prevented anything. Just because a team assembled, does not exclude others from being there.
They can exclude, of course, but that has nothing to do with the assembly.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/assembl...
> uncountable noun
> When you refer to rights of assembly or restrictions on assembly, you are referring to the legal right that people have to gather together
It's the gathering thats the assembly, not the exclusion. You just made that up.
United States sharply criticized Yoon after his unconstitutional martial law declaration, publishing pretty strong remarks that it was illegimate[0]. They have consistently spoke (in diplomatic language) that they do not support Yoon until he was impeached.
Impeaching Yoon was supported by 75% of the country [1] and anti-Yoon protests were not seen as anti-US nor pro-China at all.
The newly elected president, Lee Jae Myung, is not seen as anti-US nor pro-China in Korea (he does have a less anti-China stance than his predecessor), and any claims of election fraud claim is baseless[2] and without evidence.
The few paragraphs on telegram groups are groups that are run by the alt-right that send reports of anti-Yoon social influencers to the CIA, arguing that they were anti-US and communists[3] (yes, the red fear and the cold war is still a thing in South Korea, thanks to the North Korean regime, no, we do not recognize North Korea as a sovereign state)
Yes people are affected due to the new visa process, PhD students big among the affected, but no, big businesses are not being blocked sending their workers to the US. Samsung is not struggling getting visas.
This is a totally baseless fake news. Please don’t let this information spread. Thanks.
[0]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us-says-south-koreas-yoon-badl...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Yoon_Suk_Yeol#O...
[2]: https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.36RG6PF
[3]: https://koreaherald.com/article/10019148
———— Not trying to shoot the messenger, but the user has a history of getting flagged with far-right racial comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44405917, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44203934, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44203849
They also got flagged previously by arguing the sentiment of the Korean alt-right: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43431867
And also say that they submit AI-generated comments as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pkkkzip
I would not trust this person’s comments.
Rebutting fake news takes so much more time than spreading them.
For anyone who wants a quick recap: South Korea's previous president Yoon had a brain fart and declared martial law last December, citing (among other things) a baseless conspiracy theory that said Chinese agents infiltrated Korean voting system to make the liberal Democratic Party win the previous legislative election.
Thankfully, the lawmakers literally jumped the wall to gather and declare the martial law void, so it was overthrown in hours, and long story short, the constitutional court universally agreed that Yoon committed treason, he was kicked out, we had an election, and (to no one's surprise) we got a new president from the Democratic Party, president Lee Jae-Myung.
There are still a handful of idiots who believe in Yoon's baseless election conspiracy theories. Last time I heard, they were reporting politicians, actors, singers, or basically everyone who came out against the martial law to CIA, for the crime of aiding China.
For some inexplicable reason, CIA isn't launching an immediate intervention to restore Yoon in power. I wonder why.
I assume someone who goes by "15155" would believe that having private conversations online can be useful. Or do you want to post your identifying information?
You don’t expect to do those things in China because it’s an authoritarian government that doesn’t care about human rights A-Z (all the way from basic labor rights over to internment reeducation camps).
So the question is why are you applying a standard we have for China, which is just slightly above what we expect from North Korea, unto to America?
We are not the country that does shit like what you are describing. This is a temporary dark spot on American history, and you are absolutely on the wrong side of things. All of this joins the embarrassing catalog of American darkness - Japanese internment camps, Chinese exclusion act, segregation, list goes on.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Also, you can't post generated comments to HN, as your profile claims you've been doing.)
Whether not disclosing any others is visa fraud is a matter of legal consideration iff other accounts are discovered before the collapse of the current administration.
The same standard applies to many of the apparently unconstitutional actions of the current administration.
Please stop with the paranoid "bot" nonsense, my account is over a decade older than yours is.
ok so what? Go ahead commit fraud in visa applications?
plenty do already and get visas approved, like i said in my own comment. I've seen ppl get h1b/f1 visas based on fake education certifications.
ppl already know that they can commit fraud. So again, what is that you are even saying?
That would be "fraud", not fraud.
> what is that you are even saying?
I think I was clear; your morally based personal conception of "fraud" isn't relevant to what actual practise is, and this is especially relevant to an administration that might not even be acting legally in the first place.
Maybe these things are fraud, or would be judged so if it goes to court, assuming such a right applies, and you aren't illegally deprived of it; maybe these standards aren't even legally valid.
lying on your visa application is visa fraud. Its not that complicated. It has nothing to do with "this administration". social media account info has been on those forms for a long time.
Can you pls educate yourself a little bit instead of some nonsensical ranting. bye!