Visiting students can't hide social media accounts from Uncle Sam anymore
The US State Department last week said foreign nationals seeking to study in the US must make their social media profiles public, prompting some students to delete their social media posts.
“Every visa adjudication is a national security decision,” the State Department said, adding that under the new guidance, the online presence of those seeking study and exchange visas will be scrutinized.
“To facilitate this vetting, all applicants for F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas will be instructed to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media profiles to ‘public,’” the State Department said.
Related Knowledge Center: Digital privacy and data security
If you’re online, you’re generating a constant stream of information about yourself — sometimes voluntarily, sometimes unwittingly — that is assembled and used to craft your online experience. And generate wealth for data brokers. Meanwhile, designers and managers of the digital infrastructure on which the world depends are engaged in a never-ending effort to thwart attempts, by both criminal enterprises and state actors, to exploit vulnerabilities in those systems.
Signalgate | State surveillance
Related Knowledge Center: State surveillance
While government monitoring of personal digital communications has traditionally been associated with authoritarian regimes such as China, the Trump regime has moved to use citizens’ personal information in unprecedented ways.
Digital privacy and data security | FISA — Section 702
Related Knowledge Center: Social media
Social media platforms are the source of news for millions of people — and they have a fraught and ever-shifting relationship with the enterprises that provide that news.
The TikTok ban | The Meta-FTC trial