The Internet vs. Trump

The Internet vs. Trump: Should Travelers Be Forced To Disclose Social Media History? 

Suzanne Rowan KelleherSenior Contributor Travel Social media travel privacy Should travelers be required to show their social media accounts?GETTY

 What if Australia or Egypt or Kenya required you to disclose your Twitter and Facebook history before allowing you in? Would you visit India or China or Thailand if you had to first divulge your history on Reddit, YouTube and Instagram?

 For the past year, the State Department has required that new U.S. visa applicants disclose of all social media handles, including pseudonyms, used over the prior five years on 20 platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn, Myspace, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, Vine and Chinese sites Douban, QQ, Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo, and Youku; Russian social network VK; Belgian site Twoo; and Latvian site Ask.fm. 

 “Failure to provide accurate and truthful responses on a visa application or during a visa interview may result in denial of the visa by a consular officer,” according to a State Department FAQ document. “In the case of an applicant who has used any of the social media platforms listed on the visa application in the preceding five years, the associated social media identifier would be required on the visa application form.” 

 Now a large group of Silicon Valley’s heaviest hitters are challenging the Trump Administration’s 2019 rules requiring that nearly all U.S. visitors disclose five years’ worth of social media history. 

 In court papers filed last Thursday, Twitter, Reddit and the Internet Association — whose members also include Facebook, Amazon.com, Alphabet, TripAdvisor, Airbnb, Expedia and others — said the government’s rules force foreign visitors “to surrender their anonymity in order to travel to the United States.” The document argues, “By requiring speakers to reveal their online identifiers in order to enter the United States — as a blanket matter and without any tailoring to situations where there is a specific need for that information — and by subjecting their online activities to potentially indefinite scrutiny once they are in the country, the Registration Requirement and related retention and dissemination policies chill a vast quantity of speech and associational activity.”