[HN Gopher] US will now review H-1B applicants' social media - r...
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US will now review H-1B applicants' social media - require them to
make public
Author : JKCalhoun
Score : 35 points
Date : 2025-12-04 18:48 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.businessinsider.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.businessinsider.com)
| dmitrygr wrote:
| A country may vet entrants according to any criteria it chooses,
| just like I may enforce any limits I wish unto who may enter my
| house. If the criteria are too egregious for the gain the
| applicants might get by being in that country, the talented
| immigrants who have options may go elsewhere and the country may
| need relax the criteria to recapture the market for bright minds.
| bdavisx wrote:
| I don't think anyone would argue with that - the problem here
| is that the requirements are being changed thru a process that
| involves no public or congressional input.
|
| The other issue is that the vetting will likely not just look
| for terroristic or other 'illegal' social media content - it
| will look for whatever the administration decides to look for -
| again without oversight.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| We can't require public or congressional input on everything.
| As such, we need to elect a competent administration.
| commiepatrol wrote:
| lol @ talented. I think you wanted to say "cheap".
| estearum wrote:
| No, they're saying _the talented ones_ , the ones with the
| most optionality, will be the first to select alternative
| destinations.
|
| Typical adverse selection problem.
| codeddesign wrote:
| If companies were looking for talent, 80% of H1B's wouldn't
| be from India, but from a much more diverse set of
| countries. The fact is that India culture is much more so
| subservient, willing to work more for less pay, won't
| unionize, don't follow major US/Euro holidays, don't care
| about work/life balance..etc. Like it or not, it's nothing
| more than exploitation as cattle to increase bottom line
| and sold as increased output.
| estearum wrote:
| Not sure how that's relevant to my comment.
|
| You're just saying there's variance in quality and
| asserting your opinion about where quality exists/doesn't
| exist.
|
| Fine.
|
| The fact there is any variance at all means the highest
| quality people will be deterred first. Adverse selection.
| codeddesign wrote:
| Highly relevant as it makes your point mute.
|
| The highest quality of talent is already not being
| brought in. A very specific pool of people are, and not
| for reasons of talent.
| estearum wrote:
| No no, your observation is that a large amount of (per
| your assessment) low-quality people are already being
| brought in.
|
| This is _completely unrelated_ to the question of whether
| the highest quality people are being brought in.
|
| By analogy: "New York City doesn't have a lot of the
| greatest restaurants in the country because 90% of the
| restaurants in New York City are not that great."
|
| It's just logically invalid.
|
| And divorced from reality. There's a reason the top
| students in the world overwhelmingly come to study in the
| US (at least up until recently). The US's dominance on
| this and its downstream effects is absolutely unambiguous
| and it's frankly silly to suggest otherwise.
|
| "We also have a lot of underqualified Indian H1Bs" is
| completely irrelevant.
|
| P.S. It's "moot" not "mute"
| inglor_cz wrote:
| India is also very nepotistic and it might well be Indian
| managers already present in the US pushing for entry of
| their relatives, schoolmates and friends.
| csb6 wrote:
| Countries have that right, and people have the right to
| criticize them for their policies and agitate to change them.
| This is a concept known as "politics".
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > A country may vet entrants according to any criteria it
| chooses...
|
| Sure. But said country may have set rules _for itself_ , like
| the First Amendment, that limit what's permissible beyond what
| international law and sovereignty alone permit.
|
| (To extend the house analogy, you may _not_ actually be able to
| "enforce any limits I wish unto who may enter my house". It is,
| for example, generally unlawful for you to evict your minor
| child. If you rent out a room, that tenant has rights you can't
| violate, too. You can't keep out a cop with a valid warrant,
| either.)
| tshaddox wrote:
| > But said country may have set rules for itself, like the
| First Amendment
|
| Probably better to think of these as rules that the _ruled
| people_ have for their rulers.
| medler wrote:
| No, we have no rulers but ourselves.
| nielsbot wrote:
| - When you say "a country" this vetting may not in fact be what
| the majority of citizens want.
|
| - I suspect there is racism and xenophobia behind this
|
| - What kind of weak-ass people cannot tolerate dissenting
| opinions from visitors?
| newfriend wrote:
| The People elected the current executive to represent them.
|
| You are free to suspect anything you want - that doesn't make
| it true.
|
| Americans are tired of their country being abused.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| This is a silly comment. The legality isn't really in question.
| It's whether or not it's a good idea. And citizens of a country
| will debate whether it's a good idea or not. If we citizens
| decide it's a bad idea, we'll vote out the government currently
| in power.
| arealaccount wrote:
| How does this work if you don't have social media accounts?
| jankyxenon wrote:
| I think that almost definition implies you didn't post anything
| that disqualifies you. It's probably really easy to circumvent
| too if you're committed to (e.g., deactivate your account)
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Not having a social media account sounds like something only
| a freedom hating terrorist would do.
|
| /s
| commandlinefan wrote:
| You don't even have to deactivate it, just say you don't have
| one.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Congrats, you're off to jail now.
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "deactivate your account"
|
| They thought of that. https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/vi
| sas/Enhanced%20Vettin...
|
| > 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.
| rose-knuckle17 wrote:
| Hopefully a consequence of that will be the rest of the world
| actively telling its people that america is probably a less
| healthy regime for them than countries like China and
| discouraging all recreational, educational and employment travel
| here, under any circumstances - including the desires and
| fetishes of unregulated capitalism.
|
| We are currently test driving the arbitrary execution of anyone
| without due process to see if THAT finally wakes up the
| population. But it wont.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Don't know if you've been paying attention, but that's the
| intention. Many in the U.S are willing to sacrifice the
| country's GPD to inflict cruelty upon others and preserve
| "heritage Americans".
| newfriend wrote:
| The US is more than simply an "economic zone".
|
| It's not cruel to want to keep your country from changing
| irreversibly. Foreigners don't have a right to immigrate.
| Americans are allowed to decide who they want to let in.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Hosted some Japanese study-abroad students over Thanksgiving
| (they often have no where to go over break). A few times when I
| suggested an activity they asked if it was "safe". Like taking
| an Amtrak train. Seeing the "Walk of Stars" in Los Angeles.
|
| It was sad to realize that they viewed the U.S. as so
| dangerous. But I can say for certain that I feel I could walk
| around Tokyo at night and not have a worry in the world. From
| time to time I am embarrassed by the U.S.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| FWIW, this isn't new. I was an exchange student in Osaka in
| the early 90's and a girl in my class got picked for an
| exchange program in Canada and she said she was relieved she
| didn't have to worry about being shot.
| expedition32 wrote:
| Shanghai is a very exciting city and the Chinese actually WANT
| European visitors. Would recommend.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| They're also going to ban you and all of your relatives from
| receiving a Visa if you've previously worked in content
| moderation, fact-checking, trust/safety. The most free speech
| hostile administration in modern history.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-orders...
| rogerrogerr wrote:
| Your conclusion doesn't seem to follow from your statement.
| Content moderation, fact checking, and trust/safety as they've
| been implemented by social media platforms are jobs that employ
| people to limit the speech of others.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "You, a private company, are not allowed to perform content
| moderation on your own platform, and if you do, we, the
| Federal government, will punish you" is a clear First
| Amendment _violation_.
| rogerrogerr wrote:
| Was it a First Amendment violation when the Biden admin
| leaned on Facebook and Twitter to censor speculation about
| the origins of Covid?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Thus far, per SCOTUS (Barrett, joined by Roberts,
| Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, Jackson), no.
|
| https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/supreme-court-rules-
| in-...
|
| https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/justices-side-with-
| biden-...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murthy_v._Missouri
|
| (Nor was it illegal when the Trump administration did the
| same thing.
| https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-
| tru...)
|
| > When the White House called up Twitter in the early
| morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what
| they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model
| Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump "a
| pussy ass bitch" on Twitter -- and the White House wanted
| the tweet to come down.
|
| > The Trump administration and its allied Republicans in
| Congress routinely asked Twitter to take down posts they
| objected to -- the exact behavior that they're claiming
| makes President Biden, the Democrats, and Twitter
| complicit in an anti-free speech conspiracy to muzzle
| conservatives online.
|
| Asking is legal. Punishing non-compliance is not.
| arjie wrote:
| When I filed my last DS-160 for my final H-1B renewal before I
| got my green card, I remember filling in my social media
| identifiers. In fact, a look at a 2019 document reveals that
| providing the identifiers has been required since at least back
| then[0]. Given that the identifiers must be offered, the intent
| must be that the posts should be read, so this is
| unsurprising[1].
|
| I suppose one happy fact from this must be that USCIS has never
| had convenient access to dragnet surveillance. For if they did,
| they would simply have used the backdoor rather than ask you to
| make the profile public. For my part, I always assumed that the
| US Government knew everything I posted.
|
| I'm sure that if they didn't like me for some reason, they'd find
| a Richelieu accusation to make from what I've written. One would
| imagine it is like that other self-evident thing in the First
| Amendment, "separation of church and state", that is also
| practiced where convenient and not otherwise. Unless born
| American (and perhaps now, also "to Americans born American")
| some degree of scepticism for the tenets of the American Civil
| Religion will serve anyone well.
|
| 0:
| https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Enhanced%20Vettin...
|
| 1: I'm sure someone could construct machinery where a blacklist
| is produced by one arm of the government with view to posts which
| is used by another arm that which has no post-access but I think
| that was unlikely when this was designed
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > I suppose one happy fact from this must be that USCIS has
| never had convenient access to dragnet surveillance. For if
| they did, they would simply have used the backdoor rather than
| ask you to make the profile public.
|
| Not necessarily.
|
| One of the very common tactics by federal investigators is
| asking a question _they already know the answer to_. That lets
| them know when you 're lying, which can be a crime on its own!
| arjie wrote:
| That's a good point. And particularly in immigration (and I
| think I recall in _this very form_ - the DS-160) which has
| such questions such as "Are you a communist?" and "Are you a
| terrorist or have you ever sympathized with them?" which are
| clearly intended for the purpose you describe: to catch you
| in a lie and prosecute you for that even if not for something
| else.
|
| I suppose the analogous technique here is whether you delete
| content they've already recorded. Though it could be simpler,
| and they're just trying to cause an unforced error where
| someone fails to make a profile public, creating an avenue to
| reject them even if it were perfectly fine otherwise.
| expedition32 wrote:
| Honestly I never expect to visit NYC ever again unless they
| secede. It is on the same list as Pyongyang and Moscow lol.
| mindslight wrote:
| Since they are going to treat the Constitution like a piece of
| toilet paper, couldn't they at least have the decency to stick it
| to Trump's shoe so that perhaps one of the people that have to
| clean up him will get bored and start reading it? signed, an
| actual American that still believes in individual Liberty.
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