Want To Vacation In America? Trump Wants To See Your Social Media Posts First.

The move is bad for free speech and bad for American businesses that depend on tourism.

On Tuesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection filed a proposal that would require tourists from 42 countries to submit up to five years of their social media history in order to enter the United States. The requirement will affect citizens from nations eligible for the U.S. Visa Waiver Program, which includes most European countries, as well as other developed nations such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia.

The program currently requires tourists from eligible countries to fill out a short application and pay a $40 fee before coming to the United States for up to 90 days without a visa. While the application has allowed visitors to list their social media accounts since 2016, this newest proposal will make doing so mandatory. In addition to submitting years of posts for analysis, prospective tourists may also have to provide years of telephone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses, and information about family members.

The proposal is not the first time the Trump administration has sought to use social media postings to bar individuals' entry to the United States. Earlier this year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he had revoked hundreds of international students' visas for anti-Israel speech or protest activity. "Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa," Rubio said during a March press conference. "We're looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up." In June, several U.S. embassies announced that student visa applicants would need to allow the U.S. government to snoop through their social media accounts.

Unsurprisingly, backlash to Tuesday's announcement was swift. "Requiring temporary visitors here for a vacation or business to surrender five years of their social media to the U.S. will send the message that the American commitment to free speech is pretense, not practice," the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech advocacy group, said in a statement posted to X on Wednesday. "This is not the behavior of a country confident in its freedoms."

The vagueness of the directive is most concerning. It's not at all clear what forms of speech will be considered disqualifying for a tourist seeking entry. Will speech in praise of terrorist groups get someone denied? What about criticism of Israel's war in Gaza? Or posts that simply criticize Trump or poke fun at the American health care system? While Trump's allies might delight in the ability to deny a Trump-hating foreigner the ability to visit America, a similar standard could easily be used by a future Democratic president to deny entry to vaccine skeptics or social conservatives. 

It's also unclear how much time and money the government will spend on analyzing years of posts—not to mention a host of other personal information—that tourists are now expected to hand over. But there are other financial implications to consider: Instead of preventing terrorist sympathizers from entering the country, the proposal, if finalized, will likely deter or bar plenty of harmless tourists from coming to the U.S. and spending their money on American businesses. 

"Setting aside how antithetical this is to American culture," former Rep. Justin Amash pointed out on X this week, "it's certain to damage tourism and lead to Americans being subjected to similar or even worse harassment when traveling abroad."

Comments

[JesseAz (RIP CK)]

First they came for the social media accounts of J6 defendants and I said nothing.

Then they came for the social media accounts of foreigners and I raged.

[Liberty_Belle]

And who is going to review bajillion Terabytes of cat photos to decide if it's subversive enough to bar entry ... especially since he fired everybody with Doge ?

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

According to the headline, trump will personally do it.

[mad.casual]

Once again:

ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET NOT MEAN ALL DAY BUFFET
YOU NO COME STAY 4 HOUR
NO BAD MOUTH MANAGEMENT
NO HARASS OTHER CUSTOMERS
YOU EAT - YOU GO HOME

This isn't difficult.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

LOL

[I, Woodchipper]

We should not allow any pregnant woman in the second half of pregnancy into this country.

[Zeb]

Yet another good reason not to put your life and your stupid opinions on social media.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Like we needed another reason.

[victor]

Especially the bikini photos.

[MollyGodiva]

The US is becoming a paranoid police state where we are afraid of everyone. This is very much not how we need to be as a free country.

Being dicks to the rest of the world will only harm the US.

[Incunabulum]

Works for me.

If you're gonna go on social media and talk shit about how much you hate America and want to destroy it - I don't trust you enough to want you here. Have fun vacationing in Europe.

[victor]

They probably won’t stop many terrorists this way, but they’ll see plenty of bikini photos.

[Neutral not Neutered]

Doesn't the NSA already have all this?

[Hickamore]

Great, and now the other countries will retaliate against American travelers. Unless, of course, their freedom/tolerance reflex is stronger than Trump's or Rubio's, which is rather a low bar.

[Minadin]

Yeah, they're going to look into my social media history and discover that I don't have one. The horror.

[DirkT]

The travel industry is already hurting, now this. Those of you in favor of this absurd proposal clearly don't travel internationally. I am in Japan annually, and can't imagine having to expose my social media to creeps like you.

[AT]

There is nothing whatsoever objectionable about this.

Why should America, Americans, tolerate even slightly someone who knocks on the door and says, "Hi. I hate you. Can I come in?"

Slam it in the face. Hope they're close enough that you break their nose when you do.

[mad.casual]

says, "Hi. I hate you. Can I come in?"

It's actually rather pointed in that "You run a trade deficit with your local grocery store don't you?" regard.

Someone shows up at your door... wants to get in out of the rain to use their cell phone call a tow truck to get their pregnant wife to the hospital or whatever... so you let them in. Once you let them in, you find out who they are and realize they are vaguely familiar. While they're making their call, you check them out on social media and discover that they've been calling for the death of your neighbors, executives in your company... and not just "I lost money on my stock because of them, I hope they fall into a woodchipper." but legitimately burning them in effigy "Somebody 8 steps down the org chart in a remote field office hired a contractor who blew up a school in my city. Killed my people. My religion commands me to destroy the Great Satan from the inside if necessary. Cut the head off all snakes along the way."

Setting aside that you probably should've come to the door armed, that you probably should've found out who they are before letting them in, that you should've kept them on the porch out of the rain or called a tow truck for them or driven them to the local gas station or whatever rather than letting them in and endangering everyone in the household and potentially compromising all the assets in your house... *now* what do you do?

Even if you get out without incident and it was completely banal. You don't adopt a policy of asking the *next* 'stranger' if they have a social media page before letting them in? A policy of "I'm sorry, I can't let you in if you don't have a social media page."

Again, as with the 'detaining US citizens in lieu of passwords' article, I understand that there will be dummy social media pages and people who don't have accounts, but letting people into your house or business without even asking or checking first would be a pretty basic due diligence failure.