this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2025
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Privacy

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[–] taco@piefed.social 15 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

The username requirement isn't anything new; that requirement was on our DS-160 years ago.

The "wants people to set their social media profiles to public" isn't quoted, so seems less like an official policy anywhere and more like one embassy worker being a prick. Unfortunately, each individual embassy operates independently totally devoid of any accountability.

This process is dehumanizing, inefficient, and totally fucked...but this particular part of it has been this was for a long-ass time.

[–] cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 23 hours ago (1 children)
[–] taco@piefed.social 5 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Fair enough, though that's an ask from the State Dept., not a demand from the embassy, as indicated in the OP. It's an important distinction because the embassy holds the authority at that point in the process. They can ignore the guidance altogether or demand everyone open their profiles. They're probably more likely to do the latter now, but they could've done this two years ago too.

Demanding the usernames for the past 5 years and being suspect of anyone not on social media isn't a new, that was my main point. I don't think many people appreciated how shitfucked our visa processes are, even before the current "administration" helping.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 3 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

I wonder how times have changed. I know someone who immigrated to the US around 2010s, they had no social media, most of their country didn't really have internet yet. They were let in just fine and have since became a US citizen.

So is 2010s have no expectation of having social media, but now its an expectation?

[–] AquaTofana@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

We eeww km r both vghe,

[–] taco@piefed.social 2 points 15 hours ago

I think it's all some level of FUD until there's an example of it being called out as a reason for denial. The fields have been on the application for a while, but I know someone who recently came in with a private ig profile and a vk profile that hadn't been used for anything but chat. Wasn't mentioned at all along the process beyond being on the application.

That may change soon, but it also might just be rhetoric from dipshits playing to their dipshit base.