US Embassy in Barbados (picture by National Museum of American Diplomacy)
Citizens of Antigua and Barbuda will be among those affected by new social media disclosure requirements for US visa applications announced by the US Embassy in Bridgetown, Barbados.
The embassy serves seven Caribbean nations including Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
According to the embassy, visa applicants are required to list all social media usernames or handles of every platform they have used from the last 5 years on the DS-160 visa application form. Applicants certify that the information in their visa application is true and correct before they sign and submit. Omitting social media information could lead to visa denial and ineligibility for future visas.
The embassy has issued specific instructions for certain visa categories, stating that all individuals applying for an F, M, or J non-immigrant visa are requested to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to ‘public’ to facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States. This requirement takes effect immediately.
The announcement comes as the US State Department recently restarted the suspended process for foreigners applying for student visas, with all applicants now required to unlock their social media accounts for government review. The State Department indicated that consular officers will examine posts and messages that could be deemed hostile to the United States, its government, culture, institutions or founding principles.
The embassy explained that since 2019, the United States has required visa applicants to provide social media identifiers on immigrant and non-immigrant visa application forms.
The statement added that they use “use all available information in our visa screening and vetting to identify visa applicants who are inadmissible to the United States, including those who pose a threat to US national security.”
All of you Trump bashers. It’s too late to delete dem posts. They will know. Lol
So if a student posts a meme criticizing a US policy, they could lose a scholarship or be denied a visa? That’s wild.
This is a serious invasion of privacy. What happened to freedom of expression? So now we have to censor ourselves just to study or visit family?
Parents! It is time to look closely to what your children’s are doing on their phone, which you should have done anyway when you gave it to them. After all they are childrens and your responsibility until they turn 18.
As someone involved with a secondary school, we have being saying FOR YEARS to our students, “be careful what you write on your phone” “once written, it never goes away”…Most of them laughed!
Might not be laughing now!
Good luck!
This is just a stark reminder that our online presence now carries real-world implications.
You’re an idiot just like that moron who cheated to get back into the White House