Is USA safe to visit?

[perellonuts]

I can’t even believe I’m asking this but is it safe to visit USA now? I’m concerned about the social media issue, I’m pretty sure I’ve liked one or two anti-trump posts each time I’ve doom scrolled since his first term. Could this be used against me? I definitely feel free speech is not tolerated there now. I’d be travelling with my neuro diverse son, age 7. He is perfectly capable with full autonomy and we travel a lot but being separated with no due process would be a disaster and scares the hell out of me. We’ve been invited to go to collect a prestigious award and they put you in a hotel for a few days etc. We have American friends and family and the first hand ICE stories are horrific.

Hillary Clinton got more votes than Trump in 2016. However, 2024 Trump did get a majority of the votes, and turnout at over 60% was decent by US standards.
List of United States presidential elections in which the winner lost the popular vote - Wikipedia = only 5 times.

Elections are never as simple as that!

Only 65% of eligible people voted in the election in the first place. So you’ve got 35% of the country - over a third - who didn’t vote for anyone at all.

Only about 77 million people voted for Trump in a country with a population of over 340 million. That means barely a quarter of the population voted for him.

That’s very far from a majority.

Sure it’s safe. I’m a US citizen and do not want to spend money going there right now myself, so I would skip it personally.

I don't think that's going to help make it more workable. If they want the private IP linked to a specific device, it would be a case of preparing for US trips the same way you prepare for China: with US 'friendly' devices unlinked to any personal or potentially contentious opinions and only ever used for US travel.
But I mean... what's this fucking world we live in now...

My issue would be applying for an esta and having it declined and then being unable to travel their in future. I think if you are granted your esta you will be fine.

There is an irony to me that whilst upset about the US wanting your social media details, the U.K. gov brought out the online safety act meaning you have to provide govt ID to access a large part of social media now. This will in time, become mandatory of course. We arrest a lot of people for online messaging (over 10k a year). that’s fine until your opinion is the wrong one (which can happen at any point btw).

I think every gov no matter the political leaning are becoming rather sinister around free speech globally. Starmer/labour have even cancelled some local elections under the guise of moving county borders and are even getting rid of jury trials.

There’s so much hysteria on this thread it’s concerning about a country we don’t live in and let’s be honest, are different from culturally.

OP - don’t travel if you’re that concerned.

ETSAs can be revoked ....

Except that most digital services we use to communicate on a daily basis are owned and controlled by US companies so even if you never travelled there, you can't 'escape' potential scrutiny, which makes it potentially very sinister.

We had people arrested here for saying men couldn’t be women. It’s been sinister for a while, people only notice when their opinion is suddenly the wrong one.

If you're a British American family with family over there, why are you asking a predominantly British forum how safe America is?

If all you've done is like a few generic anti-Trump memes, then you're in the same boat as probably millions of other people, and it's a bit hysterical to even be worrying about this.

Either this thread is a hoax or there's something dodgy you're not telling us. Is there something in your online history you're afraid they'll find if they dig deeper?

Take a burner phone with no social media on it?

First of all, look at the specifics of each case - and please, let's not derail this thread into a trans bunfight. Every freedom of speech 'martyr' in the UK also has had the chance to defend themselves. Whatever imperfections in our system, we have the rule of law and true freedom of expression. What's brewing in the US is vastly different in scope and it'll affect us too. The day Fromage gets in will be the day I ask MN to remove all my posts. I do not trust the MAGA playbook.

They ask for the account details, not the device.

Are you talking about proof of age to access porn sites, etc. on social media to help protect children from inappropriate content? And people being practically (and sometimes actually) driven to suicide by online abuse?

Removing jury trials for fairly trivial offences seems to me to be pretty sensible and would help get rid of the huge backlog in the courts. Probably not going to happen though.

Delaying some local elections does seem to be mainly politically motivated with labour trying to hang on to some councils that they will likely lose when the elections happen.

It’s not a ‘bun fight’ when it was predominantly women targeted for these ‘thought crimes’. But I digress.

My point was that for all the hysteria around Trump, we have actual social media imprisonment happening in the UK. The removal of jury trials is also deeply sinister for trialing these crimes.

So if everyone’s that concerned about freedom of speech, I’d be more concerned about the country I actually live in and spend some of that Trump meme time watching what’s going on under our government. If Digital ID gets in and links to the online safety act, you best hope your political leanings are the right ones.

I’m glad you mention Farage, it’s important to look at rules around free speech and view it from both political sides.

I think anything with a profile pic and/or your actual name absolutely will have to be provided as it's easy to see if you've withheld information. As for the rest, such as IP addresses, this is what I've found (asking our friend Chat GPT): The draft rule does not require:

• You to list all the IP addresses you’ve used for every website and app you ever visited.
• You to dig up your past internet logs from your home router, mobile carrier, VPN, or forum account dashboards.
• You to provide ISP records or historical network usage.
• You to trace your forum posts back to IPs.

We have been to the US for the past two years. So my current ESTA will expire in August. We have one more trip planned in April and then we won’t bother for a while with the social media history being a bit of a turn off for me. Especially as insurance won’t cover issues and we tend to travel business. I don’t post anti trump content.

I like the US, I like the people and it’s a beautiful place to visit. We tend to stick to East and or West Coast destinations though and have found people friendly and welcoming during my many visits there (tend to go once a year).

Digital ID is potentially problematic. I'm concerned about data protection and the degree to which voting will remain truly confidential. But that's a subject for a different thread. OP wants to know if going to the US is safe. In terms of being targeted by ICE outside of the airport I think her chances are next to zero but crossing the border is an entirely arbitrary process, and about to become an extremely invasive one at that.

That’s the apparent intended goal but actually you’ll note you now cannot access a lot of global news such as the war in Ukraine without providing ID to services like Twitter and Facebook. There is also no regulation on the providers of the digital ID checks and there have already been multiple breaches by Reddit and Discord. A very haphazard policy with limited regulation. Personally I think it’s not been done for the right reasons but that’s by the by.

The removal of jury trials concerns me for minor offences as a lot of judges have been found to be activists or allow their own political beliefs to intervene. With anything I worry about precedent being set and am a huge advocate for jury by peers.

You should have read the form properly. Social media disclosure is optional.

as noted upthread, since most social media companies are US owned, they will have details of where your email address has been used, should they decide to go fishing. They could also cross reference IP addresses, if they so wish.

Any company with a US presence is subject to the US CLOUD act with requires them to pony up data when Uncle Sam asks. Regardless of where the data may be stored.

It's worth knowing what they can do, so you are less surprised when they then do do ....

I agree on derailing, apologies.

I don’t like the Brutishness of it all but I can also see why countries and their citizens want more enhanced checks on those entering. It is being whipped up into a hysteria when as you say, the risk is minimal.

Social media provision is optional and unfortunately, when you post online in your own name you take a risk each time. If I hated the leader that much, I wouldn’t attend for an award. Same as I wouldn’t visit a lot of the countries with appalling human rights.

We have just got home from the US and although I was slightly nervous going there (visiting family) there was no issue at all. We travelled with an elderly relative under special assistance and border force couldn't have been nicer or more helpful. My younger daughter is vocal on socials about Trump and it was a big worry but there was no issue. Your average American is polite and respectful (very much more then here, I noticed how far we've slipped in regards to this) so this wasn't an issue either.
The developments with regards to human rights in the US is my main reason for not rushing back anytime soon, the same reason I won't visit the Middle East. We aim to visit every 4 years but if the situation doesn't change for the better by then we won't be going.

Good to know. I deeply resent this state of affairs.

I don’t agree with it in this sense but I do feel a positive to it is that some people need to realise SM isn’t anonymous and actions on it can have repercussions. It brings back some awareness which isn’t a bad thing.