Twitter and Reddit challenges requirement for US visa applicants to declare their online handles
Twitter, Reddit, and the Internet Association filed a legal brief in support of a challenge to the US State Department’s policy of requiring visa applicants to disclose their social media handles and profiles.
The State Department policy was introduced in 2017 and was criticized at the time as a deterrent to free speech. An estimated 14.7m people apply for a US visa from abroad each year.
The US government has attempted to justify its social media screening as a security measure. But a 2017 report from the DHS Inspector General found that pilot programs to gather social media accounts failed to establish the data had value to identify security threats.
