‘Censorship pure and simple’: critics hit out at Trump plan to vet visitors’ social media | Trump administration
Free speech advocates accused Donald Trump of “shredding civil liberties” and “simple censorship” after the White House announced plans to request social media, phone and email histories from visa applicants from dozens of countries for review before they are allowed to enter the United States.
In a move that some commentators and others warned would reduce tourism to the United States, including for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, compared to China, the Department of Homeland Security said it plans to impose the rules on visitors from 42 countries, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, France, Germany and Japan, if they want to enter the United States with the widely used Esta visa waiver.
The checks will be carried out if a traveler applies for their Esta, with the government asking “Esta applicants to provide social media information from the last five years” as well as “phone numbers used in the last five years” and “email addresses used in the last 10 years”. documents to show.
“The seriousness of this move should not be underestimated,” said Jemimah Steinfeld, chief executive of Index on Censorship in London. “A simple search could uncover all posts critical of Trump and his administration, and then what? Will entry into the United States be dependent on being nice to the president? That would be censorship, pure and simple, and the consequences will extend far beyond as people begin to self-censor to keep the door of the United States open to themselves.”
Amnesty International UK called the plan “grossly disproportionate to any legitimate border needs”.
“This moment shows how the ‘slippery slopes’ on human rights can suddenly turn into an abyss. Years of uncontrolled data trolling at borders, including the UK’s, have brought us here,” said Javier Ruiz Diaz, the group’s technology and human rights leader.
Campaign group Big Brother Watch described the plan as “the latest evidence of the Trump administration’s eagerness to chip away at civil liberties in the name of border control and national security”.
“Each year, the U.S. government will have access to millions of years of social media content, the vast majority of which includes speech that is legal in the United States,” said Matthew Feeney, the group’s advocacy manager. “This would encourage millions of law-abiding people, including many American citizens, to self-censor criticism of the U.S. government. So much for the Trump administration’s commitment to free speech.”
In Brussels, Trump’s move was described as “ironic” after last week he criticized the EU’s €120 million fine against Elon Musk’s X platform as “disgusting”. He said the border measures were a “dramatic overreach and violation of fundamental rights”. German MP Birgit Sippel, member of the European Parliament’s civil liberties, justice and home affairs committee.
Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, said the new entry requirements are “an outrageous demand that violates basic freedom of speech and free expression rights,” according to Politico.
Trump said on Wednesday: “We want security. We want security. We want to make sure we don’t let the wrong people come into our country.”
Asked on Thursday how it would protect its workers from checks, the European Commission described the policy as “floating schemes”. “We have not seen any confirmation of this plan so we need not speculate further,” a spokesman said.
The UK-based Freedom of Expression Union, led by Toby Young, also refused to comment, saying it had a policy of not commenting on free speech issues in other countries.
This move sparked some darkly funny reactions. The account of UK satirical news show Have I Got News for You
Seth Bannon, a San Francisco investor, said: “This is crazy. China is getting ready to demand five years of social media history from tourists, all email addresses and phone numbers used in the last five years, and funky names and addresses of family members. No thanks I won’t be visiting anytime soon!”
He then followed up with a post saying: “Oh no, no that’s the USA, not China.”
Barack Obama’s former campaign chairman, Jon Cooper, said: “This is crazy. It will destroy the US tourism industry.” Australia-based investigative journalist Paul Barry added: “Bang is going on a trip to the US.”
Over the past five years, British prime minister Keir Starmer has published on X that Trump supporters rioting at the Capitol in 2021 were part of a “direct attack on democracy and lawmakers carrying out the will of the American people.”
Going beyond five years of social media posts to check, Health Minister Wes Streeting called Trump a “disgusting, sad little man” in 2017. That same year, technology secretary Liz Kendall, who is holding meetings in Silicon Valley this week, accused Trump of being “insulting” to X. [the] The “presidential office” over a tax bill benefiting the super-rich said: “Trump and Putin don’t want ‘real’ news, they want silence.”
Jeremy Bradley, an expert on privacy and chief executive of Zama, a Paris-based cryptography company, said it was wrong to treat someone’s online history as a permanent record of their beliefs because people’s views change.
“Personal choice and freedom of expression should not be sacrificed in the name of surveillance, especially if it chills expression and restricts fundamental freedoms,” he said. “Privacy is not just a technical issue; it is about dignity and the freedom to be human.”
X, TikTok and Meta, which operates Instagram, Facebook and Threads, have been approached for comment.
