Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests there are going to be some major changes with regard to social media protocols associated with certain Non-immigrant Visas into the United States. Let me be clear, this is pertaining to Non-immigrant Visas to the United States. So it's the F, the M and the J category. These are, the J is like au pair teachers, exchange visitors; F is generally student visas. Basically we are talking about visas for temporary stay in the United States. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: US Visa Applicants must make social media accounts public. Quoting directly, the article again to the best of my knowledge and I'm doing another video on this, this hasn't specifically yet been applied to the Immigrant Visa categories, but I'll get to the analysis on that in another video where I talk about K-1 Fiancé Visas as well as the various Marriage Visas and how this new policy may impact those categories. That said, quoting directly: "Applicants for three types of Non-immigrant Visas to the United States must set their social media accounts to public mode as part of the submission process now in effect, the US Embassy in Thailand said on Monday. Quote: "Effective immediately, 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 under US Law," the Embassy said on its social media outlets. The F visa is for students, M Visa for vocational students" - yeah I have not had a lot of dealings with the M Visa over the years - quoting further: "..including those attending training in the US, and J classification is for visitors on exchange programmes." 

Yeah, I have got to be honest, I find this to be a bit Orwellian. But that said, the nature of the Immigration and Nationality Act is what it is. If you are not an American citizen and you are not in the US, you don't really have any rights with respect to the Government asking to see documentation and information about your identity and about your activities abroad. So they are well within the scope of the law in requesting this stuff. I'm sure that this will be probably a bone of contention/consternation for folks who are looking to go to the United States; they may not necessarily want all of their social media profiles to be made public to adjudicators for a Visa. But that said, your choice is you can either do that or not get the visa, or like definitely not get the Visa, because if you don't switch it to public they will say, "well we're not going to issue you the Visa or we are not even going to give you a chance to have the visa issued until you switch it to public. 

Again, I think this may have ramifications in the Immigrant Visa context and I will get to that in other videos. But long story short, yeah with respect to a lot of these Non-immigrant Visas especially looking down the barrel of three and a half more years of the current administration, if anything, I suspect things will get more stringent not less so as the years go by, at least for the immediately foreseeable future.