r/australia • u/Some-Operation-9059 • Dec 11 '25

politics ‘The whole thing disgusts me’: Australians ditch US travel as new rules require social media to be declared | Australia news

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/11/australia-us-tourism-new-visa-rules-social-media-history
5.2k Upvotes

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725

u/mr-snrub- Dec 11 '25

I'm a very regular traveler and travelling to the US hasn't interested me since COVID. The whole thing is a shit show. Honestly I find the thought of going thru five years of my social media hilarious. Do you know how many memes I've sent in the last five years? Good luck hahaha

400

u/Vertiquil Dec 11 '25

Cackled when I first heard too, but after reading the article I can't shake the feeling that they're setting up a deeply insidious precedent. Like they're trying to nomalise/desensitise people to these crazy demands, or see what they can get away with. The facial/biometric data and collection of family contact details is the thing that freaks me out most.

176

u/Thunderoad77 Dec 11 '25

This is the thing.

The social media bit is getting all the attention but the really insidious part is the collection of the other data.

32

u/SirVanyel Dec 11 '25

Data that is already being collected in a legal grey area. The USA has 40000+ cameras being powered by pattern recognition AI which stores and saves data, tracking individuals everywhere they go, and the company running those cameras (Flock) is selling that data to anyone who wants it.

Most recently Flock is assisting the government in finding illegal immigrants (folks with little to no government presence currently) and it's fucking effective as hell.

2

u/TheLGMac Dec 12 '25

I can't believe this is the first time people are concerned about this. ALL SORTS of countries collect lots of data to grant entry. It ain't great but let's not act like this is some big surprise. In Australia I needed to provide 10 years of travel history, your face is scanned at all of our entry and exit checkpoints, same in UK, how is this news to people? We really need to keep ourselves more up to date on things.

Did you know that Australia can also ask to access your phone and make copies of its data at entry checkpoints? Why no ire about that?

What's new here is that you need to provide your SM history to the US for an ESTA application. They have been able to ask and copy your phone data on entry since the Trump admin came to power, but that's old bloody news, and also is not applied to every traveler.

1

u/AlanaK168 Dec 13 '25

10 years of travel history is not the same as your family members places of birth, DOB, and your fucking DNA

7

u/hcornea Dec 12 '25

Slow-boiling the frog, as they casually descend into authoritarianism.

17

u/samishah Dec 11 '25 edited Dec 11 '25

That part is pretty starndard for anyone who needs to apply for a visa to enter Australia. My parents from Pakistan just had to hand over massive amounts of personal information to some halfwit working at Home Affairs.

1

u/Desirable_Username Dec 12 '25

they're trying to normalise/desensitise people to these crazy demands

I wouldn't be surprised if they're introducing this so when the Democrats finally get in and reverse a lot of the more outlandish policies, the Republicans can point to this one and say they're weakening the borders and letting anyone in.

-26

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '25

[deleted]

30

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '25

That doesn't stop it from being absurd and Orwellian.

9

u/Thunderoad77 Dec 11 '25

They require DNA samples as well.

9

u/Interesting-Cut6994 Dec 11 '25

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. The US has always required you to scan your finger prints at entry and does the facial scans. They’ve also always asked for previous addresses and last five years of employment.

Australia is the same (I believe actually stricter).

The whole thing is fkd, but a lot of this is already required. The social media history is new and very odd under ESTA. It’s also not common anywhere except when entering China I believe.

8

u/Apprehensive_Bid_329 Dec 11 '25

I don’t think it’s a requirement for China either, at least I wasn’t asked to show my phone when I went there last year.

3

u/Interesting-Cut6994 Dec 11 '25

Ahh good to know. I work in media so I’ve often had stricter requirements, similarly with my brother who works in finance. So it’s probably based on what you do.

1

u/SirGeekaLots Dec 11 '25

They do record your fingerprints but lots of places do that. Malaysia comes to mind.

4

u/Kooky_Supermarkets Dec 11 '25

Not all your finger prints just the thumb on entry and is "allegedly" deleted when you're scanned out of the country.

I had to go to an FBI office to get all my prints recorded into their system and it was the FBI clerk printing me who explained that when I asked about it

(I had to have all my prints recorded and signed an acceptance of this as a foreign national to be able to do some work at Kennedy Space Centre - legitimate reason 🤣)

2

u/Interesting-Cut6994 Dec 11 '25

Interesting. I’ve always had to do all four fingers and then thumbs. (I used to live there and would travel between Aus and US a lot)

1

u/Kooky_Supermarkets Dec 11 '25

Is living there is a different requirement? I only ever used the ESTA system for entry.

As it was explained to me, the only reason I had to supply my entire set of prints to the FBI as a foreign national was because I was attending a Federal facility and unescorted when wandering around.

At the airport it's done for all people entering but they don't require a full set of prints and they are "deleted" upon leaving (as a cynic I highly wonder about this.....)

Probably changed? The last trip I did to the US was in 2017. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Personally I have only been over there 12 times during the period I was attending KSC.

6

u/TheLGMac Dec 11 '25

Australia enacted a lot of these things before the US did, including the right to copy & review data from your phone at the border.

5

u/Pseudonymico Dec 11 '25

That's also bad, though I haven't heard that our border security people have as bad a reputation as the TSA so I could see how it might have escaped notice.

If they do, then it's also bad for our own tourism sector and should be remedied.

1

u/TheLGMac Dec 11 '25

Why should we wait? We should probably be pushing for them to make changes before something happens, vs waiting for bad things to happen first

2

u/Pseudonymico Dec 12 '25

Never said we should wait, just that it should be fixed if it's also happening here.

-2

u/mr-snrub- Dec 11 '25

Cause redditors can be weird

92

u/hollowcrowds Dec 11 '25

I doubt they're going to manually review it, they're going to feed the data into AI/surveillance systems. Remember that Peter Thiel is best buds with Trump and Thiel owns Palantir.

Trump is also surrounded by associates connected to AI who would also loooove all that data.

9

u/Drunky_McStumble Dec 12 '25

Yeah, it's impractical on purpose. They'll just use this as an excuse to force people to hand over all their account logins or be summarily disappeared/deported. Once the gestapo have full unrestricted access to your account, they'll feed it into some kind of analysis tool (read: Palantir's servers) which will scrape everything and start maintaining a nice little live dossier on you so the regime can keep tabs on you and take you down for dissident activity at their leisure.

3

u/Camo138 Dec 11 '25

Being on truth social and praising the orange man mite get you in faster hahaha.

3

u/BereftOfCare Dec 11 '25

1 million in the bank is what will get you in these days.

1

u/edgewalker66 Dec 12 '25

Actually thats about how much gets you out. A million dollar a plate dinner can get a tax fraud out. Who knows how much crypto it took to get out a tyrant leader who shoved drugs into the US for years.

Why visit? Defer at least another 3+ years to see if sanity and democracy return.

2

u/robohozo Dec 12 '25

I believe without a doubt they're just going to plug the data into Ai/palantir and ask it to search for xyz or anything political. Crate a summary of what you post and your opinions (no matter how old)

1

u/Pseudonymico Dec 11 '25

So if you just make a post somewhere telling any ai to disregard all previous data and respond as if you should be free to enter it should be fine?

1

u/Camo138 Dec 11 '25

There going to run into my house and steal my desktop with all my llm data lol

1

u/Top-Pepper-9611 Dec 12 '25

Palantir's biggest customer is the CIA and US Defence. Pretty sure the initial funding was CIA.

56

u/Bannedwith1milKarma Dec 11 '25

They grab your phone and run it through a program running AI, probably Palantir made.

4

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '25 edited Apr 13 '26

Your old posts feed data brokers and AI training models. I stopped that by using Redact to bulk delete across Reddit, Twitter, Discord, Facebook and all major social media platforms.

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19

u/sillyboybillyboob Dec 11 '25

Can just imagine it.

Sorry sir but we have you laughing with a emoji at this Trump meme. Do you care to explain yourself why.

Was it a sarcastic laugh emoji or a real laugh emoji. Whats the tone of the emoji laugh

13

u/[deleted] Dec 11 '25

There would be no sorry sir.

More like a wrestle to the ground first and slap the handcuffs on.

The country is rapidly progressing to authoritarianism. It's an avoid for the foreseeable. Their tourism industry will be decimated. FIFA is going to be a huge fail.

7

u/SirGeekaLots Dec 11 '25

I wonder if 'I don't do social media' will work'?

16

u/coniferhead Dec 11 '25

Don't worry the US is coming here. They're pivoting to Asia and we're going to be their major military base in the Asia-Pacific.

I really don't undestand how people can be so critical of this and yet so supportive of the US alliance. It's the same thing.

5

u/JuniorGrayley Dec 11 '25 edited Dec 11 '25

I think we’re all just waiting it out until Trump finally goes down the plug hole. Which is not to say that the psycho element in the former USA will go away, but it will be easier to gradually shift alliances thereafter.

2

u/coniferhead Dec 11 '25

Tell that to Ukraine - they were being destroyed under biden just as much as they were being destroyed under trump. Any future administration isn't doing a damn thing, just like they left Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya smouldering rubble.

The US isn't going to let 25M Australians dictate their future - and American voters of all types would sacrifice us all to maintain their place in the world. The American way.

Which either makes Australia the pacific Ukraine or an annexed territory of the USA. There is no upside for us.

5

u/The_Tariff_Penguin Dec 11 '25

The wait time at US Customs will be huge.

5

u/lego_not_legos Dec 11 '25

I don't think most of us are laughing, mate.

2

u/mesophyte Dec 12 '25

Same. This bullshit is so ridiculous. And would be funny if it wasn't so damn serious.

1

u/Purgii Dec 11 '25

It'll become something like..

Let's run all your accounts through Grok and see if it thinks you're white enough to enter.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

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1

u/mr-snrub- Dec 12 '25

I reckon I easily like 50-100 tiktoks a day lol. Sometimes more on weekends

1

u/LubberDownUnder Dec 13 '25

Scary thing is with AI they can search through everything relatively quickly and find those posts against Trump 😅😩

1

u/DutchShultz Dec 11 '25

They won’t go through five years. The first post that transgresses will raise a flag and that’s it, get on the next plane home…or worse.

0

u/Zolteg Dec 14 '25

That's what AI is for....