Companies that specialize in mass deletions of posts have seen an uptick in services since the Department of Homeland Security’s announcement.
But clearing out everything the administration finds controversial could raise other alarms, leaving foreign students in a bind.
“I think students have pretty much assumed that anything is open for interpretation or misinterpretation, and so as a result, they’re extremely cautious when it comes to engaging with social media moving forward,” said Fanta Aw, executive director and CEO of the Association of International Educators.
The new screenings were announced in June after a three-week pause on visa interviews to update the policy, part of President Trump’s broader crackdown on both legal and illegal immigration.
The State Department said it would target those “who pose a threat to U.S. national security,” without specifying what that would entail, and demanded anyone applying for a student visa make their social media accounts public.
The go-to response from students appears to be cleansing their social media of anything even remotely controversial.
Dan Saltman, CEO and founder of Redact.dev, says his company’s trajectory has “greatly accelerated,” with 10 percent growth each month for the past few months. His firm offers a software that allows people to mass delete posts across 30 different platforms.
“Basically, our understanding is that people are using this to clean up any political takes that they have, whatsoever. Anything that can be seen as inflammatory, really kind of quelling freedom of speech,” Saltman said.
The Hill’s Lexi Lonas Cochran has more here.
