This article makes it look like this vetting is mainly of visa applicants’ employment history and family to protect free speech. But it’s actually just an attack on free speech. Why does it matter if someone worked on fact checking? Or compliance? What business is that of the government? See this quote from the article:

> The cable, sent to all U.S. missions on December 2, orders U.S. consular officers to review resumes or LinkedIn profiles of H-1B applicants - and family members who would be traveling with them - to see if they have worked in areas that include activities such as misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance and online safety, among others.

The actual state department announcing shows how dystopian the changes are more clearly (https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/a...):

> To facilitate this vetting, all applicants for H-1B and their dependents (H-4), F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas are instructed to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media profiles to “public.”

This is frankly just an unamerican and perhaps unconstitutional change. Forcing applicants to change all their social media to public for a deep review of their online presence? How authoritarian.