A lot of (young) people seem to quickly add people to their contacts or friend list after barely having spent time together. And those usually never get removed as most apps conveniently hide infrequently used contacts in the default view.

What’s the alternative to that? Not ever getting to know anyone?

The social advice older people tend give younger people in the US is often extremely self destructive and isolating.

Well my point was actually just that because someone is on your friends list on facebook doesn't actually mean you had any interaction with them in the last decade or even remember who that is, let alone sympathize with anything they post to their timeline.

But to answer your question: How about just not adding everyone you meet at a party at 3 am to your Facebook while drunk? I don't see how this prevents you from meeting people IRL. People managed to get to know each other before social media just fine.

Bonus chatter: When I was almost done with college I had a new flat mate who just started his bachelor's and joined him once or twice when he went out. Usually during college time you don't care about or notice age that much. But suddenly I was surrounded by a bunch of 19 year old freshmen at a BBQ and everyone was constantly checking their phones and messaging people who weren't there. Suddenly an age gap of 6 years that was never an issue before made me feel like a freaking grandpa.

So if someone responds to your comment with something objectionable, you'll be ok with people using that to restrict your rights and privileges?

Viral whatsapp messages are common in south asia. Receiving a message doesn't mean it's from a friend.

I'm not condoning or arguing against the CBP decision, just pointing out that their line of thinking is not novel. It has been around since the times of Socrates.

Sure. But they're bungling the heuristic. It's equivalent of seeing viagra ads in an email spam folder and accusing someone of intent to smuggle drugs.

Tell me what subreddits you subscribe to and I'll tell you who you are.

Most of my subscriptions are ones I accidentally clicked while scrolling through r/all

That's a short list

/r/palm

I have friends who are Indian, Hispanic, white, black, Muslim, and Jewish. Some of them despise the President. One feels pretty strongly against Brexit. Another one is a staunch defender of Palestinians and believes Netanyahu is a crook who will continue annexing settlements in the West Bank to appease hardliners in order to stay in power.

What does any of this say about whether I should be allowed in the US?

You sound like a candidate for a drone strike /s.

What are you talking about? You might be associated with individuals who posted content that may appear questionable. You may have a connection of a connection on social media who wrote something questionable altogether. Where does the association end?

FYI software at the border to inspect phone content simply parse the file system and copies over all files for further analysis. It also transfers all emails and more text analysis. Anything flagged by filters get shown to the operator who may be surprised to see so much crap on a visitor device.

No, we do not "raise one eyebrow" because someone was born on the wrong patch of dirt. That is a shameful and disgusting approach for the "shining city on a hill" to take.

It doesn't matter — it is so obviously wrong to discriminate based on country of origin that I can't even believe we're having this discussion.

(And yes, I'm aware that consular posts do it all the time, issuing fewer visas to people from the wrong countries. States suck, and state violence sucks.)