Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by lokar on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:21PM (#47009780)

Or, adjust your priorities and resist more. Authoritarians win when people let them.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by jmclnx on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:43PM (#47009999)

Plus in Nov or 2026, get out and vote, no matter how hard it is to get to the polls. This happened because people sat on their behinds and did nothing in Nov 2024,

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by assimpleaspossi on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:50PM (#47010054)

Nah. People who sit on social media would rather stand on street corners and yell at people.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by goatlover on Saturday February 14, 2026 @12:36AM (#47011905)

If someone is motivated enough to attend protests, they're motivated enough to go vote.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by sejje on Saturday February 14, 2026 @12:20PM (#47016293)

Many of the people who go to protests have lost their right to vote.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by goatlover on Saturday February 14, 2026 @03:07PM (#47017881)

Not sure what that means. Mostly ordinary citizens go to protests. Not aware of any group paying felons to protest. Speaking of, is Trump allowed to vote?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by lokar on Saturday February 14, 2026 @11:07AM (#47015575)

Attending public (peaceful) protest is valuable. It shows that people with that view point (whatever it is) are not alone. It encourages more people to get involved.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by gmerc on Saturday February 14, 2026 @11:01AM (#47015505)

Won't matter. Donny put the epstein files out, redacted, to remind every single influential person in the blast radius that unless he keeps holding the redaction pen, all their lives will be over.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by lokar on Sunday February 15, 2026 @10:32AM (#47024467)

One thing to consider: it’s clear he was very widely connected in American elite circles. It’s likely that almost all prominent people (in finance, business, the arts, science, government, etc) all came across him. We know he worked pretty hard to get intertwined with everyone he could.

And yet, although the list of his connections is large, it’s very far from most of these people. It seems plenty of people saw him for who he was and steered clear.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by lokar on Saturday February 14, 2026 @11:06AM (#47015566)

And, try to talk to people who don't agree with you. Have an open mind, listen, avoid being judgmental and critical. It's not easy, but you can change minds.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by 1970-01-01 on Saturday February 14, 2026 @11:12AM (#47015615)

Indeed. We're not too far from "I am Spartacus."

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by lawn on Saturday February 14, 2026 @12:06PM (#47016154)

I think it's prudent to both resist and to protect yourself.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by mikestew on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:25PM (#47009823)

Let ‘em come. Even if I could delete my posts (you can’t, BTW), I’m not deleting shit. And I’m sure not obeying in advance.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by GaryBluto on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:32PM (#47009884)

I hope that this is hyperbolic satire and not a genuine viewpoint because it is incredibly unrealistic to the point of being almost fantastical. The US government aren't going to "go after" or interfere with Hacker News at any time in the future unless it suddenly, inexplicably becomes a popular hotbed of political activism (which it shouldn't become anyway).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by reaperducer on Friday February 13, 2026 @08:14PM (#47010255)

unless it suddenly, inexplicably becomes a popular hotbed of political activism

That's the thing about AI and scale. You don't have to only target the big fish. You can cast a wide net and scoop up data on people in every nook and cranny of the internet.

The concentration camps were loaded with people who thought their town was too small for the Nazis to bother with.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by sroussey on Friday February 13, 2026 @08:22PM (#47010354)

You don’t even need AI, just data brokers. And no warrant needed, only cash.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by Terr_ on Friday February 13, 2026 @08:22PM (#47010349)

Why do you think these folks operate in a rational and proportional manner?

All it takes is one "wrong" thing to go viral and anybody goes in the retribution list.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by malcolmgreaves on Friday February 13, 2026 @08:26PM (#47010401)

Wrong. They are kidnapping American citizens and exiling them. They’re imprisoning people that criticize the government.

It’s a totalitarian regime. With enough time, will come after all dissenters.

> popular hotbed of political activism

First, it is unbelievably illegal for the government to do this.

Second, pain is their objective. Republicans have had no principles since they elected Trump in 2016. Their only objective is to hurt whomever they consider the enemy.

And everyone that isn’t screaming “I love the orange dictator!” is an enemy.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by AnimalMuppet on Friday February 13, 2026 @08:33PM (#47010453)

It is highly illegal - unconstitutional - for them to go after HN, even if it becomes a popular hotbed of political activism.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by sethammons on Saturday February 14, 2026 @06:30AM (#47013681)

/me waves hands around wildly

This admin is constantly doing illegal things and when challenged in court has over a 70% loss rate.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by DavidSJ on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:21PM (#47009782)

I don’t think we should preemptively surrender our free speech to the authoritarians.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by ynac on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:31PM (#47009874)

To all the replies herein:

Dang - I haven't read that kind of hacker attitude anywhere, even here, in a long time ya'll. I ain't kiddin', I got a little weepy.

I don't know what the rally cry of hackers would be, but Atari 800, assembly code, and solder smoke for all!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by comrade1234 on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:22PM (#47009791)

I swear many years ago you could delete old posts but not any longer. About all you can do now is do something so egregious that they delete your account.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by bink on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:26PM (#47009826)

Even if you could delete comments, in this day and age it's not a real deletion. They'd just put a "deleted" flag on the comment in the DB.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by nozzlegear on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:30PM (#47009866)

There's likely many iterations of HN comment datasets out there from "show hn: I scraped everyone's comments for my comp sci/big data class" over the years.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by Macha on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:27PM (#47009838)

And there's a bunch of full scrapes of HN around anyway.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by layer8 on Friday February 13, 2026 @08:11PM (#47010234)

The HN email address takes personal requests for comment deletion.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by 46493168 on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:29PM (#47009851)

That’s actually how I got my Facebook deleted in 2015, and it appears I am still banned. I posted a picture, from behind, of a cowboy wearing only chaps. I tried to join again around 2022 to sell some stuff and they rejected me.

Probably the best move I made for my mental health tbh.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by nostrademons on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:29PM (#47009854)

You've always been able to delete for 2 hours and then the post becomes effectively permanent, modulo emailing dang to get it deleted by an admin.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by pesus on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:38PM (#47009963)

Have they stated the justification for this anywhere? You'd think a site that brands itself as being for hackers would value its users having control over their comments/privacy.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by JoshTriplett on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:58PM (#47010109)

There's value in editing for clarity within a window of a live discussion. After the live discussion is less active, it's important to be able to reference things or see a coherent view of the discussion and what people were responding to.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by nostrademons on Friday February 13, 2026 @09:27PM (#47010907)

Yes, it's because the comments create a discussion thread that then becomes impossible to follow (or worse, misleading) if certain comments within it are either deleted or edited to say something different. The idea is that what you write becomes communal property once it's been responded to, because it's part of a community discussion that loses meaning if people start deleting individual comments.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by AnimalMuppet on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:45PM (#47010011)

I believe that, even within that two hour window, you cannot delete if anyone has replied to it.

You can still edit it to say "[deleted]" or something, though.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by asdff on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:26PM (#47009832)

You can do it just you have to email dang directly about it. Pretty stupid system.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by nozzlegear on Saturday February 14, 2026 @11:50AM (#47016004)

Pretty sure they only change the username to something anonymous though, and remove any PII in comments you've written, right? They won't delete the comments themselves AFAIK.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by helterskelter on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:28PM (#47009842)

Archive.org probably already has it anyway.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by asdff on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:25PM (#47009824)

Let them come for us. If it comes to that, trolling social media to arrest american citizens en masse, people are going to be forming militias and I'll join up the local outfit. I don't care anymore. I'm ready to take a stand if it comes to it and take back our country and I'm sure I'm not alone on that either.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by endemic on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:30PM (#47009862)

I feel like this is the inevitable end result. Ironic that we’ll finally get well-regulated militias.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by marysminefnuf on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:29PM (#47009850)

I want the government to know how i feel. I want them to see my posts and comments. If this anonymous surveilance without warrants is the only way to be acknowledged then thats a form of protest to me and it has made me want to be more outspoken knowing we are all being watched. Fuck ice.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by ryanmcbride on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:22PM (#47009789)

Okay you go ahead and give in I'm gonna not though

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by tehjoker on Friday February 13, 2026 @08:09PM (#47010205)

They have a limited amount of power to suppress opinion even with their powerful tools and thugs. Their method is to go after big platforms and prominent individuals. If you keep speaking up anyway, it will overwhelm them.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by zaptheimpaler on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:35PM (#47009912)

You are ruled by pedophiles, rapists and murderers. They have released a fraction of the epstein files heavily redacted and are deleting even those in real time.. they are deleting files so they can then pretend they are fake. if you don’t wake the fuck up and start fighting now you will face things worse than death.

https://epsteinexposed.com/ - file explorer

https://x.com/jakeshieldsajj/status/2022425434626183307?s=61

https://www.reddit.com/r/Epstein/comments/1r2lxir/theyve_del...

Im not a conspiracy theorist at all, but there is tons of evidence of rape, torture, murder of hundreds or thousands of girls and 1 year old babies. This is not an exaggeration. I don’t know how else to explain this, AI or the ICE controversy of the week barely registers compared to the things that have happened. It’s so evil that it sounds insane until you read it but it is real.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by AngryNPC on Friday February 13, 2026 @08:16PM (#47010280)

This guy gets it, and isn't falling for the distractions.

Also, what is going on with this thread? Everyone here sounds like they're from Reddit, which has one of the most hysterical and heavily-propagandized userbases in existence.

One person here even said that Reddit is "free from MAGA influences". Like lol, Reddit is nothing but bot accounts and activist moderators who will insta-ban you for wrong-think. The whole site is nothing but astroturfing, and you have to be an NPC to believe any political post on its frontpage.

HN's has been one of my fav sites to lurk on for at least a decade, but I can't tell it apart from Reddit sometimes.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by zaptheimpaler on Friday February 13, 2026 @08:28PM (#47010414)

HN has taken a very sharp turn over the past 2-3 years. Putting aside politics, they are reflexively cynical, misinformed and confident in their ignorance even about technology. Missing the boat on AI as well for years as its evolved from cool chatbot that hallucinates to can write serious code with few errors and solve unsolved research problems with some assistance.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by AngryNPC on Friday February 13, 2026 @08:44PM (#47010572)

It's the smugness and complete lack of curiosity that gets me, which I am seeing even in this thread.

Any idea why the culture's been shifting here? I've always loved the deep & insightful back-and-fourths we've had on HN, but now a lot of that nuance is lost, and it's mostly just kneejerk reactions ("thing is the way it is because GREED, simple as that") and the endless nit-picking of unimportant details.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by Alupis on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:41PM (#47009986)

> They have released 2% of the epstein files

3,500,000 pages[1] have been released, including 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.

If this was only "2%" of the files, you're alleging there's 175,000,000 pages of documents. Absolute nonsense. That's not even realistic. Not to mention nobody but the government knows how many pages are in "the files" - anything else you see is just made up.

> Im not a conspiracy theorist at all... murder of hundreds or thousands of girls and 1 year old babies

laugh out loud...

[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-publishes-...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by zaptheimpaler on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:51PM (#47010064)

https://x.com/jakeshieldsajj/status/2022425434626183307?s=61

this is one example mentioning babies. There are hundreds of other pictures and emails re young girls. If you bother to look into this, you will see. you would rather feel superior nitpicking a minor detail while missing the fucking point. Good job. Heres another crumb, a tiny sliver of evidence:

https://hyperallergic.com/epstein-files-detail-gruesome-alle...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by Alupis on Friday February 13, 2026 @08:01PM (#47010133)

You're interpreting that email to mean they've killed thousands of one year old babies? Or perhaps it was a joke about a party that had a bunch of babies at it... I dare say, you're so deep down the conspiracy rabbit hole you don't know which way is up.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by zaptheimpaler on Friday February 13, 2026 @08:20PM (#47010321)

I said thousands of victims, not thousands of babies or murders. That much is confirmed even by the FBI.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1407001/dl?inline#:~:text=...

Some of these claims don't have bulletproof video evidence and DNA, and i suspect you would call those fake too even if they did but they are not unbelievable when considered in the context of everything that's been shown. I can't do that for you.

Anyways, if that's not enough for you to even spend some time reading the news, then I don't know what is. Enjoy being stupid and smug.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by Alupis on Friday February 13, 2026 @08:49PM (#47010605)

Here's a quote from your original comment:

> murder of hundreds or thousands of girls and 1 year old babies

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by zaptheimpaler on Friday February 13, 2026 @11:20PM (#47011532)

missed anything and everything of substance, got fixated on a comma. like talking to a compiler. imbecile.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by booleandilemma on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:25PM (#47009818)

This is known as a "chilling effect".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by nozzlegear on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:35PM (#47009913)

If Trump's going to throw me in his El Salvador gulag for being a deep state Soros-backed neoliberal globalist shill on HN, I'm going to make sure somebody in his regime at least has to read my bullshit first.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by goatlover on Saturday February 14, 2026 @12:41AM (#47011922)

Preach comrade. And I want them to reflect on how they're protecting the Epstein Class while going after free speech.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by madaxe_again on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:22PM (#47009794)

Man, they can fucking blow me.

If you start censoring yourself because of potential consequences, you’re complicit.

Sooner a dead lion than some kind of shabby boot-donkey.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by dagi3d on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:38PM (#47009954)

Fearing the consequences doesn't make you a complicit but a victim. Sure there will be people who will take a more brave/difficult stance, but can't blame others for not doing so, we don't know they'd put at stake.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by organsnyder on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:44PM (#47010005)

You can be both complicit and a victim.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by krautburglar on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:32PM (#47009885)

One day redhat is going to grease Trump's pole with enough cash, and King Donald is going to send a member of his tribal-tattooed, part-time MAGA influencer burgerwaffen to pull-up the black van and take you under cover of night for posting wrongthink about wayland & systemd.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by LightBug1 on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:30PM (#47009856)

For the record: FUCK ICE, bunch of pseudo-fascist thugs, or paid off mercenaries. Wankers, the lot of em.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by add-sub-mul-div on Friday February 13, 2026 @07:22PM (#47009792)

You can't delete comments here. It's why I've only ever made anonymous throwaway posts or comments.

But in this specific case I do not agree with complying with this bullshit in advance.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by metabagel on Friday February 13, 2026 @08:53PM (#47010650)

ICE and CBP are building a lot of concentration camps. Clearly, they are planning to fill them.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by viraptor on Friday February 13, 2026 @09:13PM (#47010819)

> Folks, it is now time to delete anything you posted here

It's too late. Multiple copies of all the posts exist already.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by SubiculumCode on Saturday February 14, 2026 @01:13AM (#47012082)

Sorry. No. I'm not going to get pushed around by a bunch of bootlickers.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti... by myvoiceismypass on Saturday February 14, 2026 @11:51AM (#47016012)

The HN owners have virtually unlimited funds to pay tribute to dear leader and zero morals, so this is not a real possibility.

[ Parent | on HN ]