Well as the article says it's for "applications for all visa types" can you enlighten me how this would help with giving Brits or Americans a better chance of employment?
Any corporate bringing people in under a skill-based exception is unlikely to be affected - they already game the system, that they helped create, significantly. Any potential overseas worker wanting to emigrate will just add "make a FB, and Twitter account" to their to-do list alongside get a degree.
Social media accounts are not exactly rare things. Would you be happy for the subjective judgements to be required against everyone's (including natives) social media when applying for a job, bank account, holiday, or travelling?
I agree - people lie, cheat and play the system to get what they want. Define the sorts of people you want to give visas to.
So which is it - the American government is super competent and tracks everything and everyone, or they're super incompetent and can't tell a social media account has been created for the purposes of getting a visa?
This is why I hate HN. Someone here has an opinion that doesn't toe the line and instead of asking about the opinion, instead of considering he might be right in at least some way, we downvote to oblivion.
Having a different opinion isn't trolling. But that's not what you're doing here, and most members of this board are intelligent enough to see through your petty screeds about illegal immigrants.
I'm a Brit and would love the same policy here.