By Admin 
The administration of US President Donald Trump has made major changes in the visa rules. Under the new order, people doing work like fact-checking, content moderation, online safety, trust and safety or compliance will not be allowed to enter America. This instruction has been issued through a memo of the State Department, information about which has been given by Reuters. It is believed that this decision will impact the tech sector employees the most and especially those applying from countries like India.
Digital profile will now be checked in visa process
The new rules state that visa officers will now have to check the professional background, job responsibilities, LinkedIn profile and social media activities of the applicants. If a person’s work is found to be related to any area that the administration considers to be a restriction on freedom of expression or censorship, his visa will be rejected.
Most severe impact on H-1B applicants
Although this rule will apply to all visa categories, including journalists, tourists and job seekers, the biggest impact will be on H-1B visas. This visa is usually given to engineers, analysts and those working in digital roles working in tech companies, and a large number of them are Indians.
These people will also be affected
Experts say that due to this policy, those people who work in important and sensitive areas like protecting children online, stopping cyber bullying, monitoring hate speech or preventing sexual crimes on the internet will also be affected. Governments in many countries are implementing online security laws, and the job of such professionals is to protect people, not censorship, but now they may face difficulties in traveling to America.
Trump administration called this decision a protection of expression
The Trump administration has described this step as protecting the freedom of expression of American citizens. A State Department spokesperson said that the government will not welcome such foreign employees to America who come there and work to suppress the voices of American citizens on social media and online platforms. He said that doing so would be harmful for American society.
Experts said- it is wrong to consider censorship and security the same
Experts working with trust and safety teams in tech companies have expressed concern over this decision. Expert Alice Gogan Hunsberger said that the job of Trust and Safety is to protect people and it is very wrong to call it censorship. He said that this work plays a very important role in protecting children from online sexual exploitation, preventing fraud, scams and online blackmailing.
There have been restrictions on press and visas before too.
The Trump administration has already banned the visas of many journalists this year. Apart from this, information related to climate change was removed from government websites, entry of journalists was banned during press briefings and legal action was also taken against media institutions.