Agents of the Trump administration are increasingly using social media posts to crack down on immigrants, tourists, and even some U.S. citizens. Last month, a leaked document showed the State Department had crafted a new standard for reviewing the social media accounts of any foreign students planning to attend or even visit Harvard University. Legal immigrants may have benefits denied based on social media activity, and people expressing opinions or acting contrary to Trump are being detained at airports. Whether you’re a U.S. citizen or not, it’s time you reexamine how much of yourself you’re willing to show publicly online.
Amid the ongoing travel turmoil that’s made several countries institute warnings to foreign citizens planning trips to the U.S., I was looking for ways to make it more difficult for governments to use my social posts against me. That’s when I was invited to use Block Party. It’s not, by its nature, a politically charged app. With a $25 annual subscription, Block Party uses a browser plugin to help rein in your privacy settings on your various social media accounts with a simple checklist and easy-to-follow, step-by-step guides. Privatizing your social media accounts helps keep big tech from building data profiles based on your activity, which it then uses for targeted advertising, but it may not be enough to completely deter a visit from Customs and Border Protection as you muscle through airport security after coming to the States. [Editor’s note: Getting thrown into another bin for targeted advertising isn’t great either, but it’s better than getting thrown into Guantanamo.] At the very least, it may make the jobs of federal agencies—or anybody looking for dirt on you based on your online activity—a little harder. For the time being, that might be enough to help you avoid being held up by U.S. officials for hours in an airport.
Trump Widens the Targets of Social Media Scrutiny
You can simply delete your profiles, but as somebody who still needs to remain active on social media, Block Party is one of the better options I’ve personally used to get into the weeds of my accounts’ esoteric privacy settings. It even helps you find settings in some apps to keep AI from scraping your posts. Still, changing all your settings may not be enough to avoid all scrutiny. According to a Politico report on the leaked State Department document, the U.S. government imagines foreign students’ lack of a social presence or privatized social media “may be reflective of evasiveness and call into question the applicant’s credibility.”
The Trump administration may ascribe this same standard to U.S. citizens. Already, there are concerning examples of agents targeting supposed Trump opponents. Left-wing influencer Hasan Piker said in May that he was detained and questioned for hours by Homeland Security after he came back to Chicago from France. In April, immigration agents detained Michigan-based attorney Amir Makled at an airport for more than an hour as he returned home from the Dominican Republic. The attorney was representing Columbia University students who had protested against the war in Palestine. Makled said feds requested he hand over his phone, and after 90 minutes of questioning, he eventually complied.
The situation is growing more constrained for non-citizens traveling to the U.S. Every individual has to decide for themselves what precautions they need to take when traveling as a citizen or non-citizen alike. Sophia Cope, the senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Gizmodo it’s not an easy decision, and some people planning to visit the U.S. may be better off choosing a different destination. However, despite U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s proclamation that privatizing social media was somehow an indication of “evasiveness,” it’s still a good idea to privatize your socials before crossing the border to the U.S. And it’s not just protesters who need to think long and hard about what thoughts of theirs are shared online. Nonprofit and government staff now have to consider whether their public presence necessitates drastic culling of their online profiles.
“We’ve definitely been seeing an uptick in interest given the activities of the government recently,” Tracy Chou, the founder and CEO of Block Party, told Gizmodo in a video interview. After Trump’s inauguration, she said she’s received interest from both current and former government workers from multiple federal agencies, afraid their previously innocuous social media posts could be used as ammunition for right-wing groups. Government workers weren’t just trying to avoid the eyes of Trump and DOGE. Chou gave an example of people who worked in the Department of Justice’s civil rights division who were trying to avoid attacks from right-wing groups online.
Some Apps Make It Easier to Avoid Social Media Scrutiny
You can find a loose gaggle of tutorials online for turning on social media privacy settings, but even an experienced user will be surprised by just how many settings there are to limit. You may also want to look into subscriptions such as DeleteMe or Kanary, which work to eliminate information data brokers have on you and remove data from some websites. Block Party is more concerned with restricting the data big tech companies can garner from your social accounts. Privacy settings for most apps are arcane—often deliberately so—and even if you’re trying to privatize an account, you can still miss something.
Block Party currently works with X, LinkedIn, Facebook, Venmo, Instagram, Reddit, Strava, YouTube, Bluesky, and Google. Additionally, Block Party will only impact the mobile versions of TikTok and Snapchat. Chou said her team is planning to support more apps in the future. The app operates as a browser plugin that offers a checklist for your social accounts. Some settings can be done for you with the tap of a button, but various settings will take some attention on your part. On LinkedIn, Block Party can automatically turn off settings to “represent company,” a sneaky setting used for sponsored ads about your employer. If I want to change the number of apps connected to my YouTube account, I have to click a link through the app and disable them manually, then mark the task as “done.”
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