The United States of America (USA) is tightening its visa requirements, and has announced that, effective immediately, all South Africans applying for visas will have to make their social media accounts public so that officials can properly scrutinise them.

This would allow the US officials tasked with granting visas to determine, based on social media comments, posts, and the applicant’s history, whether the applicant is suitable for entry into the USA or not.

This comes after the US said all visa applicants should be screened to assess whether they harbour anti-American sentiments or views on social media.

The latest requirement was communicated to South Africans on Thursday, 26 June 2025, by the US Embassy in Pretoria via an official statement, which was also posted on the embassy’s Facebook account.

“Effective immediately, all individuals applying for an F, M, or J nonimmigrant visa are requested to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to ‘public’ to facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States under U.S. law,” the embassy announced.

It explained that “every visa adjudication is a national security decision,” hence the move to thoroughly scrutinize all aspects of life for visa applicants.