Trump admin may deny H-1B visas to people who worked in content moderation, report says

The Trump administration has ordered US consulates to consider rejecting H-1B visa applicants involved in content moderation or "censorship," according to a report from Reuters. The policy applies to all visa applicants, but it's directed at people applying for an H-1B visa who may have had a history of working in "social media or financial services companies involved in the suppression of protected expression." The State Department cable viewed by Reuters states that officials should check an applicant's resume or LinkedIn profile for a job history involving moderation, fact-checking, online safety, compliance, and misinformation. The cable says that if an applicant was responsible for or complicit in censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression in the US, they should be found ineligible. The policy has been criticized as incoherent and unconstitutional, with experts arguing that people who study misinformation and work on content-moderation teams are not engaged in censorship but rather in activities that the First Amendment was designed to protect. The State Department has not commented on the allegedly leaked document but has stated that it does not support aliens coming to the US to work as censors muzzling Americans.