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US revokes six foreigners’ visas over social media comments criticizing Charlie Kirk
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2025
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There is a difference between a political commentator who makes their living spreading rhetoric that is hateful to the countries government and is travelling with the intention of spreading that rhetoric directly and some random travelling for leisure who said some shit on social media that was hateful to the countries government. There is also something to be said for if the rhetoric is actually causing measurable harm to large numbers of people vs if the rhetoric maybe hurt a handful of peoples feelings or seemed embarrassing to the administration.
The difference is that both sides said things, and both sides got denied entry to a country because of it. Here you are trying to justify one side while condemning the other. Either both are wrong or both are right.
I do not believe for a second that the two things are objectively equal, saying they're the same kind of thing doesn't make them the same thing. Just because you are claiming to not be able to tell the difference between two kinds of "hateful speech" does not mean there isn't an objective difference. This is the same kind of nonsense free speech absolutism argument you see ad nauseum online, that you either can't have consequences for any kind of speech or live with consequences for all kinds of speech. It's nonsense and usually isn't even in good faith.
Another paragraph of nonsense where half of it is not even replying to what I said. I never labeled any of their speech as hateful, and I never said that all speech should have consequences.
No matter how you spin it, it boils down to the same scenario: both sides said things that the government didn’t like, both sides got denied entry to the country. Unless that’s a false statement, you are the one typing nonsense and arguing in bad faith.
A government doesn’t need a reason to deny visas, they need a reason to approve them.
Also:
I do not believe for a second that the two things are objectively different, saying they're not the same kind of thing doesn't make them different things. Just because you are claiming to see a difference between them does not mean there is an objective difference.
See how we can all play that game? Maybe use a real argument.
Scale is necessary, this isn't comedy where if everything isn't fair game then nothing is. Most things boil down the the same scenarios if you cook it long enough.
Theft of a can of beans is not equal to theft of a nuclear sub. Sure, they both "boil down to the same scenario"; theft. But I think we can all agree that the same punishment for both would be imbecilic.
The difference with this thread's scenario is that yes, they both result in the same thing, but for different reasons. Denial of entry to someone who wasn't tactful about the boss' friend who was a hateful bigot is not the same as denial of entry for attempting to weaponise division to destroy a country.
Welcome to the real world, where consequences are different depending on where you are. Australia is not the baseline for what should result in denial of entry, and neither is the US. They both have the right to deny entry for just for not liking your name, let alone not liking what you said.
Except that Owens is not trying to destroy Australia, but that’s how you and the Australian government interpret it. Guess what? The US government thinks those people are trying to destroy the US. All that matters is that Australia doesn’t like what Owens said to deny entry, and all that matters is the US didn’t like what was said about Kirk to deny entry.
Ok, let me show you the difference. Making light of a celebrity's death is not the same thing as spreading propaganda in an effort to destabilize a country.
This is just blatantly false. The US is a fascist state. The govt is deliberately destroying the US and they know full well anyone against fascism is not trying to destroy the US. The US is no longer politically about the nuance of belief between right and left, but about fascism and anti fascism.
Saying Charlie Kirk was a piece of shit who literally got what he asked for is very different from Candace Owens attempting to spread fascism to Australia.
This is actually insane. Why would you want a visa to visit a fascist state? I guess they applied for a visa just to have it and never use it? You don’t know what fascism is. You have never seen fascism and should be grateful you haven’t experienced the horror of an actual fascist state.
How exactly are these people with revoked visas anti fascist?
It’s been like that since the early 2000s (it used to be nazi and anti nazis, but I guess they realized how stupid that was and downgraded it to fascism), funny how that works.
By the way, all of this fascism stuff is unrelated to the topic at hand (both the US and Australia have the right to deny entry based on just not liking what you said), so I’m not sure why you even brought it up.
Different things (I’ll assume you are right that Owens is a fascist because I don’t care enough to check)? Yes. Are both of them grounds for denial of entry? Also yes.
That's almost like saying landing on the moon or Mars or the Sun are the same because the craft isn't landing back on Earth. There is a heck of a lot of difference between a working commentator being held to account (in a country that doesn't have the same free speech rules anyway for anyone) and holding a vacationer to the same when they are not earning an income from their comments and the country does say that political speech is free speech as a major component of their Constitution. I'm not sure if you are arguing that the US no longer has a Constitution that applies or that you ignorantly thought Australia had the same Constitution as the US.
Cool example, but that didn’t even make sense.
The US Constitution doesn’t apply to visa holders outside the US.
If you can quote me saying that, yes. Otherwise I don’t know why you even typed that.
Never thought or said that. And like I said before, I actually support both decisions so I obviously think it’s legal under Australian law, as well as under US law.
"both sides said things" what a great summary.
that's like saying it's hypocritical to protest denying entry to someone who has a satirical blog and one who has a manifesto and detailed plans to bomb the denying country because "both posted stuff online"