Applicants for three types of non-immigrant visas to the United States must set their social media accounts to public mode as part of the submission process, the US embassy in Thailand said on Monday.

"Effective immediately, all individuals applying for an F, M, or J non-immigrant 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 US law," the embassy said on its social media outlets.

The F visa is for students, M for vocational students, including those attending training in the US, and J classification is for visitors on exchange programmes.

Applicants for these three types have to strictly follow six steps, starting with receiving acceptance to a programme at a US institution and the final step an interview at the embassy, according to the embassy's website.