For the second time in recent months, Facebook is under fire for its fixation on users using their real names.
After Facebook s public apology in October for kicking off drag queens who had used their stage names as handles on the social-media site, the company is now being accused of reportedly doing similar things against Native Americans, presumably because some of the names being used ( Oglala Lakota Lance Brown Eyes, for one) seemed to be too good to be true.
Here s the scoop as it appears on a post on Colorlines.com, an online magazine focused on racial injustice (It was penned by someone using the name ):
Dana Lone Hill tried logging on to Facebook last Monday only to be locked out because the social edia giant believed that she was using a fake name. In , Dana, who s Lakota and has been using Facebook since 2007, explains that she s presented a photo ID, library card and one piece of mail to the company in an attempt to restore her account. The day after Lone Hill s account was suspended she was able to access it briefly but she was then booted a second time.
In her essay says that this has happened to other Native users she knows:
I had a little bit of paranoia at first regarding issues I had been posting about until I realized I wasn t the only Native American this happened to. One friend was forced to change his name from his Cherokee alphabet to English. Another was forced to include her full name, and a few were forced to either smash the two word last names together or omit one of the two words in the last name. Oglala Lakota Lance Brown Eyes was bootd from facebook and when he turned in his proof of identification they changed his name to Lance Brown. After contacting the Better Business Bureau and threatening Facebook with a class action lawsuit, they sent him an apology and let him use his given name again.
To reestablish a account after being accused of using a fake name, users must submit one government-issued ID such as a birth certificate, passport or voter identification card or two other forms of identification such as library card and a yearbook photo. The company appears to have been questioning certain Native users since at least 2009, when it . More recently, on Indigenous Peoples Day, Facebook deleted a number of Native accounts. In one case, the company asked users Shane and Jacqui Creepingbear for identification to prove that they weren t using fake names. Shane took to Twitter to express his disappointment:
We ve reached out to Facebook for a response and we ll update this post when we hear back.
But this isn t the first fake-name rodeo Facebook has been to recently. Here s a story from my colleague Michelle Quinn about drag queens challenging Facebook on its policy:
And here s a post from the Wall Street Journal in October about Facebook s change of heart:
is changing how it treats people who don t use their real names on social network, following an uproar over its crackdown on pseudonyms used by drag queens.
, Facebook s product chief, Wednesday to people affected by the recent sweep. He said hundreds of drag queens who Facebook s real-name policy will be able to use their stage names on Facebook.
The spirit of our policy is that everyone on Facebook uses the authentic name they use in real life. For Sister Roma, that s Sister Roma. For Lil Miss Hot Mess, that s Lil Miss Hot Mess, he wrote, referring to two vocal critics of the policy.
Facebook s people must use the same name as it would be listed on your credit card, driver s license or student ID.
The reason for Facebook s obsession with its users using their real names. ?
Knowing its users real identities has been central to Facebook s business model, which involves building detailed profiles of people so it can send them targeted advertisements based on their personalities.
Targeted ads? Why are we not surprised?
Credit: rt.com
