|
By Mary C. Long & Geoff Gillette
After years of paying lip service to their boilerplate “You must use your real name” rule, Facebook has recently started to crack down on this anonymity in the cruelest of ways. Why care? It isn’t about anonymity – and it isn’t about money. And if you don’t speak up now, the Facebook machine will eventually catch up to you too!
Facebook has been talking about cracking down on their naming policy for the last few years. But it’s only been recently that they’ve really been doing something about it.
And who are the high-profile targets? Drag queens, among others. As reported in the Contra Costa Times, a San Francisco Supervisor decided to step in after hearing that several members of the LGBTQ community found themselves locked out of their accounts until they either changed their names to fit the policy or provided proof (driver’s license, credit card) with the “correct” information. Many received emails that their accounts would be reactivated with a two week grace period, with the understanding that those changes would need to be made or the accounts would be deleted. Reports have since come in that some of those same accounts were deleted almost immediately after reactivation, with no two-week grace. Read the full post on CommPRO.biz UPDATED: As of Oct. 1, 2014 Facebook has apologized for its handling of the naming issue and said they will be re-examining it. Read Chris Cox's posted apology here.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
