back to article What a Zuckin' drag! 'Frisco queens protest outside Facebook HQ over 'real names' policy

Facebook is once again facing protests for its controversial "real names only" rule. A group of picketers, including a prominent San Francisco drag queen group, turned up outside Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters today, complaining that the Facebook policies leave them open to discrimination. Native Americans and domestic- …

  1. Ole Juul

    Facebook?

    Is that their real name?

  2. Graham Marsden
    Holmes

    Of course...

    ... all the names on Facebook now are real...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Of course...

      Yeah I don't get this. I'd estimate 5-10% of my female Facebook friends are using firstname middlename as their name on Facebook, a few to avoid exs/stalkers but mostly just people they don't want to talk to from their home town looking them up. There are a handful of both sexes who create their own middle name that's obviously totally fake, but the first/last is real. So what? Only a total dick would report them, they aren't hurting anything.

      If drag queens want to operate a page with their stage name, I don't see anything stopping them. If they don't want to use their real name on Facebook to operate the page because they worry someone at work will find out their secret or whatever, why not use a made up but real sounding name. Is anyone really going to know John Smith is really David Jones who performs as Jane Doe? Is Facebook really going to contact John Smith and ask him to prove that's his real name? If someone reported me what does Facebook do, ask me for a notarized copy of my birth certificate?

      1. glen waverley
        Big Brother

        Re: Of course... (Doug S)

        "If someone reported me what does Facebook do, ask me for a notarized copy of my birth certificate?"

        The birth certificate name might be the "real" name (for some values of real) for males but not so for married women in the anglo world. So not quite enough documentation.

      2. Adam JC

        Re: Of course...

        " Only a total dick would report them, they aren't hurting anything."

        I think you're seriously underestimating the majority userbase of Facebook!

  3. Matt Bryant Silver badge
    Facepalm

    WTF?

    People that post their entire lives in nauseating detail on Faecesbook complaining about privacy!?!?! ROFL!!! So you're a professional drag act (and when was the last time you heard of a shy drag queen?) - er, use Pages?

  4. FozzyBear

    huh

    I thought that was a pic of the latest board of directors meeting for facebook. My mistake

  5. skeptical i
    Thumb Down

    They fact-check every post, then?

    Nonsense, false, misleading, et cetera fecebook posts are fine but a nom de web is not? Zuckerworld is a strange place.

  6. Phil Kingston

    Must be awful for them. A complete drag in fact.

    Maybe they could just, I don't know, not use Facebook?

    1. Phuq Witt

      Re: Maybe they could just, I don't know, not use Facebook

      You beat me to the punch. I was just going to ask if anyone knew at which point it became a legal requirement to have a FacePuke account?

      Don't like their rules, take your custom elsewhere. Simples.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I was using a fake name

    and was promptly (6 months!) flagged.

    So i changed it to something else. Peter Enis, Mike Hunt, etc etc. They were quite happy to accept this. So i decided to complain and say that my original face book name WAS my real name. In the UK, you can change your name at will and have a right to be called whatever the fuck you want. There is no real need to deed-poll it. FB wants copies of my passport and driving license to "verify" my name is real. Yeah, good luck with that.

    *i mantain the most minimal account on FB to appease my "mates" who believe it is the only communications medium on the fucking planet.

    1. Squander Two

      Yes, good point

      This policy is based on US law, where you have to have a government record to confirm your name. It makes no sense in the UK. Yet again, a Silicon Valley firm assumes everywhere is California.

      1. Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face

        Re: Yes, good point

        Strangely enough, the UK Passport Office don't seem to agree.

        1. Squander Two

          Re: Yes, good point

          Your passport is an international document, so I assume it has to comply with the requirements of multiple jurisdictions. HMRC and other UK government agencies are quite happy for you to call yourself whatever you like, as long as it actually is your name -- i.e. a single identity that you keep using all the time, rather than one of twenty aliases you keep to obscure your identity.

          1. VinceH

            Re: Yes, good point

            "Your passport is an international document, so I assume it has to comply with the requirements of multiple jurisdictions. HMRC and other UK government agencies are quite happy for you to call yourself whatever you like, as long as it actually is your name -- i.e. a single identity that you keep using all the time, rather than one of twenty aliases you keep to obscure your identity."

            Indeed. I quite happily used a name that was subtly different from my given name from when I was a teenager up until about 2005 - at that point I needed a passport, so did actually change it formally by deed poll, but until then I never had any problem with any UK agency, which is exactly as it should be according to the law of our land.

            However, I do occasionally have problems with broken-by-design web forms which insist on knowing my middle name, but also insist that my middle name - which is just a single letter - is not valid. (I usually just add a full stop after it, but I have had at least one case where that wasn't accepted.)

            1. Squander Two

              Re: Yes, good point

              Oh, God, save us from fuckwits designing Web forms. "I'm sorry, your surname may not contain spaces." Why the fuck not? What's Robert De Niro supposed to do? Why do the forms even have any checking on the name fields at all? Why can programmers not accept the possibility that PEOPLE KNOW THEIR OWN NAMES?

              1. Dave 15

                Re: Yes, good point

                Forms that force people to fill in all sorts of 'required fields' and obey rules about names, dates etc. are programmed by complete idiots and are best avoided.

                IF someone forces me to fill in an address and phone number when I don't want to I go and look up the companies address and phone number and use that.

        2. Squander Two

          Re: Yes, good point

          Just went and checked the passport rules (hey, I'm bored), and I'm not convinced you're right about this anyway. The UK Passport Office do allow you to change your name, and do not require a deed poll for you to do so. They do require evidence that the name you're giving them really is the name you use, such as an affidavit, which is fair enough. But an affidavit is simply a declaration that you sign in front of a lawyer. In other words, you change your name first, simply by telling everyone to call you something else, and then you can get a passport in your new name simply by confirming that it is in fact your new name. Which is the same hoop you have to jump through for other details, such as your photo.

          So Facebook have it backwards. They want to see a copy of your passport to confirm your real name. But your passport reflects your real name, not the other way around.

  8. msknight

    I've recently set up on Ello

    You know, I was going to post a detailed account of the whys and wherefores, but I really can't be bothered to say more than, fuck faceache.

    1. Phuq Witt

      Re: I've recently set up on Ello

      Ello? —isn't that the social network for people who find Google+ too crowded?

      1. Captain DaFt

        Re: I've recently set up on Ello

        Meh, Go old school and get back to basics:

        https://medium.com/message/tilde-club-i-had-a-couple-drinks-and-woke-up-with-1-000-nerds-a8904f0a2ebf

        Roll your own: https://github.com/tildeclub/tilde.club

  9. SolidSquid

    I might side more with Facebook if they actually responded to emails regarding names being incorrectly blocked. I ended up having to make an account with a deliberate misspelling in mine just so Facebook would accept it as "valid"

  10. Squander Two
    WTF?

    Honestly, some people.

    I'm struggling to comprehend the mentality of someone who actually contacts Facebook to inform on one of their users for not using their real name. What do they do next? Celebratory drinks? Maybe they have a club so they can all meet up and high-five each other?

    1. ma1010
      Devil

      Re: Honestly, some people.

      No, they go home and call the cops because their neighbors kids were playing outside in the neighbor's own front yard. Then they spend the rest of the day peeping out the window to see if that girl down the street is going to have her boyfriend spend the night again. etc., etc. It's an important job standing guard to protect the neighborhood, be it real or virtual!

  11. Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face

    Couple of questions...

    What is the world coming to when a 17st bald bloke called Gary can't pretend to be a Disney Princess on the internet?

  12. Joe 48

    Privacy

    Next thing they'll be asking Facebook to pixilate all their faces so they can't be identified. Jeez, talk about a pointless process. Facebook and Privacy are not two terms that work well together.

  13. Greg D

    Who cares?

    It's facebook! Get lives.

    Besides, I've seen MANY fake names on there. Not sure why they've got their Y-Fronts in a twist.

  14. Bleu

    Why not

    just avoid faescesbook?

    When (or if) I have the time again, I would like to check anything but, even if Facebook may deliver unexpected pleasures, like people you never wanted to hear from again, or, more to the point in my case, treating a total failure in life kindly offering a genuine e-mail contact and to help where possible, he was not without talent.

    So, I never once received e-mail from the moron, just an endless stream of 'shit has signed you up for crap on faescesbook', similar but equally stupid shit from Linked in. It was a lot of trouble to stop and block the flood completely.

    Funnily enough, I may have been able to help the jerk to find decent work, had planned to try at least once. Forget that!

    It is disturbing how many people see fb as compulsory, which is also the mindset of these protestors.

    If I have the time or inclination to be on a social network or networks, it won't be zuckerworld.

    Zucker? Hey, one born every minute!

    1. sisk

      Re: Why not

      It is disturbing how many people see fb as compulsory

      Not cumpulsory. Just very, very convenient. Especially for performers, who use it as an advertising tool. I know one indy musician (who doesn't use a stage name so it's a non-issue for him) who got a record deal just because he had a Facebook page with demos that a talent scout found.

  15. Crazy Operations Guy

    Display Names

    Why can't Facebook just add the option for a Display Name. They could still require users to register with their real names, and the users could use anything in the display name...

    1. justsomeone
      Joke

      Re: Display Names

      Now now, you can't go proposing sensible solutions that would satisfy all parties.

      Try again, this time maybe be *really* outraged.

  16. KR Caddis

    We don't call it "'Frisco". It is not a real name.

  17. Dave 15

    pointless rule so ignore it

    Everyone else does.

    Most ridiculous thing ever (well nearly)

    Just try using paypal... I used it for years and years buying hundreds - probably thousands of pounds of stuff then they decided suddenly they needed a copy of my passport to prove who I was... told them to go forth and reproduce, I have no intention of sharing copies of my passport with people that will lose it

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