As I read through the Facebook real name policy and the story of the woman who had to change her name to keep her account, I wondered if my account stood the risk of being closed, since I don’t use my full name but at least, more than half of the world knows me by that name LOL
The real name policy has received quite a lot of backlashing and even more frustrating as people who are yet to heed the notice have had to lose their accounts and the process of getting it back up isn’t a walk in the park. As a result, some thought they could play a fast one on Facebook by getting their names changed legally.
This is the story of a 30 year old holistic therapist whose name was originally Jemma Rogers but has over time left her name on Facebook as Jemmaroid Von Laalaa. According to her and like many others do, it was done to avoid unwanted attention but unfortunately for her, she has gotten some real attention as she says, “I’ve been locked out of my account for five weeks now and have lost all of my photos, messages and precious memories”. Unfortunately for Von Laalaa, she is yet to get access to the Facebook account and is now stuck to a name which she refers to as ‘Stupid’.
Explaining the reason for this policy amidst the backlashing from the transgender community or victims of online abuse, Mark Zuckerberg says, “It helps keep people safe. We know that people are much less likely to try to act abusively towards other members of our community when they’re using their real names. There are plenty of cases — for example, a woman leaving an abusive relationship and trying to avoid her violent ex-husband — where preventing the ex-husband from creating profiles with fake names and harassing her is important. As long as he’s using his real name, she can easily block him. Second, real names help make the service easier to use. People use Facebook to look up friends and people they meet all the time. This is easy because you can just type their name into search and find them. This becomes much harder if people don’t use their real names.”
I guess it is time to start saving up all your photos if you aren’t ready to change your name on Facebook to what many know you as. As for me, I think I am safe!
