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Facebook is still in trouble with Drag Queens over it name policies. A group called “#MyNameIs Campaign” staged a protest in front of the Company’s San Francisco headquarters to demand that users be allowed to call themselves whatever they want.
Call them drag queens or female impersonators, these men sometimes prefer to go by their stage names. As such, many want to use those names for their Facebook pages, but the company does not want to allow them to do so since it requires its users to use only their real names.
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So Facebook has been deleting the accounts of people who have used such names instead of their real ones because it says that they were guilty of violating its guidelines. This is only a recent effort by the company to enforce a long standing policy.
As a result, a group of drag queens held a second protest against Facebook’s policies on Monday. They had previously held one last October.
[See the Facebook policy here.]
About 100 people attended the protest holding signs which read, “My Name Is My Business, ” “Facebook exposed me to my abuser” and “Your apology was a lie.”
The #MyNameIs Campaign states that it is a coalition of drag and other performers, transgender people, immigrants, domestic violence survivors, and their allies who advocate for the reformation of Facebook’s name and identification policies. In October 2014, the #MyNameIs Campaign received a public apology from Facebook and a commitment to allow all users to express their “authentic identities, ” however, the organization says that it has yet to see substantive change in the company’s policies or procedures and that it is continuing to apply pressure.
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In response, Justin Osofsky, Vice President of Global Operations, and Monika Bickert, Head of Global Product Policy for Facebook, posted an explanation after the protest saying, “The authentic name requirement has defined and distinguished our service from its earliest days. We firmly believe in and are committed to our authentic name policy, and ask that everyone on Facebook use their authentic name on their profile.”
“Having people use their authentic names helps protect our community from dangerous interactions, like when an abusive ex-boyfriend impersonates a friend to harass his ex-girlfriend, or a high school bully uses a fake name to post hateful comments about a gay classmate.”
The company asserts that its name policy is in no way intended to harm the LGBT community and those in it who use Facebook. The policy, Facebook says, forces people to be more accountable for what they say and post by preventing them from doing so anonymously.
Facebook pledged to continue to review and update its policies.
