Facebook Tells Salman Rushdie He Has to Go By His Given Name, Ahmed Rushdie
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Twitter, on the other hand, has vigorously defended the use of pseudonyms, bucking demands most recently from British government officials who pressed for a real-names policy in the aftermath of the civil unrest across Britain.
"Other services may be declaring you have to use your real name because they think they can monetize that better," said Twitter’s chief executive, Dick Costolo. "We are more interested in serving our users first."
If FB employees really knew this is the real Salman Rushdi they are talking with, this probably would have never happened.
They disabled the page and asked for his ID (okay, your defense, works until now). They got his ID, which according to the article lists a different first name and Salman as a middle name.
Now how can you explain the following discussion? At this point the owner of the account formerly known as Salman Rushdie provided (state issued, no less..) evidence of being that guy - but Facebook claims he has to use the first name listed on the ID instead?
It worked out in the end, but your explanation falls short. The biggest WTF (if we ignore the idea that you should provide a copy of any ID to a site that is used for Mafia Wars and things of similar importance) is the requirement to stop using his middle name.
Even if he _weren't_ the author publishing as "Salman Rushdie" and just some random guy named "Ahmed Salman Rushdie" he should be allowed to go as "Salman Rushdie". Even with a brain-dead real name policy in place. That is his real name.
(Granted: In that case he arguably still shouldn't be allowed to pose as the author. But that's a different problem)
Finally a friend comes up with the idea: "Spidie Saloff" works like a charm.
Of course I can guess why and understand that, but just seems a waste of resources and customer goodwill.
Define real.
Many of my friends are Asian and have several "names", most not on their birth certificate or passport. Despite trying, there is no way I can pronounce or even remember many of my Thai friends' names and most of my Chinese friends usually use their English first name that they adopted, rather than were given.
https://www.facebook.com/CupCaked1 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002325987571 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002404362509 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002157256832 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003034066636 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002586855234 https://www.facebook.com/adsence.clickr
Their Real Names policy, is de facto dead already. They should stop pretending otherwise.
Shame that were are getting to the point that people must go by the specific name on their legal documentation.
You may be know as Bob to your mother, B-man to your friends and rocketBoy55 online. Your demeanor is different depending on the situation, you wouldn't act or talk towards your mom like you do when you are online as RocketBoy55 or vice versa.
It's unreasonable to expect people to act the same all the time and go by the same description in all areas of their life.
(OK, yeah, I might wear different clothes in different circumstances. And some of us use makeup which makes even our face look a bit different.)
I guess I'm trying to say that I'm OK[1] with there being a place (Facebook) that requires real names while there are places (Twitter, most of the rest of the web) that don't. Different requirements for different contexts lead to different tones and different conversations.
Anyway, this is all a bit beside the point of this post, which seems to just be about an overzealous FB employee demanding a famous person (that presumably they didn't recognize) had to use the name on his ID.
[1] Yes, I'm privileged and have a standard Western-style name and nobody dangerous stalking me that I need to hide from, etc etc.
In short, why is FB so important? There are phones, emails, twitter and a whole lot of other means of communication.
As best I can tell, people use it because people use it.
Hell, even the various #occupy$foo groups, while railing about privacy violations and Goldman-Sachs use FB.
Many, many people are OK with freely compiling a dossier of their life and associations to be sold to advertisers.
Many, many people who aren't OK with that are still OK with allowing convenience to trump principles.
Well we're screwed aren't we?
Either that or run your own website and forget FB/twitter/G+
So, a Salman Rushdie account appears. Facebook is afraid that, given Salman Rushdie's sometimes infamy, that this might be a troll account that can be more inflammatory than it's worth.
So they verify Rushdie's identity and are suitably convinced that it really is him.
... So they make him change his account name? How does that make sense?
Side note: It is common for people from that part of the world (Indo-subcontinent) to use their middle name as their first (like Salman and I do).
In some cultures it's prevalent to go by your middle name. In some others preferred names are shortened from its legal form. Some people have multiple names, each one just as legal and valid as the other (I have both a legal English and Chinese name, for example).
Nothing that Facebook (or to be fair, G+) does accounts for any of this, and without a framework to manage a person's many names (not to mention identities), a "real name" policy is both shortsighted and unenforceable.
My original point stands - we've established and agree that asking Salman Rushdie to use Ahmed Rushdie is stupid and unacceptable. Rushdie got this decision reversed because he's famous and published. Anyone else would not be so lucky. So why does this policy continue to exist and get enforced?
[edit] And something else: my parents had the foresight to officialize my English name when we immigrated to North America. Many other Chinese I know have gone by English names for decades and yet never got it cemented legally. According to Google/Facebook these people have no claim over these names, despite the fact that all of their friends and family have known them by only that name for decades.
So I guess what these companies are trying to communicate is, if I pay the paltry fee to get my name legally changed to Superfly McAwesome tomorrow, that's a-ok by them. But an account belonging to Ho Li-Jen, who's gone by "Jean" all her life, who is known by her neighbors and friends by that name, needs to be found and made to fix their account.
Nice priorities.
I agree with you that the examples you cited seem to have no remedy. What's your proposed solution?
If one is concerned about impersonation, attack impersonation - impersonation can and will happen even with a strongly-enforced real-name policy (name changes, anyone?). Empower support to deal with impersonation on a case-by-case basis.
Open-endedness in this sort of enforcement can be risky, but it's certainly better than the "baby with the water" policy the way it is right now.
.. would you still defend this sorry excuse of a vague and mostly unenforced policy?
Whoever did that clearly didn't realize he was famous and typically went by a different name - they just wanted his account to match the ID he sent in.