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Comment by fauigerzigerk | Hacker News Reader

I'm banned for life from all Facebook properties (except for WhatsApp) because of my surname. They believe it's fake (or too controversial) and a copy of my passport hasn't changed their minds.

I used to have a Facebook account ~13 years ago before their real name policy came into force, but I closed it because I found it awkward to refuse or accept so many contact requests by people from my distant past.

Now unfortunately I can't access the Facebook group that is the only source of information for important things going on in the building I live in. My wife does have access though, so it's not a big deal.

It seems the only way for me to get around Facebook's real name policy is to use a fake name. But I guess that wouldn't allow me to advertise on Facebook or use any of their developer related stuff.

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In my experience, once you close your facebook account, good luck re-opening one. The only way I was able to do it was getting hired by Meta (then facebook) because they required me to have one in order to on-board.

I wonder if this also works for Google? It might be the only way to get my Google account back.

Let me go see what jobs they're hiring for...

My wife had closed her account as well but was able to open a new account in her name without any issues and without being asked to provide a photo ID

I had a friend called Harry Potter who had a fun time trying to sign up to Facebook back in the day!

That is particularly egregious because there are plenty of people running around FB with obviously fake names. In a couple of the picture-oriented groups I'm in, I'd say more than half of the posts are from people with fake and sometimes even offensive names, but nothing ever gets done despite what I know to be multiple reports. Even a bad policy can usually be made worse by enforcing it inconsistently.

and what is your surname?

most likely: fuck

Assuming that they don't dox themselves some examples that would trigger a filter:

- Phillip K. Dick, etc., So like a body part or cuss word, or even an ethnic slur, for instance in Papua New Guinea a hundred or so people have the surname “Wop” which might trigger an algorithm. “Fokker” is a Dutch example of this, refers to someone who was an expert in getting animals to breed—possibly some other culture has a variant like Fucker that's the same.

- The name could be identical to a celebrity, for instance a Malcolm X born to Arthur and Jenny X having nothing to do with the more famous person of that name. Then you would still say “it’s because of my surname.” Alternatively the celebrity could be notorious e.g. if your name were “Jack Hittler.”

- The James Randi Educational Foundation once dismissed an application for a prize that they administer, because the person did not appear to be using their real name. This had to be reopened when notarized copies of a court order changing the name were submitted, confirming that he had indeed changed his first name to Prophet and his surname to Yahweh. So if that guy has kids with more normal first names...

Cuntz? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Cuntz

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