In 2012, Facebook processed 2.7 billion likes per day — just under three likes per user, according to design and technology blog Gizmodo. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Facebook is cracking down on users whose profiles don’t include their legal names, and drag queens are leading the fight against the more rigorous policy.
The social network has employed a “real name policy” for years, but almost everyone on the site knows at least a few people who use fake names or variations of their real ones. Some professionals, like social workers, teachers or doctors, avoid posting their last name to make it harder for clients, students and patients to find them, and for their own privacy or safety.
Others, like drag queens or transgender people, use an alias that better expresses their identity, even if it isn’t their legal name. Now, users who employ an alternative name are being blocked from logging in and told “Facebook is a community where people use their real identities.” But for many users, a non-legal name is their “real identity.”
After Sister Roma, a prominent San Francisco drag queen was blocked from using her years-old profile until she used her “real name,” the community is fighting back against a policy Facebook has said in the past is about improving decorum on the site.
“It’s our performer name. It’s who we are,” said Toronto drag queen Barbie Jo Bontemps when asked about the policy. “It’d be like asking any other performer to use their real name or get off.
“And that’s just silly,” she said.
Would Facebook ask Rhianna to build her profile under her birth name, Robyn Fenty?
If that’s what’s on her driver’s license, maybe.
The site is bent on ensuring “profiles” are people’s real names but they said anyone who wants to create a performer alias can use the slightly newer “page” function for fans.
“If people want to use an alternative name on Facebook, they have several different options available to them, including providing an alias under their name on their profile, or creating a Page specifically for that alternative persona. As part of our overall standards, we ask that people who use Facebook provide their real name on their profile,” a Facebook spokesperson said in an email.
A Change.org petition highlights several problems with the “page” solution: “pages” are often a cash grab for Facebook and users whose profiles don’t match their legal names often see their existing online presence as an extension of a hard-fought identity.
“Even Facebook admits that pages typically only reach (approximately) 16% of their audience, unless they pay to ‘promote’ a post,” the petition states. “We are not large companies with deep pockets, and we cannot afford to pay $30 or more per post to make sure that our friends and audiences see our posts.”
“Although our names might not be our ‘legal’ birth names, they are still an integral part of our identities, both personally and to our communities. These are the names we are known by and call each other and ourselves. We build our networks, community, and audience under the names we have chosen, and forcing us to switch our names after years of operating under them has caused nothing but confusion and pain by preventing us from presenting our profiles under the names we have built them up with,” the petition states.
For some it’s about safety, the petition notes: “Victims of abuse, trans people, queer people who are not able to be safely ‘out,’ and performers alike need to be able to socialize, connect, and build communities on social media safely.”
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