But that’s not your real real name
Identity Trolling on Facebook
A couple of weeks ago, one of my friends — we’ll call her Star — vanished from Facebook. Poof! Her profile was suddenly inaccessible. She vanished from several groups to which we both belonged, some of which she even moderated. As far as Facebook was concerned, it was as if she’d never existed.
Star had become the latest victim of Facebook’s “real names” policy, or more specifically, of some busybody who took it upon him- or- herself to report Star to the powers-that-be for “not using her real name.”
A lot has been written about the dangers the real names policy poses to some members of the LGBTQ community, victims of domestic violence, and other vulnerable users, as well as the culturally insensitive (or downright racist) and sometimes baffling ways that this policy is often enforced.
Enforcement is a big part of the problem.
According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “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.”
The problem with that logic is that not everyone uses his- or- her legal name from day to day, and Facebook relies heavily on user reporting to ferret out fake accounts. On its face (ba-dum-ching!) this is a good thing.
According to Facebook CPO Chris Cox, Facebook receives hundreds of thousands of fake name reports per week, “99 percent of which are bad actors doing bad things: impersonation, bullying, trolling, domestic violence, scams, hate speech, and more.” So for example, if someone attempts to impersonate you, you can report that account. Facebook investigates and removes it. Problem solved. Ideally, this is how the reporting system should work. This is how Facebook expects it to work.
Unfortunately, in the real world, another scenario often plays itself out:
Person A uses a name that doesn’t appear on her driver’s license. A nickname, a pen name, or other name that isn’t on her tax return. Often, this is in fact, as Facebook puts it, “the name they use in real life.” It’s the name her friends call her, or it’s the name she uses professionally as a blogger, the name everyone actually knows. It is her “authentic identity.”
Person B knows Person A’s legal name (the name that appears on Person A’s driver’s license). Often, Person B gets annoyed at Person A for some reason. Person A posts a link to a political article Person B doesn’t agree with, or Personl B discovers something about Person A that he doesn’t like. Whatever the reason, Person B takes it upon himself to report Person A to Facebook for using a “fake name.”
This happens a lot. On its face, it’s just everyday internet pettiness. But here’s the problem.
By enforcing its policy in this way, Facebook hasn’t solved the harassment problem; they’ve created a new avenue for harassment to continue.
What’s worse? They know it, and they continue to do nothing about it.
In October of 2014, Facebook issued an apology to drag queens and other members of the LGBTQ community affected by a number of real name violation reports. In the apology, CPO Chris Cox acknowledged that “An individual on Facebook decided to report several hundred of these accounts as fake.”
Since last year, however, the policy has not significantly changed.
Zuckerberg has stated that, “Real name does not mean your legal name. Your real name is whatever you go by and what your friends call you. If your friends all call you by a nickname and you want to use that name on Facebook, you should be able to do that.”
So the top brass claim, and perhaps even believe, but that’s not the way the policy is actually being enforced day to day. If you are reported for a real name violation, Facebook will require you to provide proof of identity. Most of the items on Facebook’s list of acceptable forms of identity are items such as a driver’s license or social security card, which of course will list the legal name. If the name you actually use isn’t your legal name, Facebook will force you to change your name.
Or leave, like my friend Star.
The problem with the way the real names policy is currently being enforced is that it allows other people to determine who you are — and often, those people are not your friends.
Star was not the first in my circle of friends to experience this situation, and I doubt she’ll be the last. She wasn’t event the first that month, for that matter, although the incident immediately preceding hers was resolved, because the woman in question had a friend of a friend who worked at Facebook. Most of us don’t have that sort of connection, but we do have connections — those friends who know who we are, who know our real “real names.”
I believe that’s where the solution lies. Given Facebook’s focus on “what your friends call you,” the network should offer another means of identity verification for those who don’t use their legal names on Facebook — a poll or other method of gathering “references” from friends who can verify the authenticity of a user’s name.
According to Chris Cox, “Our policy has never been to require everyone on Facebook to use their legal name. The spirit of our policy is that everyone on Facebook uses the authentic name they use in real life.”
It’s time for the spirit of Facebook’s policy to be reflected in its implementation.
