Thursday 27 November 2014

Who am I? #MyNameIs...

Well today was a most odd day. It was frustrating, upsetting and distressing.I opened Facebook to find that they had deactivated my account. I got the following message:

There was no opportunity to dispute things. I was just given a form that would allow me to change my name with a link to what was unacceptable. Here's the list:

The form (well Facebook) was quick to reject nearly everything I typed immediately. I then added something in out of desperation which was accepted. Sadly there was no a"re you sure you want to use?" verification step. There wasn't a warning that what I was about to enter would then be locked for the next sixty days. What I ended up with as an immediately accepted Facebook name that I most certainly did NOT want to use. I was not happy with being lumbered with a Facebook identity that wasn't me based on who they think I should be. Nearly everyone I know calls me KT and knows me as KT Glitz. This is who I am.

Frustrated and upset by Facebook's hard line approach I decided to deactivate my account. I felt really flat. Although Facebook isn't reality as such it plays a big part in my life and my interactions with other people with similar interests. I was starting to question who I was and felt like my identity had been invalidated. 

My next step was to set up a completely new Facebook profile. I started adding friends from my old profile and Toni shared what had happened on hers and my friends list started to look a bit like my old one. On the plus side my newsfeed was now slightly less chaotic than the old one. I do have a solution that could get my old profile back although part of me is tempted to just continue using the new one. Not 100% sure what I am going to do at this moment in time.

There is a petition on change.org challenging Facebook to reconsider its current draconian view on real names. If you feel so inclined please pop over to this link and sign the petition:
https://www.change.org/p/facebook-stop-forcing-users-to-display-their-real-name?

So in short I am really mad at Facebook at the moment. I know a lot of people who have also been victims of this crazy policy. As far as I am concerned it is war and I will actively campaign to get them to reverse their things. It wasn't that long ago that Facebook made a public apology after trying to force drag queens to re-badge their profiles with their real names.After that was done we had assumed that all this silliness had gone away. It appears not!

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