Process hell and faceless bureaucracy may await those locked out of their accounts — even when they use their legal names.
Eveshka Ghost
Eveshka Ghost
Until recently, Daniel Wilson, a transgender musician based in England, went by the name Chalcedony Angel on Facebook. The moniker, a stage name, worked fine for a while, but as he — a pronoun he suggested we use — grew more comfortable with his identity, Wilson legally changed his name to Eveshka Ghost, and then made the change on Facebook as well.
Ghost's new legal name displayed briefly on Facebook without issue. But then, like many in the trans community, he ran into trouble. On June 19, a message arrived in his inbox demanding he provide proof that Eveshka Ghost was indeed his real name. If he could not, he'd be kicked off the platform. When Ghost replied with his change of name form, he tumbled into a rabbit hole of Facebook bureaucracy. Nearly a month later, he still doesn't have his account back.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, this never should have happened.
In a Q&A on his Facebook page earlier this month, Zuckerberg said his company's "real name" policy -- which prohibits aliases on the platform -- should be workable for people in the trans community, who often go through identity transitions. But the reality is different. People who are reported as "real name" violators can find themselves locked in a bureaucratic mess, responding to emails that are essentially form letters from faceless Facebook employees, with no opportunity to talk live despite the complexities of the policy and the harshness of its enforcement. This system has hit the trans community particularly hard. But it's also made life difficult for activists and various others.
"Everyone I've ever met in my life and traced has gone -- with no list or reminder of where they are," said Ghost in an interview with BuzzFeed News. "Everything I have built up is just completely destroyed."
Zuckerberg has insisted that Facebook's policy is more relaxed than people think. "Real name does not mean your legal name," he said. "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."
While that may be Facebook's policy, its enforcement can leave even those using their legal names locked out and facing a bureaucratic nightmare as they try to return.
Lady Soliloquy, an author of Christian and Southern literature, is also currently without her Facebook profile. She was reported to Facebook on May 22, she told BuzzFeed News, by people with whom she was in a dispute. In a subsequent email to her, these same people bragged about getting her kicked off. Lady Soliloquy's name is a legal one, and she has plenty of identification to prove it, much of which she sent to Facebook after it locked her profile without warning.
Documentation Lady Soliloquy provided to BuzzFeed News shows how frustrating the process can be. In an initial message to Lady Soliloquy, Facebook linked a list of accepted documentation, and wrote the following: "If this is the name you are known by in everyday life, please help us verify it by attaching a copy of an ID that shows your name, photo and date of birth in a reply to this email."
Lady Soliloquy then submitted multiple forms of identification -- a bank statement, a utility bill, an IRS employer identification number receipt, and a photo ID -- only to be met with a message from a "Jean" of Facebook's community operations telling her, "We received your ID but couldn't use it to verify your identity." Little further information was offered.
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