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Facebook Apologizes To Drag Queens Over "Real Name" Rule
An anonymous reader writes Facebook apologized to drag queens and the LGBT community after an outcry over the social network's policy of requiring members to use real names on their accounts. While the policy itself will stay in place, Facebook says, it will be changing how the rule is enforced. In a Wednesday post, Facebook's Chief Product Officer Chris Cox apologized to "the affected community of drag queens, drag kings, transgender, and extensive community of our friends, neighbors, and members of the LGBT community for the hardship that we've put you through in dealing with your Facebook accounts over the past few weeks."
So drag queens can use fake names but the rest cant?
I see no reason why any person with a private Facebook page should be given special status or exemptions from the rules just because of some arbitrary, momentarily popular PC BS category.
I dare bet fake names also account for a disproportionally large amount of activity.
Why would you bother signing up a fake account if you're not going to use the account?
Anonymity is part of the Internet--it creates problems, sure, but it also allows people to say what they actually think without fear of being punished for having the "Wrong" viewpoint. For example, your bleeding heart liberal ways will likely run afoul of your boss' staunch conservatism, and if he's a jerk, might damage your career if he knew about it.
There's nothing wrong with having any specific point of view, but about having the ability to selectively determine who knows you have this belief without being constrained about expressing it.
Who did what now?
Why would LGBT members require more of an apology than heterosexual cisgenders who desire to use another name?
The spirit of our policy is that everyone on Facebook uses the authentic name they use in real life
Note the singular. And all other names one might be using he calls "fake names". Has it ever crossed his gender-normative mind that people might be using more than one name in "real life"? And that their drag persona and their day-job/legal identity are two spheres that many people want to keep separate?
Newsflash: Drag queens, drag kings, and other people in the LGBT community can often go by pseudonyms because they might happen to live with a family that would put them out on the street if they found out. Drag queens, drag kings, and especially transgendered people are subject to not just that, but downright assault as a result of their lifestyle. This isn't about people being offended, this is about the fact that Facebook's policy could cause actual, physical harm to people. Fuck you, you ignorant fuckstick.
Voter ID laws shouldn't be racist. Everyone should have ID, especially if they want to vote exactly one time.
Unfortunately voter ID laws were foisted on counties and districts where those enacting them knew that it would impact urban (and thus likely democratic) voters disproportionately. It's the sort of change that you make an election or two in the future, and send a state ID team out to major polling places now, so people are prepared when your sensible change rolls around.