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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?
"Our policy has never been to require everyone on Facebook to use their legal name," Cox said. "The spirit of our policy is that everyone on Facebook uses the authentic name they use in real life. For Sister Roma, that's Sister Roma. For Lil Miss Hot Mess, that's Lil Miss Hot Mess."
So if Fred Phelps had gone around calling himself God's Fag Killing Machine, Facebook would obviously have let him use that name under this "understanding" of their policy. Right? Right?..
Alternative lifestyles are free to be offensive to some niches of society. Thus, neither are you, Lil Miss Hot Mess, guaranteed the right not to be offended.
Being driven by ratings based on the viewing habits of folks who have checked out, the fourth estate is there in force to address every imaginable social injustice.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
They're very sorry for this policy which they intend to continue. But they're very sorry about it. And that's coming from the heart, man.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Given that most of the people I know on FB don't use their real names, I think FB is just being super-silly.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
represents the group who's unfairly burdened by the original requirement.
I would say that the group is fairly burdened by the requirement. Burdens arent unfair just because you dont want to be burdened.
"His name was James Damore."
Teachers and counsellors often don't want the kids they work with to be able to easily find them on facebook, so they use fake names. I have many friends who do this. So far they haven't been affected by any rule enforcement.
You have such a fundamental misunderstanding of some very basic concepts of justice (which have been tackled over and fucking over throughout the last 100 years of jurisprudence) that I'm not sure whether to bother replying to you.
Consider the following rule: "Anyone whose hair holds a pencil when inserted into the hair is not permitted into the party."
Is it unfair?
Well, no, on the surface of it, it isn't. Pretty simple rule, really? Applies to everyone. Everyone's treated the same. If you don't like it, don't spray/curl your hair, right?
No, of course not. It's a test for blackness. A person who has black skin is way more likely to fail the test than a person who has white skin. It's inherent to black people that they have curlier, tougher hair which is more likely to hold a pencil.
Just as it's inherent to transgender people that their sex organs do not reflect their psychological gender, so there is a very high likelihood that they are misnamed at birth.
Justice does not just consider whether a rule is equally applied to everyone, but whether a rule in effect treats everyone equally. Only in exceptional circumstances do we consider as just a rule which somehow disadvantages a group because of some innate feature of that group.
Reality: deal with it.
use your real name like us normal folks
Wow, I have now met the real person called "Anonymous Coward"
Is it me or is it just funny that someone posted anonymously that you should used your real name like "Normal Folks"
I thought your name was Abby-something...
represents the group who's unfairly burdened by the original requirement.
I would say that the group is fairly burdened by the requirement. Burdens arent unfair just because you dont want to be burdened.
If you actually read the news stories (it's been widely reported) you'll find out that one individual reported 200 xgenders. Sounds to me like someone who was targeting a group based on their gender expression. Facebook said they didn't catch what had happened at first because they get thousands of reports.
Facebook clarified it's policy by saying that you can go by the name you're known by to the general public. How would you like it if you couldn't go by the nickname you've been using since grade school, but had to use your "real name"? "William Robert Doe? Who the heck is that? Oh, you mean Billy-Bob?"
Transgenders who are not transsexuals generally retain their legal birth name for things such as banking, etc. However, in the context of social interactions, what is the harm in letting them use the name that their friends and the general public know them as? Isn't it supposed to be a social network, and not a courtroom?
For transsexuals, do you have any idea of how long it takes to do the paperwork in some jurisdictions? Some places will refuse to change your name without a valid reason, backed up by documentation. And what is someone supposed to do while they're transitioning? Go by their old name (one that conforms to their old gender) on Facebook when their co-workers know them by a different name and gender? The Standards of Care for transsexuals require that you live and work full-time in your target gender for at least a year. So you've got a year when you don't have that documentation, and then another year while it goes through - minimum. Sure, YMMV, but that's the way it is where I live.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.