Earlier this month, a drag performer in San Francisco named Lil Miss Hot Mess received a notice from Facebook. Her account had been suspended because she was not using what the company considered a “real name.” Lil Miss Hot Mess could not gain access to her posts, messages or photos.
“I felt as though I had been outed,” said Lil Miss Hot Mess, who preferred not to disclose her legal name for this article. “It’s not like I’m hiding from the world, but it’s important for me to keep these identities separate.”
The same experience happened to Sister Roma, a drag performer and activist in San Francisco, who reacted by airing her complaints on Twitter and Facebook, where she has a combined following of over 18,000 users.
“Tell @facebook their Legal Name Policy is unfair & discriminatory,” Sister Roma wrote on Twitter.
Facebook has a longstanding policy requiring users to register with a “real identity” that matches their credit cards, drivers’ licenses or student IDs. The company says it does not actively seek out violators; instead it waits for others to flag them, then investigates each complaint.
That may be the case, but drag performers and transgender users felt as if they were suddenly being targeted. Before long, a protest was being planned at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.
“I started a big fuss,” said Sister Roma, whose legal name is Michael Williams. “Then Facebook called me and offered to organize a meeting.”
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The protest was shelved as Sister Roma; Lil Miss Hot Mess; David Campos, a gay member of the San Francisco board of supervisors; and other activists met with Facebook representatives on Sept. 17. In that meeting, the activists argued that the policy excludes those who prefer to choose their names and exposes them to cyberbullying.
But Facebook refused to alter its policy, instead offering to give flagged users an additional two weeks to change their names. In an email, Monika Bickert, head of Facebook’s global policy management and a participant at the meeting, said: “Having people use their real names on Facebook makes them more accountable, and also helps us root out accounts created for malicious purposes, like harassment, fraud, impersonation and hate speech.”
The activists remain unsatisfied. “Nothing was resolved,” Sister Roma said. “We barely got to ask any questions.”
