
My name is only real enough to work at Facebook, not to use on the site - mxhold
https://medium.com/@zip/my-name-is-only-real-enough-to-work-at-facebook-not-to-use-on-the-site-c37daf3f4b03
======
thaumasiotes
> As a technology, Facebook isn’t neutral. It’s actually changing the way we
> interact with names. Before Facebook how many of your friends’ surnames did
> you actually know?

It's hard for me to get over the strangeness of this question. Of course I
knew all of my friends' surnames. There's a strong implication in the piece
that I should be different?

~~~
DanBC
You know the names they've given you.

You have no idea if those names are real enough for Facebook - plenty of
people don't use the name on their birth certificate or marriage certificate
or passport. (And this is legal and correct in many countries.)

~~~
thaumasiotes
What I'm getting from this is that you don't know your "friends" particularly
well. How do you know how well I know my friends?

~~~
DanBC
I think you underestimate how common it is for people to use names other than
on their birth certificates, passports or marriage certificates.

~~~
thaumasiotes
On the contrary, I am friends with such a person. We've talked about it.

Actually, I am friends with _many_ such people, if you count Chinese people
using English names. There is a mode where I don't know any part of a Chinese
person's name, but there's no mode where I know their personal name but not
their surname.

------
jacalata
This is from several months ago, since then Facebook has announced changes to
the name policy - might be more valuable to get a more recent discussion?

~~~
scottywz
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/facebooks-new-name-
pol...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/facebooks-new-name-policy-
changes-are-progress-not-perfection)

It's also a problem that they immediately shut both the user themselves and
their friends out of their account just over the user's name. Even with the
changes they're making to reporting, the user's account completely disappears
from the site until the "issue" is resolved. People might think something
happened to them, and of course the user is still shut off from what may be
their only means to communicate with some (or even all) important people in
their lives or support groups.

Also, from what I can remember from helping my mom through that process, I
don't think you can even export your own data if your account's been flagged.
Even if you could, the export process is broken: exporting private messages is
broken (a long, 50,000+ message conversation with a close friend doesn't
export in full for me, and archived conversations also don't get included),
and according to
[https://www.facebook.com/help/405183566203254](https://www.facebook.com/help/405183566203254),
your notes, your own timeline posts, your posts on others' profiles, things
you've shared, things you've liked, and your following list are also not
included. (Edit: I also just noticed that photos don't export in the highest
available resolution, _and_ not all photos even export to begin with.)

Not to mention what happens to your ability to log in to _other sites_ with
your Facebook account (I honestly don't know about that one).

Overall, the way they handle real name "violations" is just way too drastic.
I'd say they should give a 45- or 60-day warning before shutting off access to
the account, and even then still allow the user to export their data (and fix
the export process) and/or close the account. They also need to let other
users access the suspended profile if the user doesn't choose to close it.

------
pdkl95
[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-
programmers-b...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-
believe-about-names/)

