
My name is only real enough to work at Facebook, not to use on the site - kaws
https://medium.com/p/c37daf3f4b03
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chx
Not trans but I identify with the letters "chx" much more strongly than my
real name. There are thousands, perhaps ten of thousands of people out there
who know me by this nick and nothing else. My own brother often calls me that.
British Columbia doesn't allow me to take a single word as a legal name but
once I get citizenship I am very seriously considering changing my legal name
to a name where the abbreviation makes it a sort of retronym. (Charles Harry
Xavier?)

~~~
jackvalentine
How is it pronounced? "chix"? or spelled out C.H.X?

~~~
chx
I heard both :) not to mention the Hungarian pronunciation of c-h-x where I
originally come from -- I am using this nick for more than twenty years and
1993-2005 I heard it only in Hungarian as my contact with the Western world
was mostly virtual. Then everything changed at the first DrupalCon in Antwerp
but I am getting off topic here.

~~~
jackvalentine
That is a more fantastic answer than I thought i'd get! Even the pronunciation
doesn't adhere to traditional name conventions :-)

I love it, good luck.

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lukev
How sad is it that the "protest" they come up with is to _deactivate_ their
accounts for a _day_?.

Facebook is terrible. Ditch it entirely. Or do like I do and leave up a bare
bones page with a bit of contact information for old friends and _never
visit_.

~~~
logicallee
>Facebook is terrible. Ditch it entirely

And then...? What? Try to get people to invite you to events on Google
Hangouts or whatever Google has?

~~~
meddlepal
I just stopped caring about being invited to "events". If the event is so
impersonal that it needs to be broadcast rather than two or three people
organizing and then blasting a simple text message like "Hey beers at 5PM at
<Insert Restaurant or Bar Here>. Come if you can!" I just don't care.

~~~
ajkjk
I definitely disagree with this. Facebook's utility for inviting people (even
close friends) is huge to me. The messenger system is way better than text
messaging, integrates well with its calendar and reminders, allows people to
see who else is coming, doesn't cross platforms poorly (like group texts to
Iphones + Android, in my experience), includes a map and permanent details,
can be accessed online, ... etc, the list goes on a long way.

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mschuster91
I guess this is the work of a bunch of trans-haters abusing the report
feature.

Assigning the right amount of power for an automatic filter is a science
itself, though. Heuristic AV scanners and spam filters suffer from the same
issues.

For example even big telco providers (Ay Yildiz Germany) get caught up for now
MONTHS in Gmails spam filter with no way to change this. Their emails are
discarded already at SMTP delivery...

~~~
protomyth
I have my doubts about that since they also seem to go on spurts of banning
Native American using their real names.

~~~
mschuster91
I don't know Native American names, but I guess the filter classifies their
names as having too much entropy when compared to the other 1.1bn FB users.

1.1bn gives a pretty exhaustive list of common names for a given country
region.

~~~
protomyth
Well, its a known problem and their continued foolishness is a pain to people
including those who do not work for Facebook but have to deal with ticked
people because they are the local computer person.

> 1.1bn gives a pretty exhaustive list of common names for a given country
> region.

If the last name is a person with a Wikipedia entry then their pretty
exhaustive list is not very exhaustive.

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teaneedz
Personally, I disagree with this one point.

> Cynics will tell you that using your “real name” is so they can sell your
> details to advertisers. That’s not the case.

Facebook is selling _access_ to their profile of a person for targeted ads and
tracking across the web - which includes a real name. No, I haven't worked at
FB, but I get the business side from a Product Management perspective.

Yes, ad impressions can factor into it, but one could argue that there would
be more engagement using a name that a person is currently using or known by,
resulting in increased time on the newsfeed, not less.

It's all about a story to sell advertisers though. Facebook is an advertising
platform. We use "real names" is just a marketing bullet FB can hold up to
advertisers in glossy material and sales pitches.

Real name policies are indeed a made up solution mistakenly used by some to
address trolling issues as well. The thing is, that argument has been proven
false, time and time again.

Ello, that underdog social community, is proving right now that pseudonymity
can work.

I guess the real question is, "Are we willing to walk the talk and support the
companies that are standing up for users on this issue as well as privacy?"

Of course we might have to sacrifice some features we are used to, but
ultimately it's the only way to send a message that will be heard.

Google, afterall didn't change it's stand on real names just out of some
epiphany or random act of kindness. That story is a little more complex for
sure, yet our eyes and where they spend time is the ultimate metric in today's
ad model.

My eyes choose Ello these days.

~~~
informatimago
”I guess the real question is, "Are we willing to walk the talk and support
the companies that are standing up for users on this issue as well as
privacy?"“

An interesting question.

So on one hand we see that we have some kinds of companies that can provide
useful global services (facebook, google, wikipedia, sourceforge (before ads),
mozilla, github, etc), but it is impractical, unsavory or counter productive
to make "users" pay (because we're not only passive "users", but active
contributors to the services facilitated by those companies.

The "solution" found by those companies is to extract the needed money from
other companies in exchange for advertisement.

On the other hand, we can print money to give to banksters only to satisfies
their shareholders, and with no benefit whatsoever to the general population,
on the contrary.

What if, instead, we printed money to give to those internet companies and
associations providing useful services? They wouldn't then have to use
advertisements, and therefore could better protect the privacy of the
users/contributors.

~~~
teaneedz
An interesting proposition, but since so much of the online (even offline)
world is ad driven these days (or rushing to be), there would be too many
businesses wanting a piece of that action which might contribute to an
shortage of ink :) (figuratively speaking).

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runn1ng
How illegal is to provide a fake ID documents to Facebook? ("fake" in the
sense of "editing it in Photoshop")

~~~
eevee
Why would it be illegal at all? Facebook isn't a government authority.

~~~
protomyth
Well, faking documents for a bank is a crime, so just because they aren't
government doesn't provide protection.

------
coldcode
Facebook needs to be replaced by something that is people oriented instead of
marketing oriented. Fat chance, but one can dream.

------
jdavis703
Could Facebook implement a PageRank type algorithm that gets people with
already verified real names (perhaps they paid for something by credit card on
FB, or are registered with a .edu email that matches their initials), to then
say whether their friends name was real? Surely there's a way of proving
someone's real name without making them use their legal name.

~~~
jschwartzi
I wonder if they simply want the legal name. If part of the purpose of
Facebook is to sell networks of people to marketers, then being able to tie
your network identity to your home loan, car loan, and credit score is going
to be very appealing.

~~~
jdavis703
If we take the article at face value, then the answer is that "no, they don't
want your full name" for marketing.

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ethagknight
Is the use of WASP in this case wholly inappropriate and clearly intended to
be derogatory? Why is it tolerated and not considered a form of hate speech?

~~~
natrius
_" Facebook likes to think of names as a one-to-one mapping. You have one
name, and that name is how people refer to you at all times. It’s a very WASP
notion of how names work, and the reality is far more complex."_

Nope. Not inappropriate. Not derogatory. Not hate speech. Different cultures
treat names different ways. Here, "WASP" is a reference to the dominant
American culture. I didn't bat an eye when I read it.

~~~
ethagknight
My point is, the term WASP is used here not as an enpowerment, but as a target
of blame for the subject matter. If WASP is a reference to dominant American
culture, why not just say dominant American culture? White Anglo Saxon
Protestants are in no way responsible for Facebook's naming schemes. Maybe it
isn't offensive to you, but it is unquestionably slang, and I would add yes,
offensive, because it's a) not true, b) out of context, and most significantly
c) in direct contrast with the article's call for understanding of other
cultural identities.

~~~
wpietri
I personally don't see a big contradiction between calling for a more diverse
understanding while pointing out that what is nominally "normal" is part of a
very specific dominant cultural segment.

And given that the term originated among sociologists, some of them WASPs
themselves, I think calling it "unquestionably slang" is strong. Ditto
"offensive". If you're offended, you can just say, "I'm offended" without
trying to cast it as some sort of false objectivity.

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cgtyoder
So, "Zip" used to work there and she hasn't used her connections to get this
resolved? While it's unfortunate that this happened, that's pretty standard in
this situation. Make a call - it sounds like she knows the right people.

~~~
imron
And what about all the people who _don 't_ have contacts at Facebook?

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shaftoe
Summary: Facebook has an overly rigid process governing names and this guy has
an edge-case problem.

Is this not a solved issue? How do women who change their name upon marriage
use Facebook? Does Facebook recognize legal name changes? Is that not in
effect here?

~~~
shaftoe
It says something that my comment is getting downvoted, though I'm not sure
what. Is it sensitivity to saying scenarios that are statistical anomalies
"edge-cases"?

