‘Real Name Police’ targets ‘pervert’ drag performers on Facebook
A Twitter account named the ‘Real Name Police’ has targeted drag performers on Facebook, calling on followers to report accounts to the social networking site which do not use legal names.
Update: The Twitter account responsible has now been suspended
Last week Facebook met with drag performers in San Francisco following a controversy after the site started cracking down on profiles which do not use legal names. Despite the gesture, and an agreement to temporarily reinstate users’ profiles, Facebook said it would not change the policy.
The performers argue that having a stage name unrelated to their legal name helps protect them from issues with employers, family members or unwanted attention. Many said their performer name was part of who they are.
Real Name Police, however, claims that Facebook contains “perverts, sickos and bullies”, who use “fake names”.
Want to contribute to the cause of ridding Facebook of perverts, sickos and bullies using fake names? Simply tweet us their URL and we'll RT
— Real Name Police (@RealNamePolice) September 22, 2014
The Real Name Police account has trawled Facebook, and posted links to various accounts, including porn actor Michael Lucas, many drag performers and others who did not have their legal name on their Facebook account.
The account posted an image of Twitter analytics, and claimed to have had over 201,000 impressions since it was set up three days ago.
Whoever is behind the Twitter account seems to particularly target those with LGBT-themed names on Facebook, although it does not exclusively target gay men and drag performers. People who named themselves after fictional character Sweeney Todd were also targeted by the account.
Each post includes a link to the Facebook accounts, accompanied with “MyNameIs NOT:” followed by the Facebook account name, and “FAKE NAME! REPORT THIS ACCOUNT!”
Real Name Police’s 28 followers were bombarded with posts, as hundreds of tweets were sent over a 3 day period.
