‘Real Name Police’ targeting ‘perverts and sodomites’ returns after Twitter account banned
A Twitter account named the ‘Real Name Police’ which targeted drag performers on Facebook, calling on followers to report accounts to the social networking site which do not use legal names, has returned.
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.
The Real Name Police, however, claimed that Facebook contains “perverts, sickos and bullies”, who use “fake names”.
The account was yesterday suspended, but has now returned to Twitter under a new account – ‘Real Name Enforcers’.
The group also started a Tumblr page, and tweeted PinkNews to say “The righteous cannot be silenced. The perverts & sodomites names are posted here,” with a link to it.
The original Real Name Police account had 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, now closed, posted an image of Twitter analytics, and claimed to have had over 201,000 impressions since it was set up three days prior.
Whoever was behind the Twitter account specifically targets 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 included 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 before the account was taken down.
