Facebook still locking drag queen accounts despite axing ‘real name’ policy
Facebook is still locking the accounts of a number of drag queens – despite pledging to axe a policy requiring people to use their ‘real name’ on the website.
The social network has been under fire over the ‘legal name’ policy, after it last month began locking the accounts of users with noticeable drag names
Following protests, representatives of the social network agreed to drop the “flawed” policy, and apologised for allowing it to hurt people.
However, Sister Roma of San Fransico’s Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, one of the drag artists who led the campaign, told the Guardian that accounts are still being banned.
She said: “Every time one or two get fixed, a handful get suspended.
“We really feel like we’re swimming upstream, and while I’m hopeful that Facebook is doing the right thing, it’s discouraging.
“Facebook is not the enemy here… the problem is that people are using this policy that Facebook has in place to target and bully members of the Facebook community they don’t like.”
A Facebook spokesperson said: “We are committed to ensuring that all members of the Facebook community can use the authentic names they use in real life.
“Having people use their authentic names makes them more accountable, and also helps us root out accounts created for malicious purposes, like harassment, fraud, impersonation and hate speech.
“Our team is busy working to improve the implementation of this standard so that some of the issues people recently encountered can be prevented in the future.”
