Publications
Partners
Today that unlucky person was me.
I rarely need a pseudonym, but in the 18 years since I first logged onto the Internet as a doe-eyed teen, I've always, on every website and forum, had the freedom to use a pseudonym.
That is until Facebook implemented their real-names policy.
I'm a vocal LGBTQI and feminist activist. I've had my name and face published in newspaper articles, or mentioned during radio interviews before, so when real names happened, I barely noticed, because I used my real name online anyway.
I'm not super famous, but anyone really wanting to do me harm could reasonably find me using publicly available information. I'm OK with that. I choose to live out loud, but three years ago that all changed.
I started dating a girl who never wanted me to post anything about her online. No relationship status, no photos. Not even a casual mention in a comment.
The reasons she gave me revolved around online security. We both knew about fraud and identity theft. She wasn't taking any chances.
Though I thought she was a bit paranoid, I respected her request. I found myself occasionally stepping back into the closet only to protect her privacy.
This was fortunate as there was a far more important reason she needed that privacy - her parents were violently abusive.
She had been held captive for a year in her home after trying to run away and only really broke free when she managed to move to a distant city and change her name.
This is the reason why this post is under an assumed name. My pseudonym protects not only me, but more importantly her and the rest of my family from any negative consequences this post may have.
For many battered and abused women, using a pseudonym online is the only way they or their partners can safely use social networks.
After a television documentary began to approach its broadcast date, I began to ponder changing my Facebook name to increase my security against possible backlash. However, what finally really pushed me to actually do it was the story of a girl who was reported for using her real name.
For her privacy, let’s call her Pumla.
Pumla is transgender, and had begun to use her new name around her loved ones after her transition. In South Africa, trans-people can legally change their names, even on their IDs, without the permission of anyone, provided they are of age.
I understand that such a thing might be hard to grasp for the Americans who own Facebook, but Pumla isn't American and by using her new female name, this girl wasn't doing anything that isn't perfectly legal and acceptable according to South African Constitutional law.
She also wasn't deceiving anyone by doing so. Even according to Facebook's stated name policy - that the name be the name your friend's know you by, even if it is a nickname - she was in the clear.
This bothered me a lot. I decided that I thought the real-names policy was stupid, and should be abandoned for the sake of women like Pumla and my girlfriend. Many of my friends had also decided to protest by choosing their own pseudonyms, so I did too.
It contained no swearwords and in three heavily hyphenated words stated that it was a protest against real-names policy. It even ended with my true surname. Clean and practical.
I began to research the issue and I quickly discovered that the reason there was no progress being made to address it was because Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook, personally believed that using a pseudonym on Facebook was unethical.
Though empty apologies and promises were made, false reports continue to occur. I know, because the reporting of my name occurred about a month after I changed it, which was today.
It came soon after a hot debate in one of my groups on Facebook. Another user took issue with my argument and then went on to accuse me of using my pseudonym as a front for trolling.
He persisted in hammering me about it repeatedly, commenting on the same thing over and over, despite several other members coming to my defence and explaining the point of the name. I had never experienced the like in any of my other groups.
I'm relatively certain that it was this person who reported me. Instead of being a well-adjusted adult and using the "block user", "remove" or "report post" options to address whatever comment I may have made that offended them, he chose to misuse user policy to punish and silence me.
Fortunately, rather than silencing me, I believe it promotes my cause. Everyone who follows my feed regularly will instantly be able to see that I've been reported and forced to change my name. This dispels the myth that such things only happen to trans-people or people they don't know.
They also know that it wasn't because the name was abusive, or because I was using my profile as a front for trolling, which are the reasons typically given to justify the policy. Someone just took advantage of the fact that I was using a pseudonym for their own ends. This makes it that much more obvious that the motive may have been retribution.
If you are invested in keeping your Facebook page at all, you are living your online life in a police state in which Mark Zuckerberg is the dictator. If he decides that a policy is non-negotiable, your opinion isn't important.
Why does Facebook think it alone, amongst all the online platforms, has the right to always know our real names? Is it so they can better dig into our lives to find personal information they can monetize? Because it certainly isn't protecting us against online abuse.
If the real names policy bothers you too, do something about it. Change your name to something creative, or even to something defiant. Let all your friends know why you are doing so and encourage them to join you.
Avoid swearwords and slurs, and conduct yourself in such a way online that when that takedown comes and you are forced to change your name back, everybody knows that it wasn't fair.
Change your Facebook name today, and make Facebook ungovernable for Mark Zuckerberg.
