[Lawtan]

So, Facebook has developed a naming policy, and began blocking accounts whose names did not fit the policy.
Their insistence that one must use their actual name has been an insult to many people. Several, from "Drag Queens" to those of us who simply don't want to be known by our birth-names for whatever reason (cyber-bullying, avoiding bad relations, issues with birth-name, etc.) don't have the money/time to legally change said name.
At one point, Facebook apologized to the Drag Queens.
Now, accounts have been locked, and they require that we send a Photo-ID to them in order to unlock our accounts.

For myself, I used the name "Zephyr Crow" in order to avoid both my father, who is A) a ("benign") Control Freak, B) Harrassing, C) one source of my mental issues, and D) the epitome of a mentally scarred prejudiced republican businessman...as well as a group of other people who have physically assaulted me beforehand. It was also a way to get away from my last name, which is a shame - a strong source of my self-blame - to me, as it is my father's, and his father's (who is a worse individual and parent, in my view).

Now, I would like to tell Facebook to kindly step into the rear of a swine and inform my friends that I am leaving the wonderful corporate advertisement junkie that is Facebook, but that requires logging in, which has been barred to me. So, could someone please tell me a way I could tell several of my friends what has occurred and maintain contact with them?

My name on Skype (which I just got back running) is Zephyr Crow, feel free to keep in contact there.

My gmail is necronlordoflawtan@gmail.com

I have a Steam account of EJSoldier


As a side note, anyone wishing to protest Facebook naming policy here can change their mane to #MyNameIs

[Espy]

Yeah, FB's naming policy is a ton of fucking bullcrap. I'm not sure how mine's worked so far; probably because I first signed up with my actual name, and that "Storm" is similar enough to real surnames.

[Lawtan]

Umm...Espy, any way I could get ahold of the League of Peent and some people at CMU (Skye, McGinnis, Maria, Clyde)? I'm looking for Facebook alternatives at the moment, and while I won't likely be settled in until the weekend, I'd like to keep in contact with them...

And yeah...several things I was connected to through Facebook are now lost, including Dragon Cave, Tumblr, and a poetry reviewing site.

[Espy]

Ri's on tumblr. I'll ask the others after dinner.

Why Dragon Cave?

[Lawtan]

I connected Dragon Cave (And apparently Skype...lovely, I get to make a new Skype account...) to Facebook.

Also, thanks.

[Coda]

Mind you, you're late to the party. ;) They've already addressed the issue at hand -- a few days ago by now.

The official policy is that they don't actually mind pseudonyms, as long as they're names you actually use. The drag queens in question were maliciously reported by a user and the procedure wasn't in place to deal with it because it seems that historically very few reports were false positives.

They've made a policy adjustment to confirm this, and they're working on reenfranchising the accounts that were blocked.

[Lawtan]

I don't know if I would be included there or not. I am not a Drag Queen, though I do prefer being called Lawtan (Law) or Zephyr (Zeph) to my birth name.

[Coda]

Drag queens were just an example. Other examples include Lady Gaga (who calls her anything else?) -- it's not limited to any specific class of people.

I could go by Coda Highland if I wanted to, because people ACTUALLY call me that to my face.

[Espy]

Originally Posted by Lawtan

I connected Dragon Cave (And apparently Skype...lovely, I get to make a new Skype account...) to Facebook.

Also, thanks.

But that shouldn't stop you from using either service, right...? Also, inquiries made; waiting on responses.

[Lawtan]

Honestly, it does. The skype service uses "online on facebook" as the equivalent to a password. As does Tumblr. So, unless Coda is right and I get lucky, my Steampunk Druid page, and Thunderbird Nocturnis are both out of commission.
However, on second look, I was able to recover Dragon Cave, so a plus there. :)

On rereading, I may have misunderstood what you meant, Espy. While all the services allow for accounts to be made outside of Facebook, any account made with Facebook connected cannot be accessed without first accessing Facebook.

[Espy]

Originally Posted by Lawtan

On rereading, I may have misunderstood what you meant, Espy. While all the services allow for accounts to be made outside of Facebook, any account made with Facebook connected cannot be accessed without first accessing Facebook.

Ohhhh. ...Yeah, reasons I don't make accts w FB. Could you perhaps shoot them an email? I mean for Skype and whatnot.

[Coda]

Originally Posted by Lawtan

So, unless Coda is right and I get lucky

Truth is you have to get UNlucky for it to be a problem in the first place -- they do not have, and never have had, systems in place to search for people with existing name violations. (Unlike Google+ -- G+'s behavior in the past is probably why people are making such a big deal out of it on Facebook. But G+'s policies have changed since then and now they don't require real names at all.) They rely on problematic names being flagged by other users.

[Filthgrinder]

I first noticed this when I had changed my name to Filthgrinder, to avoid using birth name and being found from people. Then they forced me to change my name to my "actual" one. I used a nickname as a first name, and Lindemann as the last name. But that apparently wasn't okay either. About four forced name changes and requests for ID photos, I'm stuck with my actual name.

What happened to privacy?

[Coda]

Technically they're under no requirement to allow you to be anonymous. Privacy, legally speaking, is only about certain classes of sensitive information. Requiring you to use your legal name just means that people who don't like that shouldn't use the service.

More practically, you should have just deleted your account and made a new one.