Facebook's real names policy has been under scrutiny in the past couple of weeks, as there has been a pressure campaign from San Francisco drag queens and transgendered persons to change them up to something less offensive to the groups.
Facebook's real names policy basically only allows users to use their legal names, and they can even close accounts if other users report the names as being fake; this hasn't gone well with some San Francisco drag queen performers, who had used their stage names on the social network without any problems until recently, when Facebook's real name policies changed and someone reported several hundred accounts of drag queens and lesbians, gay, bi and transsexual people (LGBT) as fake, leading to them presenting their identity issues to Facebook, in a big to have the social network change the offensive policy, according to The New York Times.
Facebook's real names policy has been under attack for the past two weeks, after Sister Roma, a member of a San Francisco drag queen troupe called the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, was forced by the social network to change her name to Michael Williams, her given (and legal) name. As the Wall Street Journal joked, it was almost like forcing Lady Gaga to go by the name of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta - or even like telling Cher to become Cherilyn Sarkisian on the popular social network.
Christopher Cox, Facebook's product chief, apologized to those affected by Facebook's real names policy. Last Wednesday, he wrote in a statement: "The spirit of our policy is that everyone on Facebook uses the authentic name they use in real life. For Sister Roma, that's Sister Roma. For Lil Miss Hot Mess, that's Lil Miss Hot Mess." Lil Miss Hot Mess was another one of the drag queens that pressed the social network into changes.
It is unclear how these changes would go, but they're said to be underway and that all mentions of Facebook's need for real names would disappear from the site.
