Seriously. I mean I shouldn't really care and just leave facebook, I would if my professional life had an anchor on it. (All my local contacts in music centralize on Facebook)

Everyone's pretty much aware of the controversy, so if you are, feel free to skip this paragraph. For those that do not, here's the situation. They hate it when people don't use their names on their Government issued IDs, so they will force change the name or deactivate your account. Sometimes they just say fuck it and delete it all together. People will ask why it's such a big deal. For some, it's a way of staying under the radar to be socially open away from the eyes of a bigoted family or a judgmental workforce. Facebook claims privacy is still possible with its privacy settings but it really isn't. they still find you and work around it one way or another. This or people feel more closer to the name they chose to sign up with. Could be because it's a spiritual name or a performer's name. Sure they have secondary names while insisting your ID name to be your primary but some people just feel closer to that name. Honestly, who is anyone to judge someone for that? In the end, you decide who you are. Also, they only limit your account to three name changes....ever. Even if you get married 4 times, tough shit. Hell, when a friend of mine got snipped for a name, it forced changed her name to Chris ***, which she used her 2nd change to take it to Christine *** (She's Transgender. Her name is legally Christine *** now). Then they think it's still fake, so they look for the closest relation to her, fuck up, and change her name to her father's name. When she reported that to the admins, Facebook did admit fault for that, but they refuse to let her change it back as it would mean they give her a 4th name change, when their policy says 3.


Now here's the news. CNN Recently covered the controversy by talking about drag queens that depend on using a name that they chose for themselves. It covered both the identity implications as a performer and a personal image as well as the social security implications. Having people finding out who they really are could harm them. Of course, CNN put a spin onto the favor of the drag queens. Even Google threw in that when they tried to do the ID name requirement, they were wrong in doing so. Yes it could add an element to safety but the invasion of personal privacy and expression outweighed the safety of the matter. As you'd imagine, it's grabbed a lot of attention. It's being shared around facebook like herpes. not just by the furry community but the LGBT community as well.

Here's where my surprise sparked, despite the media attention, the Daily Grind has reported that facebook has issued a warning to all drag accounts to change their identities to match their Govt. IDs or they will be deleted within two weeks. You'd think after PR like that, they would begin to backpedal (Like Google, who is also an internet giant) but they didn't. They sincerely don't give a shit. Though what won't surprise me still is the possibility of them getting away with this. Personally I'd like to see this hurt facebook in some way. Either to where they change policy or where there's a substantial migration to another site. Not exactly out of spite over facebook (i'd rather see a policy change) but to see people utilize the power they actually have.

I guess we will see how this goes down.