Facebook is making changes to its 'real names' policy

Facebook plans to start rolling out changes to its "real names" policy in December, the social network announced Friday in response to criticism, BuzzFeed News reports.

The company requires people to make profiles on the site using their "real" names. Anyone can report another user who is seemingly violating this policy, and then activists who are trying to protect themselves online and transgender people who don't go by their legal names often have trouble regaining access to their accounts.

"We want to reduce the number of people who are asked to verify their name on Facebook, when they are already using the name people know them by," wrote Alex Schultz, the company's vice president of growth, in a letter. "We want to make it easier for people to confirm their name if necessary."

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The changes Facebook will test allow people asked to confirm their names to provide context for their choices to Facebook and require people reporting users to give more information, which could deter them from deliberately locking out others not in violation of policy.