Facebook apologizes for suspending drag queens' profiles


Facebook has clarified its "real-name policy" after facing backlash from LGBT Facebook users, who argued that the company allegedly forced people to use their "legal names" on their profiles, causing many drag queens' accounts to be suspended.
After meeting with LGBT activists on Wednesday, Facebook's chief product officer, Chris Cox, clarified the company's policy. "Our policy has never been to require everyone on Facebook to use their legal name," Cox stated. "The spirit of our policy is that everyone on Facebook uses the authentic name they use in real life." Those "authentic names" could include the names members of the LGBT community use in day-to-day life, even if they're not the same names on their birth certificates.
Cox added that users' profiles were suspended when "several hundred accounts" were reported as fake. Facebook's policy in this case is to "suspend the profile until the user submits some form of identification that matches the name on the page," Time reports. At the meeting with activists, Facebook reportedly promised a "technical fix" to improve the name policy. "We're taking measures to provide much more deliberate customer service to those accounts that get flagged so that we can manage these in a less abrupt and more thoughtful way," Cox said in the statement.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
David Campos, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and one of those who met with Facebook employees on Wednesday, told Time that the meeting was "extremely productive," and the activists were pleased with the meeting's results. "Drag queens spoke and Facebook listened," Campos said. "Both sides actually agreed on the idea that the objective was for people to use their real name, and that doesn't always mean legal identity."
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Meghan DeMaria is a staff writer at TheWeek.com. She has previously worked for USA Today and Marie Claire.
-
Nvidia hits $4 trillion milestone
Speed Read The success of the chipmaker has been buoyed by demand for artificial intelligence
-
X CEO Yaccarino quits after two years
Speed Read Elon Musk hired Linda Yaccarino to run X in 2023
-
Musk chatbot Grok praises Hitler on X
Speed Read Grok made antisemitic comments and referred to itself as 'MechaHitler'
-
Disney, Universal sue AI firm over 'plagiarism'
Speed Read The studios say that Midjourney copied characters from their most famous franchises
-
Amazon launches 1st Kuiper internet satellites
Speed Read The battle of billionaires continues in space
-
Test flight of orbital rocket from Europe explodes
Speed Read Isar Aerospace conducted the first test flight of the Spectrum orbital rocket, which crashed after takeoff
-
Apple pledges $500B in US spending over 4 years
Speed Read This is a win for Trump, who has pushed to move manufacturing back to the US
-
Microsoft unveils quantum computing breakthrough
Speed Read Researchers say this advance could lead to faster and more powerful computers