If you follow me on any of my social networks, you will know that I am upset by Facebook's "real name" policy. Whatever good this policy does, it has significantly negative side effects for many people, especially those that are marginalized in western society.
At my workplace, I was one of many people that helped to connect Facebook's social system to our UI. I even got a nifty jacket out of the deal. I am sad to wear it now.
The effect of this policy, at least in the small scale of my personal social circle, is to actually cause people to use unrecognizable names that "look real" to get away with keeping their names off of Facebook. My understanding of the process is that when someone reports you for some reason, your name is one of the items that is evaluated. If it does not *look* real, it is rejected and you are asked to enter your "real" name.
Some of my friends that have had this happen have created new accounts to continue to interact with Facebook. Of course, they change their names to things like "John Smith" or "Ian Spartakus" because they cannot or will not use their "real names" on Facebook. Others of my friends change their names to legal documented names that nobody knows them by. Most of my friends simply leave Facebook.
People wonder why people might use a fake name? Here's a few examples.
Two of my friends use their middle names as their common names for interacting with friends. Only their driver's licenses and such use their first name to refer to them. Technically speaking, this is against Facebook's rules. As is the nick names that many friends use, such as shortening their names.
Several of my friends are members of various LGBT and other sexual minority-type communities, but are not public about those aspects of themselves. While they interact with their queer-type friends through Facebook, they do so through a pseudonym that allows them to keep potential employers and family from necessarily knowing about these aspects of their lives.
At least 2-3 of my friends use fake names on Facebook to avoid stalkers and harassers that have plagued them in the past. At least one of them does not want to be discovered by their rapist.
Based on what I've observed, what allows you to have a fake name is either being unassuming and not participating in controversial communities or discussions on Facebook, or having a fake name that "looks real" (whatever that means), based on whatever biases the beholder has about what "proper names" are supposed to look like. Certainly, some native american groups are starting a lawsuit against Facebook for their policy's discriminatory impact on their community for these sorts of reasons.
Nobody forces us to use Facebook, but there is a sort of "bait and switch" going on. Many people log in thinking that they can use Facebook with a name they are "commonly known by" and build up a social network there. However, they soon discover that their names choices are limited to names they can *prove* to Facebook, and often times, people cannot prove they are using a nick name or well known pseudonym. And suddenly, their ability to connect to those social groups are dramatically and suddenly cut off without an ability to notify their community.
In our increasingly digital society, this can be significant, especially if one has begun to rely on access to resources and support for serious issues like being a victim of sexual assault through Facebook, or coming out as LGBT in an anti-LGBT family.
The only way to avoid the "name police" on Facebook is to avoid being reported by not being a member of a marginalized group or not upsetting people, or to have a name that looks "normal," for whatever definition of "normal" Facebook uses.
Otherwise, there's a good chance you'll have to prove yourself, possibly multiple times, to Facebook, or continually create new accounts with different names to use the service.
I understand that they're working on solving this internally, but until they do, I refuse to use my real name on Facebook. I encourage others to do the same, or even better, to simply stop using Facebook.
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