skippy the bush kangaroo: the man without a facebook

Thursday, November 01, 2007

the man without a facebook

our good friend, jon swift was banned from facebook because apparently, you can't use a pseudonym:

perhaps it was all just a terrible misunderstanding, i thought. i immediately wrote to facebook to ask them to correct the error and received this chilly response from "aubrey from facebook":

hi,

fake accounts are a violation of our terms of use. facebook requires users to provide their real first and last names. impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited. unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate this account for any reason. this decision is final.

thanks for your understanding,

aubrey
customer support representative
facebook

apparently "aubrey from facebook" thinks i should use my first and last name but she doesn't feel compelled to do the same. does facebook exist in an irony-free zone? i am also curious to know how "aubrey from facebook" (if that is her real name) determined that jon swift is not my real name. no one from facebook ever contacted me to ask me whether that is or is not my real name. i was not asked to supply a birth certificate or a driver's license or a dna sample or given any chance to prove who i was. in fact, i was never contacted at all.

now, i will admit that "jon swift" is a name i took as a tribute to the brave swift boat veterans (and which i was forced to adopt because of some misunderstandings with creditors), but does that make my name any less real than the name "aubrey from facebook"? what exactly does "real name" mean? would bob dylan be banned if he didn't sign up as robert zimmerman? would someone searching for their friend carlos the jackal have to know that his "real name" is ilich ramírez sánchez? would malcolm x have had to sign up under his slave name if he were still alive? would eric arthur blair have been banned from joining facebook under the name george orwell if he weren't dead, too. or is orwell actually alive and well and running facebook?

within a matter of hours, the legions of jon's fans created a plethora of facebook sites demanding that jon's account be reinstated. so apparently the whole point of the post was negated by the time we finished reading it:

update 3: victory!!!!!!! my facebook account has been restored.

at 11:25 a.m. edt i received the following email from "jerry from facebook":

hi jon,
upon further review, we have decided to reactivate your account. our terms of use, to which all users agree when they first sign up for the site, stipulate that you must not "impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent yourself, your age or your affiliation with any person or entity." however, since others on the site seem to know you by this name, and since you don't appear to be using the name to impersonate or to hide your identity, we have determined that you are not violating these terms. we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. please let me know if you have further questions or concerns.

thanks for your understanding,
jerry
customer support representative
facebook

thanks to everyone who supported me and even to those who disagreed with me but made some worthy contributions to the discussion. and special thanks to piersy for starting the "let jon swift back into facebook" group and to everyone who joined. pat yourselves on the back for me. and finally kudos the folks at facebook, who had the courage to reverse themselves. thanks for your understanding.

we're glad that jon is networking now. because actually we're net working either.

Labels: internets, jon swift