Pagan Community Notes: Facebook freezes Pagan Accounts; PEC challenges Cuomo; An Art Competition and more.

94 thoughts on “Pagan Community Notes: Facebook freezes Pagan Accounts; PEC challenges Cuomo; An Art Competition and more.”

1. Last week I reported a Facebook page called “Toddlers are Assholes” because I thought it was offensive. FB replied, saying the page was fine and didn’t break any community standards. What kind of “community” prohibits magickal people from using their spiritual names but is ok with a page that says nasty things about babies? Doesn’t sound like a community to me.

   • One of many many reasons why I am no longer on Facebook.

   • Anyone who has the misfortune to have a toddler in the next booth in a restuarant will see nothing wrong with saying bad things about them.

     • Yeah, I gotta say, as the mother of a former toddler…there are times when a little humor is all you have to keep you sane.

       I agree with your main point, however, jcat. I have certainly seen deeply offensive things get OK’d by Facebook. The biggest problem with their terms of use is how inconsistently they are enforced–it opens up the potential for all sorts of abuses (like folks who single out people who are drag queens or Pagans for “violations” of the “real names only” policy, without even tracking previously provided documentation when those ARE real names, as with some Native American activists).

   • One should maybe not be so easily offended by such things…I like The Oatmeal who can be pretty cruel towards Toddlers among other things. What I find more disgusting is the ban on pictures of breastfeeding women or children with mental disabilities. Just reading This List makes my blood boil and my mind at peace that I’m not in there anymore

     • “One” should not tell others what not to be offended by. Just because you like humor that you yourself admit is cruel doesn’t mean that others should join you in cruelty.

       • Totally agree, what I find funny might not (and isn’t) what other find funny and I think everyone can agree on that. There’s a famous European stand-up guy who once said: “One can joke about everything, but not with everyone”.

         Also, just for the record, when I was talking about “cruel” humor, I was thinking about stuff like That or That. I’m not into gratiutious violence or anything, I just think it’s sometimes funny to make fun of a thing or two.

2. I find this Facebook business disgusting. For many years, I used the nickname that i prefer to my legal first name on my page. I even stated in the little blurb about me that i was using my nickname, so that any past friends looking for me would realize that they did, in fact, have the right person. My page was never flagged, and I admitted to not using my legal name! I have since legally changed my first name to the nickname, but that is hardly the point. It’s just not right!

3. I think there are a couple of approaches one can take with the Facebook name issue:

   1: Remind Zuck of how Jews in years gone by had to convert and change their names in order to avoid religious persecution on account of their Judaism. He’s a Jew so he might be receptive to this.

   2: Go to some other social media site like Diaspora or Google Plus or even PaganSpace and just stay completely away from Facebook.

   3: Both of the above.

   • Zuck is first and foremost a corporate capitalist. Like some other of his kind, he may play the jewish victim card at times, but at heart he’s only after one thing: Money.

     • What does this mean, “like some other of his kind”? And really, “jewish victim card”? Do you believe that Jewish people do not face systemic prejudice?

     • “Play the Jewish victim card” Dantes? Do you really want to go there? Because that language pretty much outs you as an anti-Semite.

       This comment is offensive. I have flagged it as such, and I will be disappointed in the mods if they allow it to stand.

       • What did I say again? Did I call for systematic persecution of people on grounds of religion/ethnicity or other things?

         I am just saying, sorry if I was unclear, that in some cases, people of Jewish descent tend to come back to the Holocaust or the general Western Anti-Semitism in order to get sympathy.

         It’s clearest for example in Israel where every time the US and Iran go together for diplomatic talks Nethanyahu systematically ends up using the words “Genocide” and “Holocaust”. Same, for example, with the Jewish defense League (*) which, while pretending to simply defend people of jewish decent, are really just persecutors themselves. This doesn’t apply only to jewish people but it’s something that came to my mind when Ember mentioned Mark Z.’s background.

         Also, I think it’s also a bit of a fallacy to think that because someone belonging to a group that has been historically victim of persecution will always be a nice, sympathetic, liberal and humanistic character. Ultimately it doesn’t matter that Mark Z. is jewish, polish, bosniak, sikh or whatever else. Most ethnic groups have suffered some kind of persecution throughout history (albeit generally in a lesser extant than the jews) and I don’t think it’s relevant in this issue at all.

         So yes, I hope I explained myself clearly enough. I’m sorry if my initial comment was deemed to be offensive. It certainly wasn’t intended to. I’ve been on TWH well enough to know and appreciate it’s free-spirited and peaceful comments section and I only wish to see it continue as it is now.

         (*) I know that this organisation is (thankfully) banned in the US but for some reasons, it isn’t in many European countries.

   • 2./3. I’d like to. In fact I didn’t used to be on Facebook (or G+, which isn’t really better in my eyes – being *now* a bit more liberal about names, but still a big privacy invasive monster).

     However, I’m now locked in because the teacher of a training I wanted to join uses Facebook groups for students. I’d so like to still be away/go away from Facebook or similar privacy insensitive things.

     • “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” – Scott McNealy, long before the Manning and Snowden revelations about the US government.

       I can’t give details, but I know for a fact that US Army Intelligence monitors my Facebook page – and I don’t have them friended. 😀 But then again, most of us who were on NSFNet and ARPANET in the 80’s through affiliation with a US college or university assumed that some US intelligence authority was looking at everything. After all, the Internet Protocol was funded by DOD. (NSFNet, ARPANET, and BITNET merged into what we now call the Internet later on in the 80’s; the Web wasn’t invented until ’92.)

4. Facebook is run by morons!!Nothing they do surprises me!!They’re idiots!!They mess over people they don’t like all the time!!I would start a Facebook group called Facebook Sucks but they’d probably ban me!!

   • What about simply leaving for good?

5. You can star in a movie, produce a record or author a book under an assumed name… But social media accounts have to match your ID? Seriously? And how is that NOT a privacy issue? Maybe I don’t want the world to know my real name, maybe I would prefer to use an assumed name to protect myself and my family. Once again, if there were another option, I would love to leave Facebook!

   • There are plenty of social media platforms that are not Facebook. If you’re staying because friends and family won’t leave, that’s fair and I’m in the same boat, but alternatives very much exist.

     • I’m mostly there for business reasons. I have a small business and most of my income comes through the sales I make on Facebook. If I were to leave FB it would take me years to rebuild the fan base which I now have and in the mean time could possibly cost me my business. I don’t use it for personal connections at all, in fact I haven’t posted to my personal account in nearly a year. But my pages are, at this point, a vital part of my income, if I were to lose that I’d be screwed, so even though I would love to leave, I don’t really have that choice right now unless I want to give up my income as well.

   • If you’re a movie star, recording artist, author or other public figure you can make a FAN PAGE with any name you want. It’s personal profiles that are required to use your real name – which is only a problem for people who think it’s ok to go into someone else’s house and poop on their floor.

     • ? What has defecating anything to do with FB? I’m confused…

       • Ever hear the phrase “my house, my rules.” You use facebook you agree to abide by their rules. It’s not a public utility – it’s a private enterprise owned by shareholders. The people complaining about this are essentially going into facebook’s house and defecating on the floor. Just go somewhere else. The whole world doesn’t have to cater to you.

         • Ever hear about products that were improved because of consumer feedback?

         • Deep down, you are completely right: Facebook = Corporate Capitalism = Not here to be nice. I still think it sucks for the people who have been lured on the network because they thought it was convenient on the first place.

           So yes, on one hand, people who complain may be just a bunch of winners, but it doesn’t make what FB does right. It just makes it legal.

           Plus IMO it’s totally okay to go poop in someone’s house if the aforementioned person is an a**hole. Just my grain of salt.

     • Many pagans use their craft names on FB because hat is how most people know them. When my friends have had to change their profiles I have often wondered “Who is this person posting? Oh that’s right, her legal name is Jane…”

       • My point exactly! See my previous comment.

         • Even though I use my legal name, John Deltuvia, on Facebook, a lot of people address me in message threads there as “steward”. 😀

     • I think you missed my point which was – if a fake name is good enough for all these other aspects of our world, why is it not good enough for Facebook. When I worked in a local restaurant in HS I never wore my real name on my tag, none of us did. That didn’t mean the paperwork in the back had a fake name. I don’t have an issue with FB requiring that pages are set up under your real name, but why does the name you show the public need to be the one on your ID? Why should it matter what name you are putting out there, so long as the official stuff is under the right name. Again, if you can become famous in Hollyweird using an alternative (stage) name, why can’t you interact with friends and family under the name they know or use? If your coven knows you as Twilight Sparkle, why would you communicate with them as Jenny Sue? That’s not the name they know you by, even if it is what is on your ID. Beyond that it becomes a safety issue – like the restaurant was. People see your face and known your name who you’ve never met personally. Using a fake name helps keep you safe.

6. In the IT software development world, we have an axiom called the 80-20 rule. You write your code to be as perfect as possible, but it can never cover more than 80% of your requirements and situations. You just have to live with being called at 2:00am to handle the 20% as it happens.

   Political Correctness has turned that upside-down. Now, that 20% is labelled as more important and of immediate urgency. The analogy breaks down from there, but this FB snafu is instructive: they will react to the exceptions first, “fix” them without any regard to how well the vast majority of it works, and ignore our complaints as they move on to the next set of exceptions.

7. I find what FB is doing appalling. I also found it appalling when Google Plus did the same thing. And I also find it appalling any time someone trots out the tired old line that says “your views are invalid because you’re posting from a pseudonym and not your legal name” (curiously, some of the people I’ve seen decrying Facebook’s policy have said exactly that to people here). I support pseudonymity online. I also support full-on anonymity online. There are extremely important and significant reasons for both, and I wish the Facebook conversation would go a bit bigger and *be* a conversation about why we’re for and against pseud- and anonymity in our community. Anyone who has spent any significant time on Facebook has seen the utter bilge produced by people very proudly posting under their legal names, and anyone who has spent time on a well-moderated anonymous community has seen that a good signal-to-noise ratio is fully possible without legal names (or pseudonyms, for that matter). The idea that not using a legal name automagically means an online space will be harassment, bigotry, and trolling free (and its converse, that pseudonymous and anonymous space will automagically be full of all of these things) is just plain bullhockey and needs to be debunked every single time someone says it. (Also, if you insist on legal names, you make whistleblowing nearly impossible, full stop. You are de facto opening the floodgates of harassment and fear for anyone brave enough to even try.)

   • Absolutely true!

     Another way to think about it is that people are also anonymous when they vote. Will anyone call you a coward because you enter voting booth to express your political views?

   • “anyone who has spent time on a well-moderated anonymous community has seen that a good signal-to-noise ratio is fully possible without legal names (or pseudonyms”

     That’s true, but the significant adjective is “well-moderated”. There’s a practical limit to the size of a well moderated community. Facebook’s business model is continual growth, so it cannot be well moderated.

     • Yes, it is, but it’s equally applicable with legal names– a poorly moderated space is going to be full of harassment, bigotry, and trolling, and if you’ve spent significant time on Facebook, you see plenty of all three from people who are completely willing to do it under their legal name. The point I’m trying to get across is that legal names aren’t some kind of magic bullet that will produce good netiquette norms. People think they are, and it’s a complete fallacy. (Also, I’ve a friend who works as a professional moderator whose companies handle huge news sites (yeah, she banhammers the comments that are so bad even major news orgs won’t publish them, imagine what that job is like), so the option is there if the site wants it badly enough. FB is basically saying that they won’t spend on moderation because they expect real names will fix the problem without it. They won’t and they don’t.)

       • I admin a couple of groups on Facebook and I can happily concur that the name of members has no bearing on my ability to banhammer the crap out of those who are offensive.

       • Also, FB is such a huge nebula (as Deborah pointed out) that they are basically uncountable. There’s no “customer service” or anything like that. If you feel like you’ve been wronged, you can just send a message and then, maybe get an automated answer back someday…kinda like bad federal administrative service if you think about it.

         • But that’s a choice. No moderation is a choice. No customer service is a choice. Perhaps for their business model they’re even good choices, I don’t know, but I disagree with the idea that they’re inevitable because FB is huge. (Also, afaik, this was policy when FB was a small college-focused startup as well, well before it became the monster it is today. The policy doesn’t exist because they are huge.)

         • No moderation is a choice. No customer service is a choice. Perhaps for their business model they’re even good choices

           That is, I think, the crux of the problem. FB just does not want to be held accountable for anything. At the very least, not to their unpaid customer, but rather to their paying share-holder.

8. It frustrates me, too, but I just try to work around it. The Pagan world knows me as Macha. My family and business associates know me by the name on my birth certificate, drivers license, et al. Both are perfectly legal, i.e., taken without the intent to deceive. So much stuff I post as Aline because I’m commenting on something posted by a ‘friend,’ and Macha public figure doesn’t have friends so much as followers. I find it a bit off-putting when someone responds to one of my Pagan-oriented posts by addressing me as Aline, because I figure they probably don’t know Aline is Macha. Both names are fine with me and I’m completely out with them, but still it can get confusing. I use Aline for anything semi-official regarding Cherry Hill Seminary because what accrediting authority is gonna look at a seminary whose (former) Board Chair is named NightMare? I also use both names in the interfaith world. Lately I’ve been using Aline “Macha” O’Brien, particularly at the AAR. But again, sucky FB won’t allow me to use quotes around my name. Aline has a ‘beige card’ to get into San Quentin to work with the Wiccan circle there, but the inmate circle members and my NA chaplain sponsor address me as Macha.

   • Your situation seems rather complicated…And everything you mentioned should be up to you. Corporations shouldn’t have to impose their views on citizens’ identity.

     Otherwise, I’m curious, is this St Quentin? If so, it’s kinda badass…

     • Oops, sorry for the ugly Url…

     • Yes, this San Quentin: http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Facilities_Locator/SQ.html

       • That’s like, totally awesome! Thank you!

   • I think the allowing of “quotation marks” would make a good compromise, or the ability to have a secondary name.

     • In the html world, code syntax is hard and fast. Often one doesn’t get to use certain characters because they have a use in the code and will otherwise mess with the display. One of the perennial banes of my work with data is a user who blithely (and passively permitted by the lack of edit controls) uses such characters. I have to either write extra code or make the interface developers do something on their end.

       • It’s entirely possible to escape special characters when the input is processed, rather than disallowing them.

         • Which requires more coding. The implication is to require coding to the exception(s) rather than to the standard. As a developer I reject that requirement. YMMV.

9. What I find interesting is that FB’s enforcers will go after Pagans and Native Americans but FB is too afraid to question Muslim names that aren’t people’s birth certificate name. Fairness is not in any way a quality of Facebook.

   • Good point! Facebook should maybe start by banning all those Al-Djihadis from Syria before harassing harmless Pagan transvestites…But, just to refer to the previous post, doing so might “hurt religious” freedom and such…

   • Facebook isn’t really “going after” these groups. Other individuals are flagging accounts, and Facebook is applying their (boneheaded) policy. If those individuals decide to go after accounts with Muslim names, I suspect FB would respond similarly.

     (Also, FB doesn’t care about your birth certificate. They want your “legal name”, which many people change sometime after birth.)

     • It would be one and the same anyway most places iirc, if you change your legal name you get sent an updated copy of your birth certificate with the new name. (Which was very weird when it happened to me. Handy, but weird.)

       • Doesn’t work like that in the UK. My birth certificate doesn’t have my legal name on, for example.

         • Aren’t there places where you can be issued Birth Certificate before being given a legal name?

           Also, It’s just so creepy to think that FB will be storing private info on millions of people for eternity…What kind of documents do they even ask for? Driving Licence? Passport?

         • List of documents they want: https://www.facebook.com/help/159096464162185

           Also, they claim to delete the ID information after verification.

         • Also, they claim to delete the ID information after verification.

           HAHAHAHAHAHAHA !

           That’s the best one I’ve heard in ages, thank you, that was realy funny!

         • LOL Suuuuuure. And I bet they especially take conscientious care to delete credit card numbers and bank statements.

         • Possibly. I know that a name can be changed on a birth certificate so long as it is within the first year of the individual’s life.

       • That isn’t how it works many places in the United States. While you might be able to update your birth certificate, it isn’t part of the same process (especially since the name change might be done in another state, or might just be part of getting married).

         • I was born in NY and changed my name at a court in VA, and was surprised when I got an envelope from NY with my updated birth cert in it, unrequested by me but issued because the SSA updated the change with my SSN. Since it was a federal update that prompted it, I figured it would propagate that way for all states. I’m sorry if I got that wrong and NY is just that much on the ball. 🙂

10. Here’s an idea, use your real name.

    • Why?

    • To parrot mptp – Why?
      At risk of treading well trodden ground, a number of reasons why people don’t use their real/legal name in a number of areas of life – the internet and Facebook being just two examples in the ‘big’ category – while saying “use your real name” and “why don’t people use their real names?” are functionally different, many of the responses are likely to be similar.
      That said however, I would like to know the reasoning behind your statement.

    • In the US, where FB is based, any name you use is a legal name unless it is used for fraudulent purposes. Silver Ravenwolf is a perfectly legal name. So is Storm Faerywolf. So is MadGastronomer, for that matter.

    • @Andrew: To many people, the “real name” is not the name of legal record, but the name they have themselves chosen.

      To answer the next obvious question – why not change the legal record name – there are several reasons. It can make changing financial records, etc., a real pain in the gluteus maximus. More importantly, it can offend family members, and the Ancestors as well. I use my legal name on Facebook; there’s no reason not to. However, I got on Facebook early enough to get my account name to be the name I’ve used starting as my CB handle, then my pre-web Internet name, and finally my craft name – steward ( https://www.facebook.com/steward .) My legal name, with Jr. appended, honors my father, dead seven years this coming October 26.

    • ok, fair question.. 1. People dicriminate against Pagans in ways you would not want to experience. In this day, people still loose jobs, custody battles, friends and family over religion. 2 Your Craft Name is as much part of your name as the names that appear on Baptismal, Confirmation and Marriage certificates. It is part of your identtity. 3 In the case of “Silver Ravenwolf”, this is also a pen name she has been publishing under for many years. Pagan Authors are recognised by these names in the community. We listen to, watch and consider them teachers and their names represent their teachings. 4. Back to reason 1, anonymity… Many people are activists and this places them in more of a spotlight and under more scrutiny. Psyeudonyms and Craft names protect them and their families from becoming victims of hate crimes.

    • To support others who said that chosen names are real names and even legal names, see here for US case law:

      http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Legal_name

      For why your “idea” might be a bad one, see:

      – possible technical issues: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names

      – possible non-technical issues: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F

      In some countries (e.g. the one I live in, an EU member country), there is even a law requiring service providers to allow pseudonymous and anonymous use unless impossible for the kind of service offered. So Facebook violates the substance of that law. It just got away because it could, by placing its EU residence in Ireland, “choose” Irish law and thus preempt formal application of possibly stricter privacy protections in other EU countries. (While Ireland does, of course, implement the pertinent EU directives, some other countries offer additional protections, as is possible under the directives.) In other aspects, Facebook even got successfully sued here (privacy stuff related to “friend finder” functionality, IIRC).

11. People who have used outing others as a retaliation, or have a track record of not respecting other people’s privacy, should not ask for or expect much sympathy when it happens to them. But for the sake of the rest of the people being affected, I hope Facebook gets their act together.

12. Anyone who absolutely insists on knowing your real name is either a cop, a stalker, or in marketing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

    • *Looks to the right of the screen… sees ads that ostensibly support the site*

      *considers how YouTube is available to provide free video to share on the web*

      😉

      • And yet, not all marketing is ethical marketing. Marketing that finds out your real name and starts stalking you with it is not ethical marketing.

13. There’s a difference between individual accounts and “Pages”. I believe that many of the people affected could have a “page” with their “trademark name”, as it were, and just get rid of their individual accounts or keep them in their legal name. There are some people who have to get a page with the name they want anyway because they’re so popular they exceed the “friend” limit for a personal account.

    For example, the fusion gothic bellydancer, and Witch, Tempest, has a personal account containing her legal name ( https://www.facebook.com/meddevi?fref=ts ) as well as two separate pages relating to her dancing as well as her paintings and her jewelry crafting ( https://www.facebook.com/tempestbellydance and https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tempest-MedDevi-Ink/97960230929 ) which only identify her as “Tempest”.

    So while I realize that some people may want their personal accounts under their more known names (in the Internet and Pagan communities I’m known more as “steward”, but among family and past schoolmates I’m known more as “John Deltuvia”), it is possible, if people wish, to use a page instead of a personal account, using their chosen-not-legal name.

    • Yes, I think everyone’s pretty well aware of that now. It’s been discussed on here a couple of times, I think. But no one should have to do that. It’s ridiculous, and it’s purely for the purposes of marketing.

    • That’s maybe acceptable if your page is for a business, and your business is on a scale that makes it reasonable to budget to pay for Facebook updates to actually reach your subscribers (because otherwise, they generally won’t; Facebook treats pages as a cash cow these days).

      It is not very helpful, however, if you actually conduct your friendships and contacts under your Craft name, as many people do. I really dislike the idea of my having to pay a fee for my friends to hear me talking about my garden or seeing pictures from a party… or asking for support after a tragedy or an illness (one of the more useful things Facebook allows one to do).

      • Cat,

        I’ve heard figures bandied about the updates that reach friends on a personal account ranging from about 6% – 10%. Personal accounts don’t come with the insights tracking.

        SpiralHeart Reclaiming Community has a page on Facebook. Our *unpaid* reach on our latest 5 posts was: 4.5%, 14.4%, 15.2%, 7.0%, and 12.1%. Now, I don’t have anything to verify what I’ve been reading about personal post reach estimates being true or not, but if it is, then pages are in the ballpark – and give you, *free*, an idea of how many people are getting your posts, interacting with your posts, and so forth. (On a page at least, the more interactions, the more people Facebook will serve that post to.)

14. I believe there are still ways around it using option 2 on

    https://www.facebook.com/help/159096464162185

    For example, I have no clue what Storm Faerywolf’s legal name is, although I have corresponded with him online occasionally. I would think that he sometimes gets US Mail addressed at that name; I’ve gotten US Mail addressed to “steward” instead of “John Deltuvia”, at my address, and had no problem having it delivered. So that’s one of the two required forms of ID under option 2: “Mail”.

    “Magazine stub” is an acceptable form under option 2. Magazines don’t care what name you use, just send money.

    Then there’s the DOB/photo; for those in some sort of magical community, gin up a membership card, with date of birth on it and photo on it.

    For solitaries, I dunno… the ULC card I have doesn’t have a photo, but maybe that could be arranged.

    But remember, you’re dealing with a for-profit corporation. I’ve seen references to “ethical marketing” – under corporation law, “ethical” is “whatever raises shareholder value.”

    • “ethical” is “whatever raises shareholder value.”

      So True…

    • Actually, the law doesn’t care about ethical, nor does it require maximizing shareholder value. That’s a myth, and only recently been touted as the overriding goal: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/maximizing-shareholder-value-the-goal-that-changed-corporate-america/2013/08/26/26e9ca8e-ed74-11e2-9008-61e94a7ea20d_story.html

      • Statutory law does not require it; case law on breach of fiduciary duties requires it.

        The seminal case is Dodge v. Ford Motor Corp. in 1919; and although some people find that the 1953 NJ case AP Smith Manufacturing Co v Barlow weakened it, that is obviously not so in the view of the legislature which, in 2011, adopted the public benefit corporation model as an optional model: a for-profit corporation that can do things for the public good as well. (See statutory law at ftp://www.njleg.state.nj.us/20102011/AL11/30_.PDF )

        Pundits also point to the 1968 IL case Shlensky v. Wrigley – but again, the basic tenets established in Dodge were not challenged – it simply said that there may be interests of the corporation that are not obviously pecuniary (goodwill value being recordable.) As the court opined, “For example, it appears to us that the effect on the surrounding neighborhood might well be considered by a director who was considering the patrons who would or would not attend the games if the park were in a poor neighborhood. Furthermore, the long run interest of the corporation in its property value at Wrigley Field might demand all efforts to keep the neighborhood from deteriorating”.

        • Thanks!

        • Are you like, an attorney ?

          • Oh dear, now I have to post my disclaimer: “My employer does not necessarily endorse or condone my opinions.” There now. I’ve worked for a state judiciary for 25 years in systems analysis (translating law and opinions into computer programming specifications), policy (when we’re given a computer program we have to use and need new directives or revised Rules of Court to fit the program), programming, and sometimes just general policy. I do not have a degree in law although I took several legal-related courses in my BA in Political Science. Based on my computer work for my employer, I was listed from 2005-2008 in Marquis’ Who’s Who in American Law (the one you don’t pay to get into and you have no idea who nominated you in the first place.)

          • Ok so you actually are street credible when it comes to legal matters…Respect! So, a question for you, is it legal for FB to ask for those legal documents and (probably) keep such information and (most likely) use to make good money?

          • While it’s not permitted for me to give specific legal advice, I can make some general observations:

            Generally, in commercial law, parties reach some sort of agreement, and if they don’t, then there’s no deal. Facebook has offered you a deal, which is contingent on (according to their terms) providing your “authentic” name – not your “real name”, but “authentic” (I posted the link somewhere in this discussion.) So going after Storm or Silver Ravenwolf is silly, because it’s the name most people know them by, and doesn’t violate their general terms of service; however, the specific proofs they want don’t agree with their own terms. However, if you don’t provide those proofs, Facebook is under no obligation to provide you with their services.

            I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re complying with a National Security Letter in this whole crackdown – handing the information to the US government. If you don’t want to provide that information, then you’re breaking the deal you have with Facebook.

            I don’t think that Facebook needs legal names to track you and “merchandise” you. Anyone on any social media site that is 1.) free and 2.) for profit IS the profit center. TANSTAAFL: There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Facebook provides a competing product to Disqus, in its multi-site commenting system. They can track people to target ads just fine even if they call themselves King Bush II or something like that. 😀

          • I see what you mean. So basically, it’s completely and legally all right for FB to screw you over every way they want? If so, I’m so happy not to be in there (or on any mainstream social network either).

          • Any site has rules. If you’re on a paid-for site (such as the premium version of deviantART), either they get your credit card number and your legal name, your legal name via your PayPal account, or you go buy one of those replenishable cards to hide your legal name.

            At least on Facebook there is a possible out by using option 2 of the “name” rules: have a Pagan group you’re in create an ID card for you with your Craft name, your picture, and your date of birth, and get a stamped/postmarked piece of mail with that name. Of course then they have your address and DOB… :/ but they need your DOB under US law to comply with COPPA.

            If you think Facebook’s bad, make sure any contract you sign doesn’t have an mandatory arbitration clause.

          • Thanks, I had no idea about that! You should have a column called “Law for (pagan) dummies”

15. Sounds like a way to suppress dissent and persecute the marginalized.

    If a policy forces you either hold your tongue or express non-mainstream views under a name known to government, police, and your employer, it’s being used to suppress dissent. You have either to be silenced or face loss of job or arrest.

    If a policy falls more heavily on the marginalized than it does on everybody else, if it’s being enforced inconsistently, it’s discriminatory. Period. This also applies to private businesses, or we would still have diners with “whites only” sections.

    In this case, the policy is causing monetary damages to dozens of businesses. It could be argued that, because of the particularly egregious nature of the policy, created by people who should know better, used so very selectively against the powerless, *extremely* severe punitive damages are in order. There may be hundreds or even thousands of cases of deliberate infliction of emotional distress, which in Florida is valued at $200,000 *per instance*. Moreover, Facebook has falsely agreed to cease these persecutions, and then gone back on its word, which leaves the most extreme legal remedies as the only option.

    I sure hope the Lady Liberty League or some Pagan lawyers are considering some of this. Seems like a very big class action is in order here, by no means limited to Pagans. What happens when the Pagan, Drag, and even small business communities get together?

    • Exactly! One should not forget that FB is not only a social working site, it’s also the most efficient spying network on Earth. The consequences of FB policing its network could be really dramatic.

      • That is also a worry. Given the percentage of people on Facebook, it could literally be used to create lists of “undesirables” to round up and exterminate. The “real name” policy makes any such project much easier. Depending on who is in power at any time, an “undesirable” could be almost anybody.

        • It’s really a 1984esque situation… Thankfully, we still have the choice of not being on FB. Let’s hope that we will keep on having that choice for as long as possible.

    • “If a policy forces you [to] either hold your tongue or express non-mainstream views under a name known to government, police, and your employer, it’s being used to suppress dissent.”

      Certainly, this policy can be exploited by third parties in just the way you describe. In the case of Native American activists, there is good reason to believe it has been used in just this way.

      It is not the job of a private corporation, however, to permit dissent. There is nothing but ethics and integrity that prevents Facebook from imposing any values it likes on its users, as far as I know. What’s more, discrimination against the “marginalized” is not illegal–only specific kinds of discrimination are prohibited, and they vary from state to state. (Very few states, for example, protect transgendered individuals from outright discrimination, in employment our housing. Shameful, but true. And while discrimination based on religion is unconstitutional and theoretically illegal everywhere in the United States, we all know that it occurs… and can be difficult to prove.)

      • Its also probably worth pointing out that while Facebook is a handy mask to put on the problem so it has a name, Facebook itself isn’t the one doing the marginalising – its the folks who flag pages and people etc for policy violations that are the causeof the marginalisation. Facebook’s handling of the enforcement of its policies is at best flawed and outright dysfunctional at worst, but it still requires the human element of Facebook users to set the enforcement process in motion. Whatever values Facebook may or may not have, it requires a person to read the policies and start trawling the site’s users to actually express those valuees in a meaningful way. Whatever else you can say baout Facebook it is highly unlikely that they have paid Policy Violation Officers whose sole mandate is to monitor the userbase for policy violations.

        • If you see it this way, Facebook’s rules at least *enable* that kind of harassment and Facebook is complicit in it.

16. Not just “pagans”, but people who prefer not to advertise their presence to stalkers and other perverted types. I’ve used a “public” name for 2 decades to preserve my life. Now I have to risk it for some perv who IS on FB? Not a good situation; and yes, I am pagan and proud of it.