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Facebook bans Native American 'false names'


Still Waters

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Facebook admits it has "more work to do" after Native Americans were banned because staff believed their traditional names, such as Kills the Enemy and Creeping Bear, were made up.

The company has long maintained a "real name policy" which forbids users from using pseudonyms or nick names to register accounts. It claims that this is so that "you always know who you're connecting with". Many Native Americans have fallen foul of the staff which assess names and are having difficulty getting their accounts reinstated.

http://www.telegraph...alse-names.html

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Facebook admits it has "more work to do" after Native Americans were banned because staff believed their traditional names, such as Kills the Enemy and Creeping Bear, were made up.

The company has long maintained a "real name policy" which forbids users from using pseudonyms or nick names to register accounts. It claims that this is so that "you always know who you're connecting with". Many Native Americans have fallen foul of the staff which assess names and are having difficulty getting their accounts reinstated.

http://www.telegraph...alse-names.html

All they have to do is use their names in their native language. If they can't do that, they're not real Amerindians or have been culturally assimilated. Edited by Hammerclaw
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My first thought. I thought it was like myspace.

*friendster weeps silently in a corner*

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Couldn't there be an option to select upon signing up declaring whether you're Native or of any other culture where names aren't of the norm?

Other than that, another user mentioned them spelling it in their own language, so why not do that? I don't see a problem with that, but that's just me.

My husband has never had any problem with his name and it does sound like a nickname or pseudonym of sorts, so I was never aware of this problem..

Edited by SpiritWalker7
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I didn't know that facebook forced people to use their real names. Both me and my girlfriend have pseudonyms instead our names, and we've been using facebook for years. We've never had a problem with that. Kind of racist from facebook. But I will go with Hammerclaw's suggestion. If facebook keeps banning them for using their names in English, they should try using them in their native languages.

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I use a nickname on FB as well and have had no problems. Maybe its because I have no friends and just follow a buttload of bands which is the only reason I'm on it in the first place.

Anyway, I think its rather ****ty of Facebook to do this to the Native Americans simply because their names differ from the norm. Just stupid.

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Shoot, I have FB.. comes in handy for some contact stuff, software testing, and general research in cases where an account of something is only supposed to be going on with FB- like an article where the party involved is supposed to be posting there, or a group is stating "official status" and it only shows up on FB.

Then again, I'm not Native American, nor do I use any name that might get banned by FB.

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What's Facebook?

;)

It's like Twitter, but it's for ordinary people.
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Native American names are as various as the over 500 (550?) tribes and nations in the continental US, Canada, Mexico and Alaska. For example, the Cherokee tend to have mainly "European" last names from past intermarriage with whites, esp. of Scottish, Scotch-Irish and Welsh descent in the Southern Appalachians later relocated on the "Trail of Tears" into Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) since the 1830s. Many Cherokees were converted to Christianity in the 18th century, esp. in the Baptist, Methodist, Moravian (by German immigrant settlers) and other Evangelical/ Protestant churches common in the Southeast and Southern Plains. My ancestral family names on the Cherokee/Osage side are Underwood, and Patilo (sp?) named for a town between Sallisaw, OK and Fort Smith, Ark.

In the land rushes of the 1880s/1890s, many ethnicities like Germans came into the Cherokee Nation area. Migrations of the Cherokee from OK to the west coast (esp. CA) in the 1930s increased intermarriage, esp. with Asians like Japanese and Hispanics/Mexicans. And the 10,000(?) black Cherokee "Freedmen" of African-American ancestry due to the Cherokee practiced the southern custom of owning slaves in their plantations or farms before the Civil War. The black Cherokee adapted tribal customs and after the Civil War were given tribal membership status in the Cherokee Nation. But in the 2000s, the "Freedmen"'s eligibility became a hot button issue in the nation's largest federally-recognized tribe. Some black Cherokee lost their tribal membership and a few fought to have it given back.

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I got banned a few weeks ago for using a pseudonym. I believe I was turned in by a rat or mole among my "friends" just to get me kicked out of fb. It's a stupid rule and I have no intention of giving CIA my real ID.

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FB needs too focus their efforts more on hackers instead of picking on Native Americans.

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It's ridiculous that people have to give their real names, anyway. It ends up being a great way for stalkers to track you and yours.

And no, I don't think that they should have to change their names and put them in their native language. Who's gonna know who they are? They might be Running Bull to everyone who knows them. That's like saying that someone who has German heritage somewhere in their line should suddenly translate their name into the German version of it.

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I agree that if someone's legal name is Charlie Twobears, he has as much right to use his name as anyone else does. If it's a pseudonym, however, using the native language version would fix the problem. Some websites don't allow the apparent anonymity of cute name tags and plushtoy avatars for people to hide behind. They feel it enables undesirables to behave in a manner they would never dream of doing if their IDs were out in the open.

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