Facebook flags aboriginal names as not 'authentic'

Facebook requires its users to use a profile name thats the same as the name they use in real life, but some indigenous people say the social network is rejecting their real names because they dont conform to its standards.

Earlier this month, Dana Lone Hill, a member of the Lakota people living on thePine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, tried to log in to her Facebook account. She was met with an error message asking her to change her name.

The message read: It looks like the name on your Facebook account may not be your authentic name.

Lone Hill'sname is one she shares with her mother. Facebook required her to send in three pieces of identification to prove that her real name is real. Eventually, the social network reactivated her account.

Lone Hill wrote about her experience on the Last Real Indiansblog, and she found she wasnt the only aboriginal person to who had run afoul of Facebooks real name policy.

In October, a number of people with names like Lance Browneyes and Shane Creepingbear had had their accounts suspended because of their names.

And so did Kimberly TallBear, a professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of theSisseton-Wahpeton Oyate.

"I just tried to log in one day and they said you cant log in and your account has been suspended," she said."It just kind ofcame out of the blue. Id been on Facebook since 2009."

When TallBear emailed Facebook, they asked her to send in I.D. to confirm her name and the spelling, but they weren't satisfied with that, either.

"They didnt like the unusual capitalization," said TallBear, whose name appears as one word with a capital B on government issued identification.

"I grew up in South Dakota. Im used to names like this. But apparently most Americans arent, and even when faced with identification that shows that thats our legal name, still cant wrap their minds around it," she said.

"Unusual capitalization"is one of the no-nos listed on Facebooks page on what names are allowed on the social network, along with symbols, numbers, repeating characters andpunctuation. Of course, a capital letter in the middle of a name isnt so unusual if your name happens to be Scottish.

This isnt the first time the social network has stirred up controversy with their standards around so-called real names.

Last fall, Facebook issued an apology to drag queens, transgender people and members of the LGBT community. Facebook had suspended the accounts of performers in San Francisco for use of their stage names.

The companys chief product officer, Chris Cox, wrote that Facebooks policy has never been to require everyone on Facebook to use their legal name. The spirit of our policy is that everyone onFacebook uses the authentic name they use in real life.

So, for drag queen Lil Miss Hot Mess, that real-life authentic name is "Lil Miss Hot Mess."

But even after that apology and clarification, aboriginalusers continued to have their profiles locked.

Professor TallBear had her account reactivated and started writing about her experience. She found that the issue isnt new.

"I have friends all over Indian country, in the United States and Canada," she said. "There have been people in Pine Ridge and other places who had had their Facebook accounts suspended over the last several years."

TallBear says there are specific reasons that Facebook would flag aboriginal names as suspect.One of them, she says, is that the conversation about race in America generally doesn't include indigenous people

"Theres this national narrative in the United States that were all dead and gone," said TallBear.

And she says Facebooks reaction is part of a larger issue about aboriginal identity.

"Eliminating our Facebook accounts because you cant wrap your mind around the fact that TallBear or Creepingbear or Lone Hill or any of these other names are real names, legal names, its related to the disappearance of Native Americans through the support of the Redskins and other kinds of mascots," she said.

"People get away with that kind of behaviour because there is this explicit or subconscious idea that Native Americans are no longer part of the American public," said TallBear.

TallBear isnt accusing Facebook of specifically targeting aboriginals, though.

"It speaks to a lack of diversity at Facebook themselves. Theyve done this to many, many native people," she said."I realize that this isnt an intentional disenfranchisement, but it speaks to a broader problem of what is considered normal."

And whats considered "normal," says TallBear, is names that sound European.