Facebook apologizes because its 'real name' policy doesn't work so well for drag queens

A campaign to change the policy began last month after a group of drag queens, along with San Francisco Supervisor David Campos, argued that it compromises the privacy, health and safety of many LGBT users. The campaign was fueled by the anger of several drag personalities who were locked out of Facebook accounts that used their drag names. The push expanded to include other groups such as domestic violence survivors and immigrants, who also argued that being unable to use a pseudonym may compromise safety. On Wednesday, the social network sat down for negotiations with representatives from many of the groups. After that meeting, Chief Product Officer Chris Cox issued an apology on his own Facebook page. “In the two weeks since the real-name policy issues surfaced, we’ve had the chance to hear from many of you in these communities and understand the policy more clearly as you experience it. We’ve also come to understand how painful this has been,” he wrote. “We owe you a better service and a better experience using Facebook, and we’re going to fix the way this policy gets handled so everyone affected here can go back to using Facebook as you were." But the apology did not go so far as to admit that Facebook’s widely criticized policy was incorrect. The accounts of drag personalities, he said, were deleted only after another user falsely reported that they were fake.

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