Hey all,
A couple interesting things surfaced on my radar about Facebook in the last 24 hours that I thought would make good fodder for discussion today.
First off, Facebook is beta testing its revised Real Names policy, something that affects both drag queens and authors. From The Advocate:
The test, designed to improve the way Facebook enforces its policy on “real” names, was announced last month, the latest effort in the company’s long struggle to address criticism that its rules erase the identities of those with nonlegal chosen names that more accurately reflect their identities… Facebook changed the (reporting) language to reflect that names sometimes aren’t legal but are the names by which some people are known best.
Facebook has also added a special circumstances option to users responding to “fake name” claims, including “victims of abuse, stalking, bullying, LGBT users as well as those who simply identity as “queer,” and ethnic minorities.”
The change should allow people who are widely known by a different name to keep that name on their FB profile.
In other FB news, author Alexa Land posted this yesterday:
Amazon, in its ongoing effort to suck really bad, has a new policy: authors’ Facebook friends can’t leave reviews for their books. Today, I lost 14 5-star reviews for All I Believe, because of this new policy. This is completely insane! I created this FB account specifically so I could be in touch with my readers, and now I’m being penalized for it. frown emoticon. Apparently there is a way around it. If you want to disable your social settings on Amazon so your reviews don’t get deleted, this is how you do it (thank you Erin for the assist!!):
- Go to Amazon
- Click on Your Account (click it, don’t use the drop down)
- Scroll to the bottom
- The last thing is “Personalization”
- Find “Your social settings”
- Click that and disconnect Facebook
I personally haven’t seen my reviews of friends deleted at Amazon, but I don’t really see any need for Amazon to know my FB business, so I disconnected it.
Anyhow, what are your two cents on these Facebook issues?