Why Facebook Apologized to the LGBT Community
Social media giant Facebook has publicly apologized for its name policy and has said it will change it after a month-long struggle between the tech company and drag performers in the LGBT community.
Facebook's chief product officer Chris Cox posted an apology on behalf of the company on his personal page explaining how Facebook now understands the drag performers' plight and concerns as well as their reasoning behind the policy.
"I want to apologize to the affected community of drag queens, drag kings, transgender, and extensive community of our friends, neighbors, and members of the LGBT community for the hardship that we've put you through in dealing with your Facebook accounts over the past few weeks," Cox wrote in his apology.
He explained that over the ordeal's passing the company heard from many and their concerns over the policy and said Facebook "owe[s] 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."
Cox explained an individual had flagged various profiles used by drag performers and others. Unwittingly the company took down the profiles as they were listed among the thousands of legitimate fake profiles.
Cox's mea culpa defended Facebook's name policy or, at least, its sentiment and how it relates to Facebook's raison d'être to create a space without the anonymity seen in the rest of the Internet. However, he acknowledged drag performers like Sister Roma see their drag names as equal to their legal names.
Sister Roma, a prominent San Francisco drag queen, led the debate when the issue arose earlier in September, according to Ars Technica. She noted in her interview that not only drag queens were affected but also transgender people and abuse victims.
Cox finished the apology saying Facebook has already started to correct the problem.
Wednesday morning, Sister Roma as well as other San Francisco drag queens met with Facebook representatives as well as with San Francisco supervisor David Campos and the Transgender Law Center, a San Francisco-based transgender rights advocacy group, reports the San Francisco Examiner.
During the meeting, Facebook acknowledged that the policy has caused harm to some users. Although the policy will not change, how it is enforced will.
In her Facebook page, Sister Roma thanked Facebook for their effort and celebrated the progress made but explained that the policy had not changed. She provided details on Facebook's promised reforms, including better technology to identify fake profiles and doing away with the "two week to comply" order.
"But this is not over." she wrote. "While most of the actions promised by Facebook will affect users worldwide, we must continue to work with them until everyone, not just drag queens and the LGBT community, has the right to use their chosen, protective and authentic identities."
Part of the reason for the company's decision could be the drag queens' decision to leave Facebook for a new social media site known as Ello. According to AdWeek, many of the drag performers abandoned Facebook for the nascent social media site thanks to its promise to protect users' privacy in both their names and information.
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