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So, when last we left my Facebook experiment, my sub-creation, Hugh Nano, was letting both Fr. Justin and Edward use "his" Facebook account. Now, more than half-a-year since I "outed" Hugh Nano as a pseudonym and began using it as my primary personal Facebook account, Hugh Nano has still not been flagged or deleted. Apparently, then, in this case, Facebook doesn't care that "Hugh Nano" is neither my real name nor the name I go by in real life.

Even more interesting, when the Huffington Post published an article indicating that Facebook had announced "important new steps ... ensuring greater protections for the privacy of users who, for a variety of reasons, use a name on the site that may differ from the name on their legal documentation," I was inspired to re-create my original, 8-year-old "FrJustin" Facebook account. I did so almost a month ago, using the same username (FrJustin) and e-mail address as I had used before, and the account has yet to be flagged or deleted - although admittedly I've been "laying low" with this account up until now. Apparently, then, the Wired magazine article I linked to in "I don't believe in Purgatory, but..." was (somewhat disturbingly) correct: "bots" are not responsible for flagging accounts with "Fr" in their name, people are.

As I commented in my "Purgatory" post:
that would mean that not only my own account, but all the other Orthodox clergy accounts that have been suspended for including their clerical titles, were actually flagged - and marked for suspension and/or forced renaming - by real human beings. This strikes me as something far more serious than simply being flagged by an algorithm. Systemic persecution? Or, at best, thoughtless yet deliberate extinction of a two thousand year-old subculture?  It's time to up the ante then, with Stage Three of my Facebook experiment (Stage Two being the re-opening of my FrJustin account). I'm going public with my FrJustin Facebook account. I'll be neglecting poor Hugh Nano, re-friending as many of my old Facebook friends as I can muster as FrJustin, and using FrJustin as my primary personal Facebook account again.

Why am I doing this?

Well, as I said to Google in 2011 and again to Facebook in 2015, I am not "Justin". From my post to Google:
I am not "Justin" - I am, to everyone who uses that moniker to refer to me, "Fr. Justin". I am, to everyone else, more simply "Edward". And, from my post to Facebook:
Names and identities are not simply titles that we assume - they are given to us by our parents, by our peers, by those in relationship with us. I am called "Father Justin" by those in my church and even by those outside the Christian faith who wish to honour our tradition; it is an identity that is not mine by right, but is rather bestowed upon and entrusted to me... one which is thus not mine to relinquish, and which I cannot in good conscience give up. Second, FrJustin was the identity by which Facebook recognized me for eight years, and the one by which all my friends and family recognized me on Facebook all that time. I'd like to have that back, if you please, Mr. Zuckerberg.

Third, I don't think that Facebook's modern North American culture of informality should trump the two-thousand year old multicultural tradition of the Orthodox Church. As I said in the conclusion of my open letter to Facebook:
I would urge you to at least ensure that you avoid the subtle form of North American cultural imperialism that would force the majority of my Facebook friends to address me online by a name they are unfamiliar with and using a level of informality they are uncomfortable with. Please accommodate my friends' Orthodox Christian culture and acknowledge "Father Justin" as the name I am known by by them in everyday life. And, last but not least, as I said above, I am disturbed by the possibility that I and my fellow Orthodox clergy are being deliberately targeted by other human beings, rather than "bots". If this is so, where was Facebook's much-vaunted anti-anonymity policy when our accounts were being anonymously flagged and suspended by our fellow Facebook users? Facebook's main argument against anonymity and for its "authentic name" policy is that "When people use their authentic names on Facebook they are more accountable for what they say." I get that... and I've been fighting to use my own authentic name for some time now! But this advantage of their authentic name policy is totally undermined if any user can anonymously and repeatedly flag a name as inauthentic, creating an intolerable burden of proof and re-proof that can ultimately force users to abandon their authentically named accounts rather than continue on Facebook.
But I am nothing if not optimistic. The Facebook argument that I've cited above comes from a 2015 "Facebook Safety" post in which they go on to say: Last year we realized that we were making it too hard for people to confirm their authentic identity on Facebook. For various reasons, people had difficulty with the process of verification and we are sorry to anyone who has been affected by this. So, in consultation with local and national LGBTQ community members and others who provided valuable suggestions and feedback, we’ve made significant improvements in response to some of their concerns:
• We now provide people in the U.S. access to their account while they verify or update their name. We also offer the option to act immediately or within seven days. We will be expanding this to our global community in the coming months.
• We expanded the options and documents that people can use to verify their authentic name. People can now verify their name without having to show a legal document in that name. They can confirm their name with things like a piece of mail, a magazine subscription, or a library card that include their authentic name.
• We clarified language throughout our site to make it clear that when we say authentic name, it does not necessarily need to be legal name. This Facebook Safety post is from June, just two months after my intolerable ordeal with Facebook's authentic name "purgatory" led me to shut down my FrJustin account. And, as I've written before, as much as I'm continually frustrated by Facebook, I think that my (and my fellow Orthodox clergy's) authentically named presence there is important, given that Facebook is essentially the agora of our day.
So, I am openly giving Facebook another chance as myself (not just as Hugh Nano). Hopefully Facebook's new and improved authentic identity options and language will allow me to retain my FrJustin account this time - and maybe even allow other Orthodox clergy to be addressed on Facebook with the traditional relational term of honour and endearment that is so integral to our millennia-old Christian subculture. And, if so - if Facebook actually manages to achieve what it is aiming to with this policy, its name-policy will be two-faced no longer... it will, in fact, be authentic!