Post a Comment On: ehewlett

So, today, after eight years of posting on Facebook as "Fr. Justin Hewlett", my public-facing priestly name and title that my parishioners use when they address me, Facebook finally decided they needed me to prove that this is, in fact, my identity.
As I have written before, when Google challenged my identity as part of its "real names" policy, and as Facebook itself has admitted when they adjusted their own "authentic name" policy when faced with a mass-exodus of drag queens and the resulting public outcry over discrimination against them, our online identities are complex realities. Interestingly, much what I wrote back in 2011 in response to Google's "real name" policy applies almost exactly to the current Facebook scenario. Here then, slightly adjusted for the change in social media platform, is my edited open letter to Google which I now re-address to Facebook's challenge of my identity:
I have also been a member and supporter of Google+ since the first days of its invite-only beta of Facebook since it was still this new thing called "social media" in April 2007 - and was more than a little disappointed to discover, upon logging into it today, that I had run afoul of your ill-conceived Google Names "authentic name" policy. Not that the real-name policy is necessarily a bad idea - I have been careful to use my own real name from the beginning of my use of most of your services - but because if it catches someone who has been as scrupulous as I about using my real name, it is obviously poorly implemented.  It is, in fact, the "edge" cases in any computing problem that indicate whether a software system has been well or poorly implemented. In my own case, I am a priest in the Orthodox Church of America, and, as such, am known to my parishioners and to pretty much anyone who knows me through the church, by my priestly name, Fr. Justin. My legal name, however, and the name by which most of my family and friends have known me all my life, and which they continue to use to refer to me, is Edward. Given these two semi-distinct circles (which are a great example of the complexity of reality that makes Google+'s Circles metaphor so incredibly powerful), the best I can come up with to ensure that everybody in both circles knows who I am (when participating in that great confluence of all circles, the internet) is to refer to myself publicly as "Fr. Justin (Edward) Hewlett", the name which has been in the banner subheading of this blog since shortly after I was ordained a priest.  I understand the problem of identity on the internet, and, as you can see, I am actively supportive of your mission to make real identity a cornerstone of social networking services (though there have been some excellent thoughts put forward on some of the "edge" case scenarios that are worthy of your consideration). I also appreciate that you have made an appeal process available to folks like myself who run afoul of the (poorly) automated enforcement of your real-name policy. The greatest omission in the appeal process is that, while not only do you do not allow us to submit links to other reputable sites that might support our choice of "real name", there is not even provision for even a brief explanation of the reality behind that choice. I would only add to this that I have no desire to force people to address me by my priestly name and title, which has been the unfortunate side-effect of my "work-arounds" to try to mitigate the limitations inherent in both Facebook's and Google's enforced simplification of the complex problem of my identity. That being said, I also don't want my parishioners and colleagues and acquaintances in the church to be forced to address me with a name that is inconsistent with my identity there or in a manner that is inconsistent with our 2000-year-old tradition.

If Facebook really does want to support and honour multiple cultures and sub-cultures in our global, multi-cultural society, or if even if they simply want to enforce their "authentic name" policy consistently and fairly, they need to allow for titles and identities that go beyond the reductivist "please provide legal documentation" and allow for online identities that accurately represent the complex relationships we actually have in real life.


For the record, here are the documentation options that Facebook presented me with, along with the screenshot that I provided them with - which was the only alternative I could come up with that might reasonably represent the complex reality of my online identity:
Submit Your Documents
Please provide identification that displays the name you’re confirming. Learn more about why we require ID verification and the different types of ID we accept below.  What types of ID does Facebook accept?
You can confirm your identity in 1 of 3 ways. When submitting documentation, please cover up any personal information we don't need to verify your identity (ex: credit card number, Social Security number). We encrypt people’s connections to Facebook by default, including IDs you send to us. We delete your ID information after verification is complete.  Option 1
We will accept any government-issued ID that contains your name and date of birth. Examples include:
Birth certificate
Driver’s license
Passport
Marriage certificate
Official name change paperwork
Personal or vehicle insurance card
Non-driver's government ID (ex: disability, SNAP card, national ID card)
Green card, residence permit or immigration papers
Voter ID card  Option 2
You can provide two different forms of ID from the following list (ex: a bank statement and a library card, but not two bank statements). The names on your IDs must match each other, and one of the IDs must include a photo or date of birth that matches the information on your profile.
Below are some examples of IDs we'll accept:
Bank statement
Bus card
Check
Credit card
Employment verification
Library card
Mail
Magazine subscription stub
Medical record
Membership ID (ex: pension card, union membership, work ID, professional ID)
Paycheck stub
Permit
School card
School record
Social Security card
Utility bill
Yearbook photo (actual scan or photograph of the page in your yearbook)  Option 3
If you don’t have an ID that shows your authentic name as well as your photo or date of birth, you can provide two forms of ID from Option 2 above, and then provide a government ID that includes a date of birth or photo that matches the information on your profile. We won't add the name or other information from the government ID to your account. [Image]