Women, LGBT least safe on Facebook, despite 'real name' policy

Facebook appears to have started forcing birth names on its users around the time of the September 2014 LGBT name purge, as seen in this nine-month-old plea for help on Facebook’s Help Community page. Triex Keiseki wrote, “I provided Facebook with my original birth certificate and my name change certificate – instead they changed my name to my birth name, which I have hidden for the past years. … and I SPECIFICALLY DID NOT WANT people to know.”

Engadget spoke with two other women, and one gay male performer who has received actionable threats, each of which are terrified to experience Facebook changing their names without consent, or recourse.

I don’t have a brilliant answer here. Facebook randomly “outing” people without their permission seems very, very scary though. I remain very happy with my decision to permanently delete my Facebook account a few years back. It had nothing to do with anything like this of course, but things like this only help me feel better about my decision.