Isis Crisis: Facebook makes Bristol lass an unperson

Not so long ago you could barely move on Facebook for all the exquisitely crafted beheading videos. Now you can’t even watch a cute cat video – if your first name is Isis, anyway.

Spare a thought for Isis Thomas, a 27 year-old from Bristol, who found this out when she was locked out of her Facebook account.

Isis has fired off her ID to the social networking site in an attempt to prove that she is not a recruiting sergeant for religious psychopaths, but has yet to hear back.

Isis will regain visitation rights soon, and Facebook will surely relax its Isis unperson filters soon. If not, a change of name to avoid Facebook oblivion could be the answer – just as that well-known terrorist training camp-cum-special needs school, Isis Academy in Oxford, did in February. On second thoughts, how would that sit with Facebook's real names policy,

Facebook is a community where people use their authentic identities. We require everyone to provide the first and last names they use in everyday life so that you always know who you're connecting with. This helps keep our community safe.
Please don't add any of these to your name:
  • Symbols, numbers, unusual capitalization, repeating characters or punctuation
  • Characters from multiple languages
  • Titles of any kind (ex: professional, religious)
  • Words or phrases in place of a name
  • Offensive or suggestive words of any kind
Other things to keep in mind:
  • The name you use should be the name your friends call you in everyday life and that our acceptable identification forms would show.
  • Nicknames can be used as a first or middle name if they're a variation of your authentic name (like Bob instead of Robert).
  • You can also list an additional name on your account (ex: maiden name, nickname, professional name).
  • Profiles are for individual use only. We offer Pages for professional personas, organizations and businesses.
  • Pretending to be anything or anyone isn't allowed.
If the name you use in everyday life isn’t listed on your account, please change your name. If you're unable to change it, learn more.

something that really got up the noses of drag queens, among others?

Name check

Isis's misfortune provides us with a handy illustration of the Scunthorpe Problem, albeit with the mistaken blocking of words that might be used by Islamic terrorists advertising their hatred, rather than the more common obscene language variety.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/01/isis_name_facebook_ban/