Facebook’s Grand Canal headquarters in the Irish capital of Dublin is to be the setting of a new protest against the social media site’s contentious ‘real-name’ policy.
This policy strictly stipulates that people must put their real names to any profiles they have on Facebook – and prove their identity using relevant documentation. However, this policy has disgruntled Facebook users who wish to instead use their Irish language names.
A spokesperson for the Irish language activist organisation Misneach, which is organizing the protest, has told The Irish Times that the policy does not sit easily with many people who opt to be recognized by their Irish names later in life, but lack the necessary documentation to prove to Facebook that these names are genuine.
The policy has already faced opposition from many other groups of affected people, including LGBTQ people, domestic violence survivors and Native Americans, and has been attacked on Twitter under the hashtag #MyNameIs. The Dublin protest is scheduled to occur at 2pm local time on October 7.
