Facebook's real name policy now causing issues for Native Americans

You might poke some innocent fun at your Native American friend Sitting Bull while he's on the toilet, but if you're that Native American, you wouldn’t want to be trolled by, let's say, Facebook.

That's exactly what happened to Shane Creepingbear, a Native American who, Facebook thinks, is using a fake name.

Through the social media's fake name policy, Facebook forces people to use their "real" names (those in their identification documents). This policy has been criticized before, mostly by members of the LGBT community who, wanting to protect themselves in not so LGBT-friendly environments, used fake names.

Facebook was forced to apologize and promised to create a way for people to identify themselves using "legitimate pseudonyms".

As you can see from the Twitter post below, Shane Creepingbear wasn't best pleased.

Hey yall today I was kicked off of Facebook for having a fake name. Happy Columbus Day great job #facebook #goodtiming #racist #ColumbusDay

— Shane Creepingbear (@Creepingbear) October 14, 2014

But he isn't the only person with this issue. According to the Last Real Indians blog, a person named Oglala Lakota Lance Brown Eyes had his account suspended and, after wrestling with Facebook's administration, got his profile back under the name Lance Brown.

Only after threatening with a lawsuit, was he able to get his full name back.

There are many examples of Native Americans struggling with Facebook. The social network wants people to use real names and, if the person gets suspended, he or she must provide a scanned copy of a legal document such as a passport or a driver’s licence, to confirm his or her identity.

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