British author Salman Rushdie claimed a win against social networking giant Facebook Tuesday over what he can call himself on his profile page. According to BBC News, Facebook gave in to Rushdie’s request to go by his middle name of Salman after the author took to Twitter to complain about his difficulties with the site.
Facebook has a strict ‘real name’ policy that requires its users to go by their given names. In Rushdie’s case, that meant displaying his real first name, Ahmed. But Rushdie has been going by Salman for decades; it is the name he is known by around the world.
The trouble began after Facebook first deactivated Rushdie’s account over the weekend. The 64-year-old writer told the BBC the site “didn’t believe I was me” and it was only after sending in a photo of his passport that he managed to regain control of his account. However, it was under a new name—Ahmed Rushdie.
Unable to find help from the Facebook team, Rushdie said he turned to “ridicule by the Twitterverse” to solve his issues.
“Dear Facebook, forcing me to change my FB name from Salman to Ahmed Rushdie is like forcing J. Edgar to become John Hoover,” he wrote. “Or, if F. Scott Fitzgerald was on Facebook, would they force him to be Francis Fitzgerald? What about F. Murray Abraham?”
His many followers retweeted his message of protest and soon afterward, Facebook “buckled,” he said.
“Just received an apology from The Facebook Team,” Rushdie concluded on Twitter. “All is sweetness and light.”
