Facebook DISABLED my account, says woman named ISIS

Isis Anchalee claims her profile was removed by Facebook because of her name

A WOMAN from San Francisco claims Facebook disabled her account because of her name – Isis.

 

Isis Anchalee – an engineer based in San Francisco, California – claims Facebook disabled her account because she shares her name with a popular abbreviation for Islamic State.

Facebook is hard at work trying to eradicate the presence of Islamic State, dubbed ISIS, on the hugely popular US social network.

Unfortunately the San Francisco engineer appears to have been mixed up in its efforts.

“Why would you disable my personal account?" she tweeted at Facebook earlier this week "MY REAL NAME IS ISIS ANCHALEE /facepalm."

 

The San Francisco engineer was reportedly asked to prove her identity three times to Facebook.

Ms Anchalee claims she sent a screenshot of her passport to prove her birth name is Isis.

As a result, Facebook has since reinstated Isis Anchalee's profile on the hugely successful social network.

@facebook .......... why? pic.twitter.com/F6BPvdRnep

— Isis Anchalee (@isisAnchalee) November 16, 2015

 

@facebook why would you disable my personal account? MY REAL NAME IS ISIS ANCHALEE /facepalm

— Isis Anchalee (@isisAnchalee) November 16, 2015

Facebook thinks I'm a terrorist. Apparently sending them a screenshot of my passport is not good enough for them to reopen my account.

— Isis Anchalee (@isisAnchalee) November 17, 2015

Facebook researcher Omid Farivar has since reached out to Isis Anchalee on Twitter to publicly apologise for the issue.

"Isis, sorry about this," he wrote "I don’t know what happened. I’ve reported it to the right people and we’re working on fixing it."

Facebook changed its online policy so all users were required to their real names on the social network.

Users are asked to refrain from any symbols, unusual characters, punctuation, religious titles, or “offensive or suggestive words of any kind” to their names to “keep our community safe”.

The news comes days after Facebook rolled out the ability to overlay the French flag on users' profile pictures, to show solidarity with France.

Facebook changed its online policy so all users were required to their real names

An online petition requesting media outlets "stop calling terrorists [Islamic State] by our name" closed in August with some 56,800 signatures.

Founder Isis Martinez of Florida said women called Isis faced "unnecessary backlash of this irresponsible choice by the media”.

“We are grateful for the response and coverage we have received from the media, but most media outlets continue to desecrate our name and even go as far as misquoting the president of the United States saying Isis, when he only refers to the terror group as Isil. 

"Please sign and help the thousands of women and little girls named Isis who are suffering from this backlash caused by the media. 

"Help us take back our name.”