Salman Rushdie hissy-fit forces Facebook name U-turn
Site run by 'morons', huffs Satanic Verses writer
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Facebook has upset Salman Rushdie after the company initially refused to let the controversial author use his common name rather than his first name when signing up to the network.
The writer, who is a newcomer to the Web2.0 game, explained on Twitter that his full name is Ahmed Salman Rushdie.
"Amazing. 2 days ago FB deactivated my page saying they didn't believe I was me. I had to send a photo of my passport page. THEN..." he tweeted, "they said yes, I was me, but insisted I use the name Ahmed which appears before Salman on my passport and which I have never used.
"NOW... They have reactivated my FB page as 'Ahmed Rushdie,' in spite of the world knowing me as Salman. Morons. @MarkZuckerbergF? Are you listening?"
The author of The Satanic Verses, who was forced into hiding in 1989 when a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie was issued against him by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, continued to rant about his Facebook plight on Twitter.
"Maybe @MarkZuckerbergF is a phony. Is the real #Zuckerberg on Twitter? Where are you hiding, Mark? Come out here and give me back my name!" he huffed. "So if @finkd is the real #Zuckerberg: what are your people up to, sir? Why have I been denied my name on FB? An answer would be nice."
Rushdie kept up the pressure on the dominant social network by continuously tweeting to his 115,000 followers in the hope of getting a response from Zuckerberg's crew.
He argued that Facebook "forcing" him to change his name was akin to "forcing" F Scott Fitzgerald to have a Facebook profile with the name Francis Fitzgerald instead. He went on to list other people in the public eye who had commonly used their middle names, including James Paul MacCartney, George Orson Welles and William Bradley Pitt.
Eventually, Facebook gave in.
"Victory! #Facebook has buckled! I'm Salman Rushdie again. I feel SO much better. An identity crisis at my age is no fun," said the author.
He later added that the social network had sent him an apology.
"All is sweetness and light," was Rushdie's verdict. ®
COMMENTS
Well, Rushdie _is_ right...
Farcebook _is_ run by morons. This kind of pissfight over "real" names is proof.
At any rate... good for you, Mr. Rushdie. Shame you have to be famous to get any action out of Farcebook, and a shame he was forced to show them his passport.
I recently was forced to give up my mobile phone number to have one of my Gmail accounts reactivated after Google suspended it, citing "suspicious activity" (as they have yet to define what the "activity" was, I'll have to assume they're doing it to drag in all the "refuseniks" who aren't giving in to the "let us have your mobile number in case your account is compromised" nag). Technically, it wasn't a phish as I got the message from Google as I was logging in (rather than a scam email), though due to their inability to tell me what the actual "suspicous activity" was, I'll have to assume that Google is phishing for mobile numbers.
Normally, I would've withheld my mobile number and abandoned the account, but it was the account I had to establish to set up a blog on Blogspot. Bastards. Call it a "hissy fit" if you want, but I'm totally behind Rushdie on this one.
It shouldn't matter whose religion it is....
...it should be possible to insult it without actually getting death threats.
Twat
I'm glad he's ok, but it's tough shit if you're not famous.
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