The 30-year-old woman previously known as Jemma Rogers has changed her name by deed poll to a “ridiculous” pseudonym that she used on Facebook, in order to access her profile page, which had been locked by site administration, she claimed.
Finding it hard to get your Facebook account unlocked? Meet the woman who changed her name. http://t.co/OhTEMHc0pk pic.twitter.com/t6NiMO0IsX
— ITV News London (@itvlondon) 12 июля 2015
Von Laalaa said she made up the fake name to avoid annoying requests from people she didn’t want to be friends with on Facebook. Everything was going according to plan until Facebook admins sent her a letter asking to prove the pseudonym was a genuine name.
Facebook referred to the 'Jemmaroid Von Laalaa' incident as a "mistake" in statement to @IBTimes >> http://t.co/iioA0ivXUQ
— Kerry Flynn (@kerrymflynn) 13 июля 2015
The woman carried through and legally changed her name to Jemmaroid Von Laalaa. But despite all her efforts — including legally changing her name by deed poll to match her Facebook identity — admins didn’t unlock the page.
“I know I've been a completely moron [sic], but Facebook are being ridiculous. I've been locked out of my account for five weeks now and have lost all of my photos, messages and precious memories,” she said. “I can't believe I'm stuck with this stupid name and I still can't get into my Facebook.”
A representative for the social network admitted administrators needed to reactivate the account.
“Facebook asks people to use their authentic names, as we believe this makes people more accountable for what they say. In this instance we [Facebook] made a mistake but we reactivated the account last week. We apologise for any inconvenience that this caused," the representative said, according to the Telegraph.
Facebook's "real name" policy has sparked some backlash of late. A group of protesters recently gathered outside the company’s headquarters in California to demand it change its policy requiring people to use their real names on the site.