Facebook’s policies are clear: “this is a community in which people use their real identities”. In September of last year, the social network suspended the accounts of various drag queens because they were using their artistic and not their real name. It was then that many denounced their practices and switched to Ello, with the intention of finding a social network that would not coerce them.

Dona Lone Hill also found that her account had been suspended for the same reason. As she explains on the website Last Real Indians, Dana proudly uses both her father’s and her mother’s surnames. Therefore, she took advantage of the option offered by Facebook to include a nickname, in parenthesis, on her profile and added her native name: Oyate Wachinyanpi, which means “persons depending on".

Dona Lone’s account was cancelled and though she was able to use it for a short amount of time, she sent Facebook three documents proving her identity and recovered her profile once and for all. This, however, was also insufficient, since the only reply she received was an automatic email from the company requesting that she evidence her identity with even more documents (credit card, social security number, things that she didn’t feel comfortable sending”, Lone told Colorlines after her story gained some notoriety from the media, this Monday, Lone received an email from Facebook in which the company assured her that they had canceled her account “by mistake” and apologized for what had happened.

Though this could be an isolated case, Lone herself states that she is not the only person of native origin that she knows has had these types of problems. In 2009, when the social network was still expanding, a student of Journalism from Nebraska whose name is Parmelee Kills The Enemy also had his profile deactivated for the same reason. So did Shane Creepingbear, who celebrated the “Day of the Race” in 2014 without being able to access his Facebook account because, apparently, “his name broke the rules”. 

@facebook violating your name standards???? standards??? #IndigenousPeoplesDay #NativeAmericanDay #racistamerica

— Shane Creepingbear (@Creepingbear) October 14, 2014

In the case of Lance Brown Eyes, he returned to the social network but only to find that his name had been changed and was simply Lance Brown.

“They had no issue with me changing my name to a white man’s name but harassed me and others, forcing us to prove our identity while other people kept whatever they had. They let me change my name back but what about you and all the others they discriminated against. Our people need to know they can fight back. The more of us stand up, they will change.”

At Change.org, a petition for Facebook to modify its policy regarding native names already has 10,000 signatures.