Drag queens and the transgender community has received an apology from Facebook following the deletion of their accounts, which used names such as 'Lil Miss Hot Mess' instead of using their legal names.

In their attempt to ensure the legitimacy of the users utilizing their site and enforce security measures, Facebook imposed a rule requiring the use of "real names". Apart from this, other benefits the social networking site may obtain from this new rule is gaining distinction or standing out from other social media outlets and implementing better ways to zero in on target uses for advertising purposes.

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This move, however, led to intense criticisms from the self-proclaimed drag queens and performers, as well as members of the lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender society. In what appeared to be an effort to appease its protesting members, Facebook clarified that the "spirit" of its new policy does not necessitate the users to use their birth or legal names. Officials of the social networking site explained that such users must only use "the authentic name they use in real life".

"For Sister Roma, that's Sister Roma. For Lil Miss Hot Mess, that's Lil Miss Hot Mess," asserted Chris Cox, the vice-president of Facebook, in his blog entry posted on Wednesday.

Although Facebook officials do not intend to get rid of the new policy, the manner by which such will be implemented might be altered. The social networking site suggested in September that affected members may simply use their stage names or drag queen identities by utilizing the Facebook feature that allows the creation of pages for businesses and public figures. This suggestion, however, was shot down. The protesting users claimed that such pages do not function in the same manner as that of a regular account.

Recognizing the follies of the "real names policy", Cox stated that the site will endeavor to better enforce the new rule without sacrificing the needs of their users.

"We see through this event that there's lots of room for improvement in the reporting and enforcement mechanisms, tools for understanding who's real and who's not, and the customer service for anyone who's affected," he said on Wednesday.

In response to the complaints regarding the numerous accounts with stage names or drag names suddenly deleted, Cox explained that these profiles were reported as "fake" by an individual Facebook user.

"These reports were among the several hundred thousand fake name reports we process every single week, 99 per cent of which are bad actors doing bad things: impersonation, bullying, trolling, domestic violence, scams, hate speech, and more - so we didn't notice the pattern," he explained. 

Tagsdrag queen, Drag performers, real names policy