Facebook has drawn flak for a policy that bars users from adopting pseudonyms, even in countries where disclosing their real identities puts them at risk of arrest. Now the prominent Chinese blogger Michael Anti has pointed out the awkward fact that Facebook is more inclined to give an account to a dog than it is to him.
For a decade, Michael Anti has been the pen name of Zhao Jing, a prolific writer and activist for Internet freedom. In 2005, his blog on a Microsoft-backed site was shut down under pressure from the Chinese government. Since 2007, he had used his pen name on a Facebook account until it was abruptly cut off in January, unravelling his network of more than a thousand contacts, he said. “I’m really, really angry. I can’t function using my Chinese name. Today, I found out that Zuckerberg’s dog has a Facebook account. My journalistic work and academic work is more real than a dog,” he told Tini Tran of the A.P. this week.
Indeed, the times being what they are, Zuckerberg and his girlfriend Priscilla Chan’s Hungarian sheepdog has a profile with photos and personal updates: “Just learned how to climb stairs. I’m such a champion.” Now, I’m fine with dogs online—though the digestive details may get old—but please explain to me why this pairing of facts should help persuade us that Zuckerberg truly understands the issues at stake? (In a Profile last year, Jose Antonio Vargas looked at the degree to which Zuckerberg grapples with the intersection of privacy and technology.)
The juxtaposition is less amusing when we recall the fate of Shi Tao, a reporter who is serving a ten-year sentence for releasing state secrets, after Yahoo! China disclosed his personal information to the government.
As Tran rightly points out, the sheepdog’s page doesn’t clash with Facebook’s policy because it’s not a personal profile, but, rather, a page for public figures. So far, Facebook has told Anti by e-mail: “We have tried to keep the rule simple and fair by saying personal profiles must always be set up in the real legal name of the individual concerned.” I asked Anti about the case today, and he pointed out that his pen name is so well-established that even Harvard used it in 2008 on the certificate he received after his Nieman Fellowship. For now, however, the only logical solution to this mend-bending snapshot of Facebook’s evolution is for Zuckerberg’s sheepdog to use its public platform to advocate for the protection of Chinese writers.
