Isis Anchalee, a software engineer, had her account blocked by Facebook as it was spelt the same acronym as the extremist group Islamic State.
Facebook admitted it mistook a user’s name and disabled her account due to her name being spelt the same the acronym of the extremist group Islamic State.
Isis Anchalee, a software developer in San Francisco, on Monday posted a screenshot of a Facebook log-in page that showed a message “Account disabled”. She took to Twitter and addressed her complaint on Facebook’s handle, “why would you disable my personal account? MY REAL NAME IS ISIS ANCHALEE”.
Anchalee said she sent Facebook her personal information three times to resolve the issue. “Facebook thinks I’m a terrorist. Apparently sending them a screenshot of my passport is not good enough for them to reopen my account,” Anchalee wrote on Twitter.
A researcher at Facebook responded on Twitter on Tuesday that her account was activated again.
“This was an error made as part of a fake account reporting process and we’re sorry for the trouble it caused. It was not connected to the individual’s name and her account has already been restored,” a Facebook spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Third time sending in my information is the charm I guess. I’m back in pic.twitter.com/m0demGZitw
— Isis Anchalee (@isisAnchalee) November 17, 2015
Many people with the name Isis – an Ancient Egyptian goddess of health, marriage and wisdom, have expressed concerns about the use of the acronym ISIS to refer to Islamic State, the group which claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks.
An online petition on the issue calling for media to “stop calling terrorists (Islamic State) by our name” closed on 24 August with more than 56,800 signatures.