Facebook v. Jon Swift [1]

Facebook terminated the profile of Jon Swift, a blogger writing under a pseudonym, for violating its terms of use prohibition on registering a profile under a fake name. Swift wrote about the profile termination and posted the email (from Aubrey, a Facebook customer service rep) on his blog [2], sparking discussion about the incident in the blogosphere.

In criticizing Facebook, Swift wrote:

By banning bloggers who use pseudonyms Facebook has declared war on the blogosphere. More and more bloggers have been using Facebook as a social networking tool, but how useful will it be if so many bloggers will be left out.

A Facebook group named "Let Jon Swift Back Into Facebook" sprang up, and bloggers began writing in support of Swift. A few hours later, Swift received another email from Facebook restoring the account. Jerry from Facebook Customer Service wrote that the account was not a violation of the ban on fake profiles:

[S]ince others on the site seem to know you by this name, and since you don't appear to be using the name to impersonate or to hide your identity, we have determined that you are not violating these Terms.