Woman Named 'Isis' Says Facebook Disabled Her Account
MENLO PARK, Calif. (CBS Sacremento)-- A woman named Isis is speaking out on social media after she says Facebook disabled her account. She believes the incident is linked to her sharing a name with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria terrorist group.
Isis Anchalee, a San Francisco-based engineer, first complained on Twitter on Tuesday, as reported by The Guardian.
Anchalee also posted an image of her failed login attempt which featured a red flag with the text "Account Disabled."
A friend of the woman claims a message she send on the site was marked as spam.
"Facebook thinks I'm a terrorist and froze my account," Anchalee said on Twitter.
She says she initially sent Facebook a screenshot of her passport as proof of identity, but this failed to resolve the issue.
More than 3,000 people retweeted the sentiment. Anchalee says her attempt at getting her account back was finally successful after reaching out for the third time.
A Facebook researcher publicly reached out to Anchalee to apologize saying, "Isis, sorry about this. I don't know what happened. I've reported it to the right people and we're working on fixing it."
A spokesperson for Facebook told The Guardian it was an error as part of "a fake account reporting process." He said the incident was not connected to her name.
Anchalee has stayed out of the public eye following the incident and told reporters from Tech Insider that she wanted to avoid a "media storm."
Prior to the Facebook lockout, she posted her frustrations regarding people's reaction to her name.
"I wish I had $5 for every time a Lyft or Uber driver asks me about my name. It's starting to make me angry," Anchalee said on Twitter. "NO I will NOT change my name. Wtf people."
Women around the world with the name Isis have been speaking out over the years as the terrorist group has gained more notoriety. More than 56,800 individuals signed on online petition calling for the media to "stop calling terrorists by our name."
"We are grateful for the response and coverage we have received from the media, but most media outlets continue to desecrate our name and even go as far as misquoting the president of the United States saying Isis, when he only refers to the terror group as Isil. Please sign and help the thousands of women and little girls named Isis who are suffering from this backlash caused by the media. Help us take back our name," its founder, Isis Martinez of Miami, Florida, said.
Anchalee proposed calling the group Daesh, a term that has been used by some world leaders. Daesh is an anglicized version of the acronym in Arabic.
