Man gets kicked off Facebook for having an odd name…or did he? Amanda Meade and Elle Hunt
Original story at this link.
A man who claimed that Facebook discriminated against him because of his name, attracting global media attention, has announced that it was a hoax.
Wow! See how easily this average Joe fella fooled the largest media organizations.
“What started as a joke between friends, became a prank that made a fool out of the media and brought out the best in the people who reached out to me. It didn’t bring out the anger and darkness that we often see on the internet, but it brought a levity and humanity in a time we need it most.
“Out of this ordeal I’ve concluded not to trust the credibility of the media, it’s twisted by the hungry journalists who mask the truth … It goes to show that an average joe like myself can con the the biggest news sources with ease.”
Claims that Vietnamese man with an Australian passport in the name ‘Phuc Dat Bich’ had been discriminated against by Facebook were false
In January, a man posted to Facebook a screenshot of an Australian passport that appeared to show his full legal name was Phuc Dat Bich, claiming that he had been accused of “using a false and misleading name” and had his account shut down multiple times.
The post went viral in mid-November. Media including the Sydney Morning Herald, news.com.au, SBS, BBC.com, the Herald Sun and 9news.com.au, and news organizations in India, Argentina and other countries – reported the story, though Phuc Dat Bich gave no interviews.
In a mea culpa posted to Facebook, still titled Phuc Dat Bich, on Wednesday afternoon, the 23-year-old Melbourne man admitted that the name change and doctored image was part of a prank intended to fool the news media and highlight shortcomings of Facebook’s “real name” policy.
In a post signed “Joe Carr” (understood to refer to “joker”), he wrote: “Facebook needs to understand that it is utterly impossible to legitimize a place where there will always be pranksters and tricksters.
‘Phuc Dat Bich’: man says he created name hoax to fool media and Facebook