Facebook Claims It Didn't Ban Account Named Isis Anchalee Because Of Link To Terrorists

Facebook has restored the account belonging to an engineer called Isis Anchalee and disputes her claim that the account was suspended because the social network "thought she was a terrorist."

Facebook froze Anchalee's account on Monday without warning, and the developer responded on rival network Twitter by saying: "Facebook thinks I'm a terrorist. Apparently sending them a screenshot of my passport is not good enough for them to reopen my account."

An engineer at identity-as-a-service company OneLogin, Anchalee is also an advisor at the non-profit Women Who Code initiative. Facebook responded to the tweet by saying the account had already been restored and subsequently issued the following statement to Reuters. "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."

It is unclear what happened in this situation but Facebook has had problems previously with its real name policy, where it requires users to use their legal name to register an account. This has led to some problems including the banning of Native Americans who were using their real name to create accounts. The social network has said it is going to relax its real name policy by providing tools for better verification of users' names.