# Facebook blocked my author pen name account



## Alvina (Oct 19, 2015)

I have just created the Facebook account for a pen name about a month ago. My main purpose of this FB account was to promote all my fiction books under the pen name.

Unfortunately, this morning the account was blocked and it required a photo ID to unblock the account. 

As everything about the author is fictitious, how am I going to upload a photo ID to them? Perhaps, any other way I can get back the account?


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## Issy (Aug 25, 2013)




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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

You can have multiple groups, but one page I think, and one profile


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## alawston (Jun 3, 2012)

It's strange that Facebook is so good at picking up multiple author accounts, and yet they've not noticed that I've been running separate accounts for my cat _and_ my dog for several years.


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2017)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> You can have multiple groups, but one page I think, and one profile


You can definitely have multiple pages; I've got a few.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Will Edwards said:


> You can definitely have multiple pages; I've got a few.


THEN, OP needs to create pages not whatever she did.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

It amazes me how difficult FB makes it for authors. I understand their not allowing fake accounts, but the limitations they place on the author fan pages, advertising (and I'm not even going to get started on the worst ad setup interface in the galaxy), and interactions with fans is insane. 

You need to set up a page for your books off of your main profile page.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

brkingsolver said:


> It amazes me how difficult FB makes it for authors. I understand their not allowing fake accounts, but the limitations they place on the author fan pages, advertising (and I'm not even going to get started on the worst ad setup interface in the galaxy), and interactions with fans is insane.
> 
> You need to set up a page for your books off of your main profile page.


^^ This.

Set up a fan page for your author name or books. You can have pages under multiple businesses or pen names linked to your personal FB page, but you may not have more than one personal page. You may later be asked by FB to verify that you are the representative for that pen name/brand, especially since your account has been noticed now.


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## Simply_Me (Mar 31, 2016)

Alvina said:


> I have just created the Facebook account for a pen name about a month ago. My main purpose of this FB account was to promote all my fiction books under the pen name.
> 
> Unfortunately, this morning the account was blocked and it required a photo ID to unblock the account.
> 
> As everything about the author is fictitious, how am I going to upload a photo ID to them? Perhaps, any other way I can get back the account?


I think that the main issue is using the account just to do promotion. I have three Facebook accounts, two are pen names of genres that I don't want to mix, and the third one is just for real life family and friends. Since I access those accounts from the same browser and IP address, using my pictures, Facebook knows about it, but I don't over promote my books on any. I socially interact with hundreds of people, most cyber-friends, and I occasionally mention my books. It had worked like that for years.

This is a little old, similar situation to yours, but the author solved it, this is her long story http://www.thewriterschallenge.com/2015/05/using-author-pen-names-on-facebook-and.html

There had been other cases too, but this is the only one I bookmarked. I hope it helps.


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## Allyson J. (Nov 26, 2014)

The problem is that you can't join any author marketing groups as a page. You have to do it from either your personal profile (which most people don't feel comfortable doing) or create an author profile using your pen name. Frustrating!


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

There are tons of bogus, obviously-not-real-people FB pages, some legitimately created by authors or whatever, but many for fictional characters, animals, etc.  Don't know why FB makes it so hard to do some things, and yet other stuff goes by unnoticed.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

I tried to get the "blue tick" verification once. I used my passport and did everything exactly right. FB still rejected me.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

You can make pages for anything fictitious. Same with groups. You can post on your page as your page title. Like you can be "AstroCat" the page commenting on AstroCat the page, or even on other public pages etc. there's a drop down for what to comment as in the top right above where you write a comment that has the icon of the avatar of who you are at that minute.

You can't make Facebook ACCOUNTS with fake information. A pen name can't have friends. A pen name can't join groups.

And if you think about it, this is actually sound policy by Facebook... there's already enough hinky stuff that happens on Facebook. We can now send money through messenger. If fake things can do that, that's a problem. 

Also, when you buy advertising, you can choose a Page that you own to be who the ad is from, not you personally. Even though EAW is my real name, all of my ads are run by my author page. 

It's never easy to maintain a secret identity . . . you're going to have play by the changing rules of Facebook because it's their playground, we just get to use it. Your best bet is to create a page with your pen name and operate from there as a homebase.


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## Cactus Lady (Jun 4, 2014)

Allyson J. said:


> The problem is that you can't join any author marketing groups as a page. You have to do it from either your personal profile (which most people don't feel comfortable doing) or create an author profile using your pen name. Frustrating!


I've heard of people (whether because their pen name profile got blocked or because they didn't try to make one in the first place) joining groups under their real name calling themselves "Pen Name's assistant." So I guess that's one way around it.


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## thewitt (Dec 5, 2014)

Elizabeth Ann West has it exactly right.

Though anecdotally, people "get away with it," the Facebook TOS says you will only create an account with the name that everyone calls you. It doesn't have to be your real name, but it would have to be the name you were known by.

So. My real name might be Bartholomew, but everyone calls me Fred. I could have a Facebook account called "Fred" but I could not have an account called "Jessip."

Your Author Page is a page.

No, you cannot Join anything from a Page, but this is where we need to push Facebook, so that Author Pages have more interactive capabilities and not to support fake accounts.

The dog and cat accounts do get caught regularly and removed, though there are certainly plenty of them still out there and I am actually pleased that Facebook doesn't make this removal their highest priority...


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

Jena H said:


> There are tons of bogus, obviously-not-real-people FB pages, some legitimately created by authors or whatever, but many for fictional characters, animals, etc. Don't know why FB makes it so hard to do some things, and yet other stuff goes by unnoticed.


FB pages for literary characters are explicitly allowed, not just unnoticed. For some reason the option doesn't show up when creating a page, at least not the last time I did, but you can add the fictional character tag the first time you edit the page info.


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## kellyzollo (Aug 12, 2015)

I wish FB would loosen the terms a bit for authors to have their own account. I debated about chaing my personal account to my pen name account but opted not to. Instead I made an author page. Which has been a huge hit or miss at times.

I can share things on my author page in certain groups under my pen name but I can't post thing under my pen name page which is super frustrating. While I like the page idea or the group idea for authors I really wish they would let authors who can prove their pen name have a separate account to make things easier.


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## 10milestereo (Sep 11, 2015)

I'm shocked by all of the replies above that endorse Facebook's unfair and unconstitutional terms of services - rather than question them and suggest viable ways for Alvina to solve her problem!

Who are Facebook to demand that people must go by their legal name!? There are thousands of legitimate and respectable reasons why people choose not to share their legal name online, including protecting their privacy; not giving Facebook and other digital giants a carte blanche in selling their personal data to third parties; having a pseudonym for artistic purposes; being transgender - to name just a few.

So instead of encouraging people to accept a policy which many internet giants, including recently Google, have abandoned - try to be more critical and think outside of the box!

Alvina, I would suggest, as Simply_J also pointed, that this seems as a viable solution:

http://www.thewriterschallenge.com/2015/05/using-author-pen-names-on-facebook-and.html?m=1


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

> unconstitutional


Nope. Entirely legal under the law, which includes the Constitution. They have the right to set the rules, which they have done. This wasn't the first time people talked about this, and it's still the same result: you sign up and agree to TOS/TOU, you follow them or risk account termination.

Now, does it makes sense, knowing how authors work and the pen name stuff? Not really. But who's to say someone with nefarious intent wouldn't make a fake page and use it to harm someone, rather than talk about their books?


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

The interesting thing for me is all the fake copies of genuine people which turn up, and FB has no clue they are a fake copy, even using the same photos and soliciting the same friends. They dont shut those ones down, which are created for advertising purposes and are essentially identity fraud, and yet they come down hard on authors.

Makes no sense at all.

You can have as many groups and pages as you want, and you set each page so you post as the page name, not your own. As long as you dont join or like your own as yourself, there is no flow back to you.


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## writerlygal (Jul 23, 2017)

There are lots of actors who have Facebook profiles for their "stage names," NOT their real name. For instance, Woody Allen has a Facebook profile & his real name is Allen Konigsberg. In fact, there are also authors, even indie authors, who write under pen names & who have successfully petitioned Facebook when their pen name accounts were cancelled, asking to be allowed to keep those pen name accounts. I know a few of them. So perhaps we should focus on ways to help authors keep their pen name accounts. The link above is a good start...


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

It's early here, and my brain is a bit fuzzy still, but let me see if I can recap, and if what I know is right:

You can make a page (account, profile, whatever you call it) with your real name. You can also make a *page*, or pages, for your book, your character, your pet,your imaginary friend, or whoever. It's connected to your personal page, and you access it via the dropdown box at top left(where you choose to log out or change settings). You can't like or comment or interact on other pages from that page (which _stinks_), but there it is.

On the other hand, this is also possible:



alawston said:


> It's strange that Facebook is so good at picking up multiple author accounts, and yet they've not noticed that I've been running separate accounts for my cat _and_ my dog for several years.


Side note: I know someone who used to use strange pictures as her FB avatar,but I think FB contacted her and said she had to use an actual photo of herself instead. (Perhaps this is what the OP received also.) Of course, I don't see how FB would know what a person's "photo ID" is supposed to look like, so....


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

Jena H said:


> Side note: I know someone who used to use strange pictures as her FB avatar,but I think FB contacted her and said she had to use an actual photo of herself instead. (Perhaps this is what the OP received also.) Of course, I don't see how FB would know what a person's "photo ID" is supposed to look like, so....


The vast majority of FB 'photos' are not a real person. The next biggest is group photos where you cant identify which person has the page.

A lot of people have never posted a photo of themselves on FB. Ever.


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## UK1783 (Aug 5, 2017)

Wasn't there some deal about Drag Queens using false names with Facebook?  I think in the end they proved that these were their real stage names and names that they were professionally known as and they were allowed.

Seems like a stupid rule of Kamp Facebook but not really surprising.

ps - I hate Facebook.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

TimothyEllis said:


> The vast majority of FB 'photos' are not a real person. The next biggest is group photos where you cant identify which person has the page.
> 
> A lot of people have never posted a photo of themselves on FB. Ever.


This is me, too. My avatar here on KBoards is the same one I use for my profile pic on FB (same cat, different pose). I always wondered why my friend got notified by FB about her photo, because, as you say, a zillion people use non-photo pictures. Almost seems like FB contacts people randomly. And I'm not sure they really care in the long run. My friend could probably go back to strange pictures for her profile and FB wouldn't notice.


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## Nic (Nov 17, 2013)

she-la-ti-da said:


> Nope. Entirely legal under the law, which includes the Constitution. They have the right to set the rules, which they have done. This wasn't the first time people talked about this, and it's still the same result: you sign up and agree to TOS/TOU, you follow them or risk account termination.
> 
> Now, does it makes sense, knowing how authors work and the pen name stuff? Not really. But who's to say someone with nefarious intent wouldn't make a fake page and use it to harm someone, rather than talk about their books?


Once again - it may be is constitutional in the USA, but the moment a company reaches the status of a monopole it ceases to be able to do what it wants in many if not even most countries. Which is why companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft or Amazon can get into dire straits outside of the USA, and at times even in them.

So, please, cease to keep saying what isn't correct. It's only valid as long as people have MULTIPLE and AMPLE other choices of venue.


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## Guest (Sep 6, 2017)

> Side note: I know someone who used to use strange pictures as her FB avatar,but I think FB contacted her and said she had to use an actual photo of herself instead. (Perhaps this is what the OP received also.) Of course, I don't see how FB would know what a person's "photo ID" is supposed to look like, so....


There is nothing in the FB TOS that REQUIRES the use of a real photo for an avatar. There are, however, restrictions on potentially copyright images and/or pictures of other people.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> There is nothing in the FB TOS that REQUIRES the use of a real photo for an avatar. There are, however, restrictions on potentially copyright images and/or pictures of other people.


I have a picture of my dog. If anyone thinks that's me, well they should've gone to specsavers!


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## doolittle03 (Feb 13, 2015)

I opened an account on FB with a fake name after they rejected my real one. They even scolded me for trying to access their precious interface with my real name which they declared fake. They demanded ID. Send where? How? To whom? No, it was easier to make up a name and open the account. Easy peasy.

I use my real photo. I give no personal information. I have an author page for a pen name that I run ads on. FB spams me with emails telling Fake Name she has more friends than she thinks. Fake name has no friends, no history. I would love to believe that they actually have standards they adhere to consistently across the board but I haven't seen evidence of it.


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## AltMe (May 18, 2015)

boba1823 said:


> If you use another personal Facebook account, buy a second computer to use exclusively for the pen name account. Or learn about tracking cookies and other browser related privacy stuff, and diligently employ whatever alternative methods you develop


Just a different browser should be all you need. Log in to each using a different one, so each one defaults to an account, and the passwords are saved and auto-used.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> There is nothing in the FB TOS that REQUIRES the use of a real photo for an avatar. There are, however, restrictions on potentially copyright images and/or pictures of other people.


But that's not what FB says when they tell people to change photos or FB blocks an account or whatever. I don't think copyright is the issue.



doolittle03 said:


> ... I have an author page for a pen name that I run ads on. FB spams me with emails telling Fake Name she has more friends than she thinks. Fake name has no friends, no history. I would love to believe that they actually have standards they adhere to consistently across the board but I haven't seen evidence of it.


Exactly. No rhyme or reason or discernible logic in what FB says or does.4


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Mark E. Cooper said:


> You can have multiple groups, but one page I think, and one profile


I've had multiple pages (one for author, one for my first book and one for a pen name) All are under my real name profile though. I could lock down my real name profile if I wanted and that would protect my privacy in that regard.

I think all profiles have to be by a real person and from that profile, you can create various pages, and within those pages, various groups associated with each page.


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## Doglover (Sep 19, 2013)

TimothyEllis said:


> Just a different browser should be all you need. Log in to each using a different one, so each one defaults to an account, and the passwords are saved and auto-used.


But the IP address is on the computer and that can be traced. I believe you can find proxy ip addresses though.


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## Used To Be BH (Sep 29, 2016)

Facebook sounds almost as consistent as Amazon...

I'm too lazy to look, but what about pages for large companies. Do they have to be created through the CEO's personal profile? If so, that would be pretty weird. There must be some business workaround.

If some authors have gotten their pen name profiles reinstated, it sounds as if FB might in fact allow that kind of thing if one knew how to appeal to FB correctly. Surely, anyone can see the benefits of keeping personal and business interactions separate.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Not sure how you went about setting this up, and it's years since I did mine, so maybe the system has changed, but here goes.

I have a private email address and an author name email address which includes my full author name.

I set up my private account with my private email and used an old photo of me for my profile picture. I've since used many different images for my personal account profile pic, sometimes avatars. At one time I had no image. I am only set up to be visible to friends. I never promote my books to my friends.

I later set up my author facebook page using my author email address and used a current picture of me at the time, but from a different computer. Not deliberately, but I was visiting my brother at the time in a different town. I've had that account for years and never had a problem, but then I never message someone who is not a friend.  I use it only to post new releases or promos and sometimes to post a link to new posts on from my author blog which uses the same image. I set it up for posts to be visible to the public. I've never used facebook ads which would involve supplying my real name for the card details.

I would think it's worth noting that as images sources can be traced, especially with face recognition besides the source code, so using a model's image from a stock photo is not maybe the way to go.


They will know I have two accounts from my IP as when I sign out, both accounts appear on my screen for me to decide which to use and they are automatically logged in when I click either image. What I can't do is have both open at the same time, or it denies me access as a conflict.

Not sure if this helps, or why they single authors out and make it difficult. To be honest. for what use it is to me, I'd step away if they blocked me.


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## TheLass (Mar 13, 2016)

Simply_J said:


> I have three Facebook accounts, two are pen names of genres that I don't want to mix


Have you (or anyone else with a pen name account) setup a Facebook Ads account? I want to but am scared paying with details other than the pen name will attract their attention.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

TheLass said:


> Have you (or anyone else with a pen name account) setup a Facebook Ads account? I want to but am scared paying with details other than the pen name will attract their attention.


I've done it and used it for several months with no problem. However, I was starting to get a bit nervous about it so recently I set up a FB account in my real name and made myself (under my real name) an admin of the ad account just in case.


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## TheLass (Mar 13, 2016)

Lydniz said:


> I've done it and used it for several months with no problem. However, I was starting to get a bit nervous about it so recently I set up a FB account in my real name and made myself (under my real name) an admin of the ad account just in case.


That's a good idea, thanks. Not that I want a real name account...


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## TheLass (Mar 13, 2016)

boba1823 said:


> You could use a service like Privacy.com - it allows you to create virtual debit cards for online transactions, and you can put in any name/address for the billing information. It also lets you set spending limits on each card, so you can have your Facebook ads card with a $100 limit (or whatever) to be sure you don't accidentally go over what you intended to.
> 
> I haven't used it myself yet - not quite to the advertising stage, lol - but according to multiple sources it is legitimate and safe.


Thanks, that sounds like just what I need!


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

TheLass said:


> That's a good idea, thanks. Not that I want a real name account...


I didn't either, but I have several hundred followers and didn't want to lose them. My real name account is as closed down as it's possible to be - no photo, no personal details, no friends, nothing. It's purely there in case they ban my pen name account.


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## Guest (Sep 6, 2017)

Bill Hiatt said:


> I'm too lazy to look, but what about pages for large companies. Do they have to be created through the CEO's personal profile? If so, that would be pretty weird. There must be some business workaround.


Silly Bill. Just like with Amazon, there is one set of rules for large companies, and one set of rules for us peons.


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## Athena Grayson (Apr 4, 2011)

thewitt said:


> The dog and cat accounts do get caught regularly and removed, though there are certainly plenty of them still out there and I am actually pleased that Facebook doesn't make this removal their highest priority...


No, their priority seems to be making sure nursing mothers aren't able to post pics, because bewbz, but racist jerkballs can post all sorts of gross stuff.

Also, the photo thing isn't a requirement, and they certainly don't use photos to confirm your identity. Otherwise, I really am getting three proposals a week from the Joint Chiefs and Stormin' Norman Schwartzkopf, and they have some 'splainin' to do to their wives...


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## spellscribe (Nov 5, 2015)

Just clearing up a few things:
A profile is your personal account that has friends. A page is an entity that gains likes. 

You can petition to have a Facebook profile under an assumed name. You still can't have two profiles - you risk getting both shut down if you do (so having both as page admins won't necessarily work. Ask a friend to back you up)

Pages CAN comment on pages, both their own and others. One page liking another page doesn't count in their number of likes though, last I checked. 

A page can create groups and can comment in their own group (that's a new feature). This may be extended to other groups but I imagine the setup will be tweaked to make it clearer who is a page vs a profile.


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## Jena H (Oct 2, 2011)

spellscribe said:


> Just clearing up a few things:
> A profile is your personal account that has friends. A page is an entity that gains likes.
> 
> You can petition to have a Facebook profile under an assumed name. You still can't have two profiles - you risk getting both shut down if you do (so having both as page admins won't necessarily work. Ask a friend to back you up)
> ...


How does one do this? When I'm acting from my book/publisher page, I can't even go to other pages. I tried just now to go to a couple different pages (commercial and personal) and got a message saying "You do not have the necessary permission for the specified Page to perform the requested action." Facebook DID go to the page I requested, but it kicks me back to be there from my personal profile page. That's one thing I've always hated about the associated author page, is that it's not as interactive as I'd like.


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## SuzyQ (Jun 22, 2017)

I believe that mail sent to your pen name will do the trick. Also attending conventions as your name (name tags etc). But don't take that as gospel.


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## Forgettable (Oct 16, 2015)

.


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## Judy Burke (Dec 29, 2015)

LMareeApps said:


> You access the page as your profile, but when you go to comment, under the post there'll be a little circle with your avatar and a black triangle. Click the triangle and it gives you the option to change who you're liking and commenting as. It should allow you to toggle between your profile and any pages you have the appropriate admin rights for.


FB took this option away some time ago and seem in no hurry to bring it back . There now is no way to comment in groups as your page. Pages can only interact with other pages.


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## Forgettable (Oct 16, 2015)

.


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## LifesHumor (Feb 5, 2014)

I know a lot of gamers with fake accounts.


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## Guest (Sep 7, 2017)

LMareeApps said:


> The question was how does a page interact with another page.


Beside the Like/Comment/Share button you should see a little version of your profile pick with an arrow beside it. Click the arrow and you can select one of your pages as the one doing the action. For liking another page, click the ... button under that page's header image and you will have an option for Like as Page


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## Shimmergirl69 (Sep 25, 2016)

Exact same thing happened to me as well until i figured out it wasn't permitted. I haven't bothered since, but once I'm vested again in my other work under my pen name I will create a page off of my anchor account.


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

Bill Hiatt said:


> Facebook sounds almost as consistent as Amazon...
> 
> I'm too lazy to look, but what about pages for large companies. Do they have to be created through the CEO's personal profile? If so, that would be pretty weird. There must be some business workaround.


A business Facebook page will indeed be set up through an employee's profile (usually the marketing or PR person though, not the CEO). Thing about pages is you can add multiple administrators who can post/interact as the business. Which of course explains all the money that has been made by consultants selling style guides and codes of conduct.

If I'm the marketing person for Random House and I run the Facebook page, then when I change jobs, I hand over my admin rights to someone else. It's the same as an author page. If I become super famous and I have to hire a marketing person to handle FB, I'll give them administrator rights and off they go.


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## RightHoJeeves (Jun 30, 2016)

Pages have less interactivity than profiles, yes. As frustrating as that can be to a business, it's good to remember that _for the user_, the primary function of Facebook is not be to advertised to. Obviously FB makes its money from ads from companies, but it is still essentially a _social_ network. That's it's appeal. My guess is that FB makes pages less interactive because it keeps businesses in their place and prevents them from acting like real people and therefore diluting the experience.

Of course plenty of people would say FB has diluted the experience in plenty of ways. But I think it's true the platform is still very much dedicated to its social aspect. Facebook aims to replicate real life in the digital space; not be an anonymous place where you can say you're someone you're not.

Of course that leaves authors in a weird position because many have pen names and would like to interact as "real" people, but there are issues with false identity. But... what are ya gonna do? Theoretically if pen name authors were allowed to work as profiles, then you'd have, I don't know, Burger King as a "friend". And that would dilute the entire point of Facebook.


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## IreneP (Jun 19, 2012)

Okay - sorry if someone has said this - I haven't read through the whole thread. But there have been several instances of authors successfully fighting the profile thing. If you have any legal documents in your pen name, it helps. For example if you've opened a business bank account in your pen name, have a DBA, etc. 

Google around a little. I know there are examples out there.  I'm pretty sure one author printed up her own "employee ID" and submitted it. Basically you have to show you are that "person." And since the Supreme Court has decided that corporations are "people"....

For anyone who has multiple profiles and also author pages, I highly recommend adding your "real" profile as an admin on your page, just in case your pen name is targeted.


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