September 18 : The Day F Book killed the King : Part 2

On September 11, 2015 Facebook threatened to terminate the Facebook account of the virtual artist and machinima videographer Ozymandius King if he did not change his name.

Having first registered an account with Facebook in August 2015, it took Ozymandius less than a month to gain over 3 thousand Facebook friends and almost 6 thousand group members for the MAGE Magazine Facebook group page. It seemed his career was on the rise, having worked as a photojournalist for the SL Newser, he had been awarded a Fellowship with the Windlight Art Gallery, and was a featured artist at the Horus Gallery and the Sisse Singh’s Gallery.

“My online name is like a brand name. Should The Walt Disney Company be forced to change their name now that Walter Disney is no longer the CEO?” Ozymandius explained when I asked him why he refused to change his name.

A week later the Facebook account of Ozymandius King was deleted.

“It was horrible, I was waiting for the bus and decided to check my Facebook account to see when Oz wanted to meet up in Second Life to shoot a scene for the Aria Chronicles when I realized that he wasn’t on my friend list, so I started doing a Facebook search for Ozymandius King and there were no results. It was then I noticed that all his posts and all his messages had been deleted. It was as if he never existed.” Andressa DePrims, a fellow artist with MAGE Magazine commented.

Later that day Andressa’s account was also deleted by Facebook and I began to wonder, is Facebook targeting members of the MAGE Magazine group and, if so, am I next?