Mumbai:
He and his family are practically considered royals by supporters in Mumbai. But that did not stop Facebook on Wednesday from suspending the account of Aaditya Thackeray. The reason cited was the social networking site thought it was a fake account. The administration unblocked the account after the Yuva Sena chief provided evidence to authenticate his identity.
The subject of the mail that was sent to Aaditya by Facebook read, 'Disabled Fake Name'. The mail was as follows: "Facebook is a community where people use their real identities. We require everyone to provide their real first and last names and real birthday so you always know who you're connecting with. Your account is temporarily suspended because your profile doesn't list your real name. Before we can reopen this account, we need to verify your identity. Please reply to this e-mail and attach a digital image of one of the acceptable documents outlined below so we can verify your account information. We will permanently delete our record of this digital image from our servers after we use it to confirm your identity."
Stumbling block
According to sources, when Aaditya got the mail and logged in to check his Facebook account, he was furious to find it blocked. "He was shocked to see that Facebook was asking him to prove his own identity. Aaditya has been using the social networking site for at least six years now. He interacts with his followers, party men and friends via FB. So, when the site's administration decided to suspend his account, it did come to him as an unpleasant surprise," said a source.
Aaditya confirmed that Facebook had suspended his account. "My account was disabled suddenly last night (Wednesday) and since I connect with my subscribers regularly, it was a problem. However, FB was kind enough to act fast on my request." Sources say Aaditya submitted his driving licence as proof to Facebook. The Thackeray scion has nearly 700 friends on the site. Facebook did not reply to our mail asking for their version on the issue.