Facebook Profile Frozen, Then Restored, for User Named Isis

The Facebook profile of Isis Anchalee, a platform engineer based in San Francisco, was disabled on Tuesday. She shared her frustration on Twitter, suggesting that her first name had caused the freezing of the account.

Ms. Anchalee wrote, “Facebook thinks I’m a terrorist,” and said that she had sent the social network an image of her passport. She tried three times to verify her identity — and her profile was restored.

A researcher at Facebook replied publicly to Ms. Anchalee on Twitter: “Isis, sorry about this. I don’t know what happened. I’ve reported it to the right people and we’re working on fixing it.”

Earlier this year, an online petition was created to stop the use of the acronym ISIS for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. (The group is also known as ISIL and Daesh.) That petition is now closed, but it gained over 56,800 supporters. A woman whose daughter is named Isis commented on the petition: “you are destroying my innocent 7-year-old daughter’s childhood.”

Other name changes have occurred: In 2014, Tesco cut the prices of televisions with the brand of ISIS, and “Archer,” a comedy series on FX about espionage, dropped the name of its spy organization, International Secret Intelligence Service. And on “Downton Abbey,” a dog named Isis was killed off, although the actor Hugh Bonneville said the death had nothing to do with its name.

A Twitter user named Isil Arican replied to Ms. Anchalee’s comments, saying she feared her own Facebook account might be next.