Salman Rushdie wins 'battle of name' with Facebook

Indian-British novelist Salman Rushdie has won a tussle with Facebook, where the social networking site 'deactivated' the author's account over a confusion about his real name.

Rushdie revealed on Twitter that Facebook had deleted his account because he used his popular name 'Salman' instead of his passport name 'Ahmed', due to which the social networking site thought it wasn't his real profile.

The novelist said he sent a copy of his passport to Facebook to prove his identity, the New York Times reports.

He took on the social networking site by several tweets in which he tagged Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO, "Where are you hiding, Mark? Come out here and give me back my name!"

The Twitterverse took up his cause. Within two hours, Rushdie gleefully declared victory.

"Facebook has buckled! I'm Salman Rushdie again. I feel SO much better. An identity crisis at my age is no fun," he wrote.