14 DAY TRIAL // A professor from the United States named Muhammad Zakir Khan wanted to play Epic Games’ Paragon Beta. He couldn’t because his name is apparently on a list that flags him as a problem.
The United States has something called Office of Foreign Assets Control and this institution has the Specially Designated Nationals list, which by all accounts is a registry of names of people with problems, most likely individuals that are a threat to the security of the country. And that’s fine.
According to a report on boingboing.net, Muhammad Zakir Khan is an assistant professor of speech communication at Broward College, Florida, and he’s apparently a DOTA fan. He wanted to play the new Paragon Beta from Epic Games, and he needed to set up an account for it.
It turns out that the name Muhammad Khan is not accepted because it’s on the Specially Designated Nationals list. This is hilarious not because of the situation, which is somewhat tragic, but because someone named Muhammad Khan did something bad and ruined the life of everyone with this name in the United States.
My name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist
Muhammad then did something normal. He tweeted to Epic Games with “@EpicGames My name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist. #Islamophobia.” This got the attention of Epic Games, which apologized and fixed the problem, but not before it snowballed on Twitter for a lot of media attention.
Besides the fact that Muhammad is a troublesome name, there is another interesting question that needs to be answered. Why is Epic Games even comparing the names for the Paragon account with the Specially Designated Nationals list from Office of Foreign Assets Control. As a perk, it would be nice to find out who is the original Muhammad Khan that caused this problem.
Who knows what’s happening with Office of Foreign Assets Control? Maybe your name is on that list too.
@EpicGames My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist. #Islamophobia pic.twitter.com/wKVAWZxFZx
— Zakir Khan (@Muzzakh) January 10, 2016