I’m friends with Harry Potter.I’m not even kidding. The bespectacled boy wizard has been my Facebook friend for some time now. But recently I grew concerned when I could no longer find Potter amid my friends list.I searched for him in the London network, in the New York network, even in the Scotland network, but Harry was nowhere to be found. I then came to one devastating conclusion.Harry Potter has been deactivated.This is a growing problem, and I can stay silent no longer. Our fictional characters are being brutally murdered by Mark Zuckerberg.Murder isn’t even the right word. It’s far worse than that. They are being erased.And Harry Potter isn’t the only one.This Facebook oppression has leaked over into the real world as well.On August 20 Altjapan — a Typepad blog dedicated to East/West culture shock — reported that Hiroko Yoda was denied permission to create a Facebook account. The reason?”Facebook blocks the registration of a number of names that are frequently abused on the site,” Facebook administrators replied to her request for clarification. “The name ‘Yoda,’ also being the name of a popular Star Wars character, is on this list of blocked names.”Ms. Yoda now has a profile up and is ready for friend requests, but I cannot imagine the emotional distress inflicted by being rejected by the premiere networking site on the Web. It must be something akin to receiving a rejection letter from eHarmony.com that you are unmatchable.I’ve always wondered what drives a human being to masquerade as a fictional character on an online networking Web site.Is it the fame? The friend requests from random 13-year-old girls? I once asked Harry about this but he refused to break character to answer my questions. He was too committed to the lie.Edward Cullen of the “Twilight” series was more forthcoming. He told me “ooc,” or Out of Character, he was a 16-year-old girl named Mary Anne.  Mary Anne said she made the Edward Cullen profile because she is a huge fan of the character who she described as “totally hot.” She also said she enjoyed “RPing” — or role playing — because she is creative and enjoys writing.Another teenage girl named Deb moonlights as Edward’s sister Alice Cullen. Deb said she RPs because it’s an escape from the monotony of her everyday life. Deb said she has made lifelong friends with her fellow roleplayers.Both girls also live in constant fear they will be next on the Facebook chopping block.Deb said she has lost several good friends to Mark Zuckerberg’s brutal hand.But the threat of deactivation doesn’t stop the hardcore roleplayers. They simply recreate their profiles and change the names of the characters by a few letters — for example, Harry Potterton.I was completely unaware of this world of pure imagination’s scope until I did a little Web-based research on the subject. It’s an entire community.I like to imagine that Gandalf, Dumbledore and Aslan comprise the ruling tribunal.But when the wise wizards and Christ allegory lions fail, I will take up the charge.There is an entire world of fictional characters on Facebook and they should be protected. The entire casts of characters from the Harry Potter and Twilight universes are represented. Ironman Tony Stark has a profile as do the characters from the Broadway shows Rent and Wicked.We cannot afford to have these cultural icons extinguished on the whim of a madman.Now I understand Facebook’s deletion of accounts pretending to be Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Donald Trump. I suppose that is some sort of identity theft. But these fictional characters have a life all their own that can only be expressed through the imaginings of high school students with too much time on their hands.Of course, I realize the repercussions of silly pre-teen girls sharing their Facebook profiles with total strangers. Who is to say Mary Anne and Deb aren’t really Hal and Joe, two middle-aged men with a penchant for young Twilight fans?Allowing them to find out the locations, class schedules and extracurricular activities of young girls around the globe just spells trouble.But perhaps this is just how natural selection works. One tortoise runs in the road, and one junior high age girl refuses to set her profile to private.I mourn the passing of my friend Harry, and I shudder to think of the countless others who will lose their lives. That is why I need your help, dear readers.We are fighting a culture war here.Go out there and create as many fictional profiles as you can. Crash the Facebook server with the influx of Prince Caspians and Ron Weasleys. Destroy Mark Zuckerberg’s Internet empire with Snarf from “Thundercats” and Neo from “The Matrix.”Or you could just sit back, clap your hands and yell at the top of your lungs, “I do believe in fairies!”Whatever role you choose, your fictional characters will thank you.And if they don’t, Hal and Joe sure will.—-contact Caitlyn Scott at [email protected]