Facebook changes its name to Meta, but there are victims. This artist's Instagram was blocked for having the username @metaverse. The reason was because he was 'pretending to be someone else', even though he had been using that name for a long time.
Facebook, which owns Instagram as well as WhatsApp on October 28, changed the company's umbrella name to Meta. Metaverse is an idea that Facebook wants to do now to change the all-digital future.
Well, on November 2nd, Thea-Mai Baumann an artist from Australia found his account disabled. There is a message that says 'Your account has been blocked for pretending to be someone else'.
Baumann said he had been trying to verify his identity on Instagram for several weeks but had received no response. What he regrets, there are so many works that he shared on the account and just disappeared.
"This account is a decade of my life and work. I don't want my contribution to the metaverse removed from the internet," Baumann told the New York Times as reported by The Guardian.
"It happens to women in technology, to women of color in technology, all the time," the Vietnamese artist added.
Baumann started his Instagram account in 2012 to document his life as an art student in Brisbane and the augmented reality company he created called Metaverse Makeovers.
A month after Baumann first appealed to Instagram to recover his account, the New York Times contacted Meta on December 2 to ask why Baumann's account was closed. According to an Instagram spokesperson, the account had been 'incorrectly deleted due to impersonation' and would be reinstated, two days later.
"We're sorry this error occurred," the company added.
