American lawyer’s Facebook account blocked by the site for ‘impersonating a celebrity’
A lawyer called Mark Zuckerberg is suing Facebook after the social network repeatedly took down his page, claiming he was impersonating the company’s boss.
Mark Stephen Zuckerberg, a bankruptcy lawyer in the US state of Indiana, says he has spent thousands of dollars promoting his services on Facebook but his page has been repeatedly blocked by the site.
Mr Zuckerberg says his life has been turned upside down by sharing a name with the world’s third-richest man, including receiving death threats and incessant tech support phone calls.
“It’s not funny,” he told local news channel WTHR. “Not when they take my money.”
He said he had had the name Mark Zuckerberg “way longer than he has” and was suing after years of having his account unfairly removed.
He said he had spent more than $11,000 (£8,000) on Facebook adverts to promote his law practice, but that both his business and personal pages had been repeatedly removed for “impersonating a celebrity”.
Mr Zuckerberg said it often takes months to restore his account, leading to lost business, and that the company had broken “fair dealing” laws.
“I’d rather not pick a fight with them, but I don’t know how to make them stop,” he said. “I don’t know how else to get their attention.”
Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder
Mark Zuckerberg (not this one) said he would be satisfied if the Meta billionaire (this one) offered him a week on his superyacht Credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Mr Zuckerberg has a website where he chronicles cases in which sharing a name has affected his life.
This includes being sued by the state of Washington because of mistaken identity, turning off his phone at night because of a torrent of notifications, receiving more than 100 friend requests daily, and having to use a fake name when booking restaurants, which otherwise assume it is a prank.
In one case, a limo driver holding a sign bearing his name in Las Vegas was surrounded by fans eagerly awaiting the Meta billionaire.
Mr Zuckerberg has been practising law for 38 years, when the younger and richer Mr Zuckerberg was three years old.
Meta said: “We know there’s more than one Mark Zuckerberg in the world, and we are getting to the bottom of this.”
Mr Zuckerberg said he would be satisfied if the Meta billionaire offered him a week on his superyacht. “[If he] let me spend a week on his boat to say I’m sorry, I’d probably take him up on that,” he said.
He is seeking damages and legal fees.
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