Meta blocks Instagram account Metaverse

The Meta Group, under which the Facebook umbrella organization has been operating for a short time now, has been overrunning everything that bears the same name. Now the Instagram account of an artist named “Metaverse”, which had existed since 2012 and was now unceremoniously blocked, had to take its turn.

The end of Metaverse for the artist?

A few days after the renaming of Facebook to Meta and its virtual reality world “Metaverse”, the Instagram account of Australian artist Thea-Mai Baumann, who was also the owner of the augmented reality company “Metaverse Makeovers” until 2017, was blocked. The account had existed since 2012, according to a New York Times report.

The simple reasoning on Meta’s part: the account was pretending to be someone else and was therefore blocked. However, with the help of the New York Times, Baumann was able to regain the account, which has received three times as many followers since the name change (currently around 3,200).

According to Baumann’s own statement, she received numerous offers for her Instagram account in the days following the name change in order to sell it on to Meta Group for as much profit as possible.

Meta blocks Instagram account

On November 2, Meta blocked the Instagram account of the artist, who was then unable to log in. As a result, the Australian tried to authenticate her identity. After nine years, she did not want to give it up because it reflected “a decade of my life and work.”

For a month, there was no response to the attempted verification. Even a lawyer brought in in the meantime could not help and became too expensive to defend against big business. It was not until Baumann contacted the New York Times and the newspaper inquired with Meta’s press office that the matter began to move.

An Instagram spokesperson admitted that the account had been mistakenly blocked. Why the blocking was due to an alleged pretense of another identity, however, was not revealed. Two days later, Baumann had then been able to log back into her account without any problems and continue using it. The artist now wants to process this whole affair in a project that revolves around death in a metaverse.