Mark Zuckerberg sued over his name due to major Facebook error
Talk about a case of mistaken identity!
A US bankruptcy attorney has filed a lawsuit after repeatedly having his accounts suspended on Facebook and Instagram, all because he shares – almost – the exact same name as its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
Despite his full name being Mark S. Zuckerberg, compared to the famous Mark E. Zuckerberg, the Indiana-based lawyer’s accounts have repeatedly been flagged for “impersonating a celebrity.”
This is despite the fact that the attorney has been practising law for 38 years, meaning that he was quite clearly the first of the two Mark Zuckerberg’s, in this case, with the Facebook founder turning 41 earlier this year.
And it's not just been annoying for him to discover that his social media accounts have disappeared from the internet on multiple occasions, he says it has also led to him losing out on business and quite a big chunk of money.
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According to the complaint, which was filed in Marion Superior Court against Meta Platforms Inc., both his personal and business profiles have been disabled and deactivated nine and five times, respectively, over the period of 2022 to 2025.
As you might expect, this has been incredibly frustrating, but it has also meant that Zuckerberg, the lawyer, has allegedly lost out on nearly $11,000 of Facebook advertising when his accounts were pulled from the web.
Mr Zuckerberg admitted: “It's like buying a billboard on the side of the highway, paying the people for the billboard and then they come and put a giant blanket over it and you don't get the benefit of what you paid for,” when speaking to WTHR-TV.
Despite providing his photo ID, credit cards and multiple images of his face to confirm his identity, and that he is also called Mark Zuckerberg, his accounts were only recently reinstated after the lawsuit was filed.
The lawsuit itself accuses the social media giant of negligence and breach of contract, with it alleging that Meta not only failed to pick up that users can have identical names without impersonating someone, but that the moderation process is not working correctly if this can continue to happen over and over again.
While Meta has said that the accounts were 'disabled in error', the lawsuit continues and time will tell as to what the outcome is, both for the social media giant and Mr Zuckerberg himself.
In a statement, Meta said: "We appreciate Mr Zuckerberg's continued patience on this issue and are working to try and prevent this from happening in the future."
It’s safe to say that the irony of Mark Zuckerberg suing Mark Zuckerberg has not been lost on people, with the attorney himself even seeing the funny side.
“If the other Mark Zuckerberg wants to apologize in person—or maybe invite me onto his yacht—I’d accept,” he joked.
Ellis Cochrane