An Indianapolis lawyer, Mark S. Zuckerberg, has had enough of being confused with another Mark Zuckerberg.
This week, he filed a lawsuit saying Meta repeatedly suspended his Facebook accounts — and wrongly accused him of impersonating a celebrity — just because he shares a name with the company’s CEO.
The lawyer’s complaint filed on Tuesday reads like the setup to a late-night comedy sketch: Every time he tried to run ads for his law practice, Meta’s systems flagged him as a faker.
He said he had to upload his driver’s license, credit card, and a front-and-side video of his face to prove he’s really Mark S. Zuckerberg, not the Mark E. Zuckerberg who runs the $1.88 trillion company.
Despite that, Meta kept shutting his accounts down for the last 14 years, he said. Sometimes, the bans lasted for months, even while Meta continued taking his ad money, the lawsuit said.
Zuckerberg, the attorney, is asking for damages and a court order barring Meta from treating him as an imposter.
“It’s not funny,” he told Indianapolis outlet 13WTHR. “Not when they take my money. This really pissed me off.”
A tale of two Zuckerbergs
Zuckerberg, the lawyer, has been dogged by name confusion ever since Facebook’s founder became a household figure.
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He even set up a site — iammarkzuckerberg.com — to document the chaos of sharing a name with one of the most famous men on the planet.
“I can’t use my name when making reservations or conducting business as people assume I’m a prank caller and hang up,” he wrote.
Occasionally, he’s been whisked into the kind of mix-ups that feel straight out of a sitcom.
“While speaking in Las Vegas, a limo driver was waiting for me at the bottom of the escalator with a sign for ‘Mark Zuckerberg,’ causing chaos as a large disappointed crowd had been waiting,” the lawyer wrote.
For now, the attorney’s account has been reinstated, he told Indianapolis’ 13WTHR. A Meta spokesperson told 13WTHR it had been “disabled in error.”
“We appreciate Mr. Zuckerberg’s continued patience on this issue and are working to try and prevent this from happening in the future,” the company said in a statement to 13WTHR.
Zuckerberg, the attorney, and Meta did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
