Who is Thea-Mai Bauman, Instagram stole her @metaverse handle

Ground Report | New Delhi: Who is Thea-Mai Bauman; An Australian artist only realized she was embroiled in a dispute with the tech giant when she tried to log into her Instagram account. An Australian artist unwittingly found herself in an awkward situation when Facebook rebranded itself as Meta in October.

Thea-Mai Bauman is an artist and technologist who created an Instagram account in 2012 called @metaverse. This account documented his life in Brisbane, his travels in Shanghai, and the founding of his augmented reality company called Metaverse Makeovers.

The account never caught fire and on October 28, the day Facebook announced its name change, it had fewer than 1,000 followers. She got wind of the name change before most, with strangers messaging her Instagram to ask her to buy the handle.

The Brisbane woman told The New York Times the account was disabled just days after Facebook announced the name change. “This account is a decade of my life and my work. I didn't want my contribution to the Metaverse wiped off the internet, ”she said.

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“It happens all the time to women in tech, to women of color in tech."

She launched Metaverse Makeovers in 2012. The product worked when a phone ran the app on top of the real-world nail design created by her team, it showed holograms coming out of the nails.

The company considered expanding the technology to other clothing and sundries, but the money ran out in 2017. Despite this, the Metaverse account remained active until November 2, 2021.

When Ms. Bauman attempted to log in in November, she received the following message: “Your account has been blocked for pretending to be someone else”. On December 2, a month after the artist first took to Instagram to restore her account, The New York Times reached out to Meta to ask why it had been closed.

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According to the post, an Instagram spokesperson said the account was "improperly deleted for impersonation" and would be restored.

Two days later, the account was back online. The spokesperson did not explain why she was reported for impersonation, or who she might have impersonated. The company did not respond to further questions on whether the block was related to Facebook's rebranding.

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