identity loss
identity loss on the web is when someone loses their account(s), domains, and/or usernames for any reason, and one of the notions why it's better to focus on a presence where you are in control while treating social media only as an ephemeral distribution mechanism.
Username Seizure
- 2024: X seizes @america: Elon Musk takes @America handle from X user to promote Donald Trump
- 2023: Twitter seizes @x account: Elon Musk reportedly screws over San Francisco man who owns @x amid Twitter rebrand
- 2021-12-13 : Her Instagram Handle Was 'Metaverse.' Last Month, It Vanished. (archived)
Five days after Facebook changed its name to Meta, an Australian artist found herself blocked, with seemingly no recourse, from an account documenting nearly a decade of her life and work.[…]In 2012, she had started an Instagram account with the handle @metaverse…[…]Early that [Nov 2] morning, when she tried to log in to Instagram, she found that the account had been disabled. A message on the screen read: "Your account has been blocked for pretending to be someone else."[…]On Dec. 2, a month after Ms. Baumann first appealed to Instagram to restore her account, The New York Times contacted Meta to ask why it had been shut down. An Instagram spokesman said that the account had been "incorrectly removed for impersonation" and would be restored. "We’re sorry this error occurred," he wrote.Two days later, the account was back online.
(emphasis added) Restoring the account apparently required getting mainstream press to ask about it directly. - 2015-07-19 : How Instagram closed my account and gave it to a football celebrity (archived)
- 2011 : How safe is your Twitter name? (archived)
Here's our full interview with Morna Simpson of Girl Geek Scotland about her experiences having her Twitter name suddenly taken away from her.
Other Examples
- 2011-04-27 : Tumblr disappeared me... (archived)
- 2011-11-24 : Banned From Facebook (archived)
- 2011-12-12 : Father's open letter to Google: 'Thanks for making my daughter cry' (archived)
There's no legal reason behind Google's decision to block my daughter's account. They've chosen to implement these age restrictions in this particular way. They've chosen to lock up my daughter's data without warning. They've chosen to threaten to delete the data.
- 2012-04-14 : How I lost access to my Google account today (archived)
- 2013-02-28 : Google Killed Me (archived)
- 2013-09-12 : Beware: Your Business Is At The Mercy Of Facebook! Social Fixer Page Deleted Without Explanation... (archived)
- 2016-02-17 : The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens: That feeling when you hit a million followers, make more money than your mom, push a diet pill scheme, lose your blog, and turn 16. (archived)
- 2018-05-30 : Twitter Is (Retroactively) Banning Anyone Whose Date of Birth Says They Joined Before They Were 13 (archived)
- 2018-10-15 : Friction-Free Racism
Facebook's use of "ethnic affinity" as a proxy for race is a prime example. The platform's interface does not offer users a way to self-identify according to race, but advertisers can nonetheless target people based on Facebook's ascription of an "affinity" along racial lines. In other words. race is deployed as an externally assigned category for purposes of commercial exploitation and social control, not part of self-generated identity for reasons of personal expression. The ability to define one's self and tell one's own stories is central to being human and how one relates to others; platforms' ascribing identity through data undermines both.
- 2022: https://twitter.com/m_ott/status/1584648614282133504
- "Wow, @mmatuzo is now suspended? 🤯
Manuel is a well-respected member of the web community, accessibility advocate, and international conference speaker. Please look into this, @TwitterSupport – there really must be an error here!" @m_ott October 24, 2022
- "Wow, @mmatuzo is now suspended? 🤯