meghan trainor, 45, has been an exhibition artist and performer for more than 15 years. he has worked on 3d printing, brain-computer interface, robotics and medieval technology. drone metal outfit earth is her favorite band and, this week, she was banned from her social media accounts for “impersonating” meghan trainor, that is, herself.
meghan trainor, 25, is a pop singer-songwriter probably best known for her single “all about that bass,” which was released five years ago. When that song was released, “every person I’ve ever met in my life decided to send me that video,” the artist told Gizmodo. “I was very aware that the single happened.” She said she dismissed the other Meghan as a one-hit wonder and that she had a sense of humor about it, but after a few years, she realized the singer wasn’t fading into obscurity. “But it never occurred to me that it would affect my ability to do my job.”
and though she trains or the artist has achieved her own renown — she characterized herself as “mildly famous” — with an online aesthetic easily distinguishable from the pop singer, that didn’t matter to social media. Within a period of 24 hours, she was blocked from her youtube, gmail and twitter accounts.
According to screenshots trainor sent to gizmodo, his google account was disabled on Thursday for violating company policies. The email he received from YouTube (a subsidiary of Google) earlier that day was more specific: It said that his account was terminated due to what the company considered a valid phishing complaint. And while he tried to use Twitter to draw attention to his problem, his account on that site was also briefly suspended on Friday. asked for comment, twitter confirmed to gizmodo that his account had been flagged for phishing.
eventually, he was able to get his gmail and twitter accounts back, but trainor wasn’t sure what the url was for his long inactive youtube channel, which made it impossible to dispute the termination.
“The level of unforeseen disruption to my basic ability to work and function was mind-boggling,” the artist told gizmodo. “I’m not naive about the digital space, but the degree to which it happened, and I had no recourse, the speed of this is really scary to me.”
The elderly trainor is a freelance artist, so the blocking of her email account threatened her ability to do her work. Without her account, she couldn’t communicate with her clients or access her files. Until now, she said, she could see comedy by sharing a name with a pop star. and she has been making art much longer than the train or the singer. In fact, the artist Trainor said that years ago, before the singer’s great success, the other Meghan tried to buy her domain, meghantrainor.com. train or the artist rejected it. “That’s where all my work is,” she said. (The singer is on meghan-trainor.com instead.)
“It’s very easy to realize right away that I’m my own eyeball person,” Trainor told Gizmodo.
trainor, the artist, said that after people shared the news of her suspension from twitter, the “second most famous” megan fox, who works in technology, tweeted her and told her that the company would not give her a blue checkmark because she shares her name with the actress. “This policy is a failure,” the Fox technologist tweeted on Friday. “Social media absolutely can’t keep doing this. no one’s name is unique (sorry).”
When my editor told me that trainor had been blocked from her email, youtube and twitter accounts, my first thought was: how could I let people know that she had been silenced online? Trainor said that because she also works in digital strategy, she knows how to fix her account lockouts. “But again, this is me. What if she is someone else? ”
Across all online platforms, tech companies seem more willing this year to moderate their platforms, as long as it keeps influencer brands and advertisers happy. In January, YouTube’s support team vaguely tweeted that it was “in the process of implementing additional measures to prevent phishing” after a series of high-profile incidents, which may have been what led to account termination. by trainor. And just this week, Amazon announced that it would allow brands to pull product listings they say are counterfeit from the site.
The disturbing convenience with which google and twitter kicked someone out of their digital lives simply because they shared their name with someone famous suggests that moderation of phishing on social media hasn’t gotten any better, it’s been harder. it also points to an online world where sheer coincidence, and the willingness of tech companies to go to great lengths for major brands, can leave you completely speechless on major platforms.
update 5:40 PM m.: asked for comment, youtube told gizmodo that trainor’s account has been restored. “With the massive volume of videos on our site, we sometimes make mistakes,” said a YouTube spokesperson. “When an error is reported to us, we act quickly to reinstate the videos or channels in question.”
Do you share a name with a celebrity or high-profile figure? Has it interfered with your ability to exist online? email me: melanie.ehrenkranz@gizmodo.com.