Apple Co-founder Wozniak Wins in Legal Battle over YouTube Bitcoin Scam
Summary:
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has won an appellate court ruling allowing his lawsuit against YouTube to proceed over a Bitcoin scam using manipulated videos of him. The decision could lead to changes in the federal law that protects such platforms from liability for posted videos. The court held that YouTube and Google, by providing verification badges to hijacked channels and failing to remove them, may not be protected by Section 230 immunity.
In a legal victory for Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, an appellate court has reversed a previous ruling that had excused YouTube from liability in a 2020 Bitcoin scam using manipulated videos featuring Wozniak. The San Jose appeals court declared that YouTube could not leverage a specific communications statute to evade accountability for the scam which was perpetrated using a video manipulated to boost its credibility via Wozniak's fame, as berated by Bloomberg. This recent court ruling permits Wozniak to proceed with his lawsuit against the video-sharing platform, potentially triggering an amendment to the federal law that protects such platforms from liability arising from video content.
In 2020, Wozniak, along with 17 other individuals including Michael Dell, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk, filed a legal case against YouTube and its parent company, Google, after fraudulent videos endorsing a scam circulated widely on the site. The manipulated videos, which included additional texts and images, offered free Bitcoin and instructed viewers to send Bitcoin to a specific address to have their sent amount doubled.
This appellate court victory is a significant one for Wozniak and his co-plaintiffs as a judge of the Santa Clara County Superior Court had, in
2022, ruled in favor of the corporations, citing protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act on account of their non-liability.
According to the appellate court, noted YouTube channels are often prone to being hacked for scam promotion. Google and YouTube were implicated in the scam owing to their "material contribution" through the granting of verification badges to the hijacked channels. They were also blamed for not retracting these badges even when scam videos came up, while one channel received its badge amid the scam.
The court, therefore, indicated that such companies might not enjoy Section 230 immunity since they contributed to the scam by offering verification. Wozniak's legal representative, Joe Cotchett, asserts that the ruling emphasizes that platforms such as Google and YouTube must be held accountable for their actions and cannot exploit Section 230 as an absolute defense against their actions.
Published At
3/20/2024 1:28:49 PM
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