Steve Wozniak Prevails in Legal Battle Against YouTube

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has secured another legal victory in his ongoing battle against YouTube over the use of fake videos featuring the entrepreneur in a bitcoin scam. This was reported by Bloomberg.

The San Jose appeals court overturned a lower court ruling that had absolved the video hosting platform of any liability.

According to the decision, YouTube cannot rely on the protections of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) in this case. 

The verdict allows Wozniak to continue his lawsuit against the platform and potentially paves the way for changes to the contentious legal provisions that exempt services like YouTube from responsibility for hosted content, the agency noted.

In July 2020, the Apple co-founder joined a class-action lawsuit alleging that the actions of fraudsters led to millions of dollars in losses among video hosting users. The scammers also impersonated Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Michael Dell.

Edited videos featuring these figures included promises of free cryptocurrency giveaways—users were asked to send bitcoins to a specified address to receive double the amount in return. 

According to a previous ruling by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Sunil Kulkarni, YouTube was not liable for third-party content under Section 230 of the CDA.

However, the appeals court concluded that immunity could not be applied due to a lack of proper checks. The judges noted that YouTube and its parent company Google were responsible for a “material contribution” to the fraud by providing verification badges to scammers’ accounts. 

In the case at hand, one of the scam channels received a “checkmark” during the execution of the fraudulent scheme.

The video hosting platform has repeatedly blocked channels of crypto commentators and influencers for “spreading unwanted content.” This affected, for example, streams by Morgan Creek Digital co-founder Anthony Pompliano, well-known trader Tone Vays, and blogger Sunny Decree.

Meanwhile, fraudulent videos promoting free cryptocurrency giveaways were not only left unmoderated but also ended up being recommended by the service.

Back in September 2022, on the day of the iPhone 14 presentation, unknown individuals launched a fake bitcoin giveaway on YouTube using an old interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook.