Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is clapping back at fake ads that featured his likeness
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has won an appeals court decision in the latest round of the battle against YouTube over doctored videos featuring his likeness that were used in a 2020 Bitcoin scam. The verdict overturned a lower court judgment that cleared YouTube of any wrongdoing.
The court ruled that YouTube’s reliance on a controversial communications statute to avoid liability for fraud cannot be used and that it exploited Wozniak’s fame using a fake video to scam people, according to a Bloomberg report.
The latest ruling allows Wozniak to continue pursuing the suit and possibly set a precedent for changing federal laws protecting video streaming platforms like YouTube from any liability for content within videos posted on their platforms.
Wozniak and 17 other complainants, including Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Michael Dell, filed a lawsuit against YouTube and its parent company, Google, in 2020 after doctored YouTube videos involved in a scam went viral.
The videos included text and pictures promising free Bitcoin if viewers sent Bitcoin to a specific address to double their money.
The recent appeals court verdict is seen as a big win for Wozniak and the others. A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge ruled in 2022 that the companies were protected under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Appeal court judges found that scam promoters often hack popular YouTube channels and that Google and YouTube are responsible for “materially contributing” to the fraud by “providing verification badges to hijacked YouTube channels.”
The platform also didn’t remove the verification badges after channels began posting scam videos, with one earning a verification badge during the scam operation. Therefore, the appeal court ascertained that companies may not be protected by Section 230 exemption as it assisted in the scam by verifying.
