According to reports, Steve Wozniak has lost a legal case that he registered against Google’s popular video platform, YouTube, for not taking action against Bitcoin scammers.
The legal case continued for almost a year, after which YouTube has crowned Victor. The Judge of the supreme court working on the case highlighted that YouTube and Google are protected by federal law and are constantly working to prevent scams and other harmful activities. During the same time, last year, Steve Wozniak initiated to take legal action against YouTube because of scammers using Steve’s name to create scamming opportunities on the platform. The scammers were using Wozniak’s name as a stimulant to promote fake giveaways on YouTube through live streams.
The scammers would tell people to give up their personal details after letting them win in the fake giveaway. Scammers would then create a copy of popular websites and ask users for login details, leading to accounts getting stolen. The number of people targeted was impossible to track.
Case Highlights
Steve Wozniak partnered up with law firms named Cotchett, Pitre and McCarthy to help him in registering the lawsuit against the world’s biggest video platform. Steve said that YouTube has failed to deal with these types of scamming activities and also accused YouTube of supporting the scammers by approving advertisements related to the fake giveaways that would bring in the victims. Most users are not smart and are unaware of the dangers that can occur.
The Outcome
Despite all of these claims, Judge Sunil Kulkarni from the Santa Clara Country Court gave statements in favour of YouTube and Google. Judge Sunil stated that YouTube is a platform that falls under the protection of the federal law that protects platforms from being held responsible for posts published by users. Adding to that, Judge Sunil also said that Steve’s arguments did not have enough weight and strength to counter Section 230. As of now, Steve has been granted a month to work on the case.
Celebrities and Youtubers
Steve hasn’t been the only one used to target random people on the internet using scamming. Popular figures, such as Elon Musk and Bill Gates, have also been used to promote scams. Some Youtubers have also been facing issues regarding their accounts getting hacked and then being used for scams, resulting in account suspension in reaction to YouTube’s system. YouTubers have to go through an extremely frustrating process to get their channels back, as it is literally their only source of income.