Lawyers for Steve Wozniak and 17 others negatively affected by fake Bitcoin raffle scams on YouTube have sued the platform and parent company Google for failing to act quickly to ban such content.
According to a July 22 announcement by law firm Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, Google and its YouTube subsidiary failed to protect users from fake Bitcoin (BTC) scam channels with images and videos of Wozniak and other celebrities. The hijacked channels run “giveaway” scams that indicate that anyone who sends cryptocurrencies to a certain address will receive in return much more cryptocurrency, when in reality they receive nothing.
Screenshot of the fake Bitcoin gift video provided by Cotchett, Pitre and McCarthy
“If YouTube had acted quickly to stop this to a reasonable degree, we would not be here now,” Wozniak said.
“YouTube, like Google, appears to rely on algorithms, and no special effort requiring personalized software was quickly employed in these cases of criminal activity. If a crime is committed, you must be able to reach humans capable of stopping it. What human would see posts like these and not ban them as criminals right away?
According to Joe Cotchett, one of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy’s partners, YouTube “knowingly allowed the Bitcoin scam to continue for months, promoted it and profited from it by selling targeted advertising.”
The complaint comprises Wozniak and 17 other people from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Malaysia, China and Europe who were victims of the BTC scam.
Curl against Apple
Wozniak’s lawsuit comes a day after YouTube’s layoff offer in a similar case filed by Ripple Labs. The crypto firm sued the platform for its alleged failure to stop XRP scammers and impersonators.
However, in a statement on July 21, YouTube’s legal team argued that the video-sharing platform is not responsible for any content, including scams, provided by third parties.
Unlike the Ripple case, which was filed in federal court, Wozniak’s legal team will be heard by a judge in the Superior Court of the State of California in San Mateo County, a state court.
Wozniak and his legal team will hold a face-to-face and virtual press conference on July 23 at 11:00 am PST in Burlingame, California.
