Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak wins the latest round of court action against YouTube over its use of doctored images featuring his likeness in a 2020 Bitcoin scam video. The appeals court's latest ruling overturns a lower court decision that absolved YouTube of any liability.
A San Jose appeals court has ruled that YouTube cannot rely on controversial communications regulations to absolve it from liability for fraudulent practices that took advantage of the Apple co-founder's popularity to deceive people by doctoring videos, Bloomberg reported.
The latest ruling allows Wozniak to continue his lawsuit against the video streaming platform and could pave the way for changes in federal law that would protect video streaming platforms like YouTube from any liability arising from videos posted on the platform.
In 2020, the Apple co-founder and 17 people including Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Michael Dell filed lawsuits against YouTube and its parent company Google after doctored videos promoting false scams went viral on YouTube. Litigation. Modified video adds additional text and images promising free Bitcoins, viewers are asked to send Bitcoin to a specific address to receive double their money.
The appeals court's latest ruling is seen as a major victory for Wozniak and others after a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge ruled in 2022 that the companies were shielded from liability under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Popular YouTube channels are regularly hacked to promote scams, an appeals court judge has observed. Google and YouTube "contributed significantly" to the scam by "providing verification badges to hijacked YouTube channels."
The platform also failed to remove these verification badges when the channel started posting scam videos, while verification badges were obtained during the scam.
Therefore, the appeals court held that companies may not be protected by Section 230 immunity because they facilitated the fraud through verification.
Wozniak's attorney, Joe Cotchett, said the ruling highlights "how social media platforms such as Google and YouTube cannot be held accountable for their actions and cannot use Section 230 as a blanket umbrella for their actions." .
