Steve Wozniak Sues YouTube Over Ongoing Bitcoin Scams

Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak has sued YouTube for allowing scammers to use his names and likeness for scamming people for bitcoins.

The phonies have been posting videos on YouTube claiming that Wozniak will double the amount of Bitcoin they’ll send to a particular bitcoin address and will send it back to them, according to the lawsuit filed.

“YouTube has featured a steady stream of scam videos and promotions that falsely use images and videos of Plaintiff Steve Wozniak, and other famous tech entrepreneurs, and that have defrauded YouTube users out of millions of dollars,” the complaint reads.

 The lawsuits feature stills of videos claiming “5000-BTC” and “10000-BTC” been given away by Wozniak. Tech leaders like Elon Musk, Bill Gates and others have also experienced the same problem.

The Plaintiffs, which includes Wozniak and 17 others, complained that YouTube is aware of this on-going scam but is doing nothing to stop it.

“Despite Plaintiffs’ and legions of other users’ repeated pleas that YouTube take timely action to end this bitcoin giveaway scam, YouTube repeatedly delayed or refused to do so,” reads the lawsuit. “As a result of defendants’ egregious failures to act and affirmative misconduct in promoting this criminal enterprise, Plaintiff Wozniak has suffered, and continues to suffer, irreparable harm to his reputation, and YouTube users, including plaintiffs, have been defrauded out of millions of dollars. Among other relief, Plaintiffs seek an order requiring YouTube to finally end its outrageous practice of hosting, promoting, and profiting from these criminally fraudulent videos and promotions.”

“We take abuse of our platform seriously, and take action quickly when we detect violations of our policies, such as scams or impersonation,” said a YouTube spokesperson.

Bitcoin fraud is nothing new, but they are prevailing more and more in new social media platforms, using the identities of huge successful individuals in order to fraud people. Hackers were able to access various high-profile users such as Barack Obama, Kanye West, Elon Musk, Joe Biden, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg. They accessed all these accounts and did the same thing they did Wozniak, asked people to send Bitcoins to a particular address in order to double them.

This scam is believed to steal at least $120,000 from various accounts. It is a very alerting question to be ask ourselves how safe are these social media platforms and there is a constant need for educating ourselves when it comes to online scams.