Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is suing YouTube and Google for videos on their platform that use his likeness in cryptocurrency giveaway scams.
In a lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of California on Tuesday, Wozniak claims that the videos used his likeness without his permission. He and 17 others are suing YouTube and its parent company, Google, over the video scams.
“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,” the filing reads.
The lawsuit alleges that YouTube has “refused or failed” to take the scam videos down from the platform and even provided paid advertising to the videos. The filing includes screenshots of several separate YouTube videos that show Wozniak’s face attached to a 5,000 Bitcoin giveaway.
YouTube does have tools that users can use to report channels or videos that are impersonating their likeness and removed 2.2. million videos for violating its spam policies in the the first three months of 2020 alone.
“We take abuse of our platform seriously, and take action quickly when we detect violations of our policies, such as scams or impersonation,” a YouTube spokesperson said in regards to the lawsuit.
Digital Trends also reached out to Wozniak’s team to comment on the lawsuit. We will update this story when we hear back.
The filing comes one week after Twitter experienced a similar Bitcoin scam where celebrities, billionaires, and companies apparently posted messages offering anyone thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrency.
Twitter looked into the situation within an hour after the fake tweets began and eventually locked all verified accounts for two hours as a precautionary measure. The company said it believes the hack had been made possible by tricking one or more of its employees who had access to Twitter’s internal systems and tools.
Tuesday’s filing said that Twitter acted “swiftly and decisively” in shutting down crypto giveaway hacks and said that YouTube “has been unapologetically hosting, promoting, and directly profiting from similar scams.”
Instagram is testing a new format for long-form videos called Features. It allows select creators to upload horizontal videos running up to 90 minutes long. Instagram has already tested the new format with creators in Brazil, and now, it's expanding to tens of thousands of creators across the US.
How will Instagram's new Features format work?
Instagram is making its way to yet another screen, and this time, Apple TV is getting a taste of the Reels rabbit hole. The company has launched a dedicated Instagram app for Apple TV, bringing Reels, longer videos, and live shows to the big screen. So, if watching one quick clip on a phone somehow turns into an hour of scrolling, there's now a much larger screen for that.
Instagram brings Reels and more to Apple TV
I have lost count of how many times I have gone to bed thinking I will finally sleep on time, only to somehow end up scrolling Instagram or X again. A few minutes turn into an hour, then another, and before I notice, it is 2 or 3 a.m. The next morning, I am usually annoyed with myself because I could have just slept and felt considerably better for the day ahead.
It is also a surprisingly hard habit to beat. Knowing you should put the phone down does not always help once it is already in your hand. Brick Night is a new gadget built around that exact problem. Instead of relying on you to remember to turn on an app blocker, it automatically restricts selected apps and websites when your phone enters your chosen sleep space during the hours you set.