Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he was made the unwitting face of a YouTube bitcoin scam \u2014 and fears the same system now fuels a global deepfake fraud wave targeting tech titans from Elon Musk to Jeff Bezos.<\/p>\n
In an interview with\u00a0CBS News<\/em>, Wozniak said the fraudsters took an old video of him discussing bitcoin, then \u201cput a nice frame around it with a Bitcoin address\u201d promising to double any amount sent. \u201cOf course it\u2019s fraud,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The scam only came to light when his wife, Janet, got an email from a victim asking when they\u2019d get their money back. \u201cSome people said they lost their life savings,\u201d Wozniak said. \u201cThat\u2019s a crime. You know, a good person, if you see a crime happening, you step in and you do something about it. You try to stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n But YouTube, he claims, didn\u2019t act. \u201cWe never got to YouTube; our lawyer has gotten to their lawyer, that\u2019s all,\u201d he said, adding that Janet\u2019s multiple takedown requests went unanswered. \u201cThey wouldn\u2019t,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n For Wozniak, the incident reflects how far the internet has drifted from its early ideals. \u201cWhen the internet really began to be a public thing, it seemed to be there to democratise information,\u201d he said. \u201cOh, I loved it for that! \u2026 And then came the social web and Google. Google had to make money. And the only way to make money is tracking you and selling it to advertisers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not enough real\u2026 muscle to fight\u201d scams, he added, citing billions lost each year to cryptocurrency and AI fraud. And while Wozniak still calls Apple \u201cthe best,\u201d he said when he speaks out about things he doesn\u2019t like, \u201cNobody buys my voice.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wozniak is now suing YouTube on behalf of victims, but the case has been stalled for five years under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms from liability for user-generated content. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he was made the unwitting face of a YouTube bitcoin scam \u2014 and fears the same […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[45,46,56,57,48,47,52,60,54,49,51,50,53,55,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-e-commerce","category-e-commerce-fraud","category-fake-shopping-websites","category-grandparents-scams","category-internet-fraud","category-internet-scams","category-lottery-scams","category-online-scams","category-phishing-scams","category-ransomware","category-romance-scams","category-scareware","category-technical-support-scams","category-travel-scams","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t