In short
- Co-founder of Apple Steve Wozniak says that YouTube has ignored multiple Takedown requests after his similarity was used in a Bitcoin welder.
- The warning from Wozniak comes in the midst of an increase in AI-driven Faurfraud aimed at technical leaders.
- Last week, a British MP called on that YouTube advertisements face the same regulations as TV and radio advertisements.
Co-founder of Apple Steve Wozniak has accused YouTube not to act against one Bitcoin SCAM who used his parable and warns that the same lax systems now make an increase in the worldwide fraud of deepfake.
“Some people said they lost their life savings,” Wozniak said CBS News. “That’s a crime. A good person, if you see a crime happening, get in and try to stop.”
Wozniak discovered that he had been registered in scam advertisements a few years earlier and still fought against a case of 2020 against YouTube because of the lack of action in the downing of the content.
The co-founder of Apple said he discovered the scam after his wife, Janet, received an e-mail from a victim in which they would get their money back.
The scammers had “actually made video of WOZ who spoke about Bitcoin,” Janet explained. “Then they put a nice frame around it with a Bitcoin address and said if you sent him a quantity of Bitcoin, he would send you double.”
“Look at spam, look at the phishing attempts everywhere,” said Wozniak. “And there is not enough real, I don’t know, muscle to fight it.”
DeepFake Fraud in the rise
The warning from Wozniak comes in the midst of an explosion by AI generated deepfakes and increasing online fraud. According to reports from the FBI’s Internet Crime Crime Combiner (IC3), around $ 9.3 billion was lost with online scams in 2024. The real total is probably much higher.
Technical leaders from Elon Musk to Jeff Bezos have seen their similarities in similar scams, while critics say that large platforms continue to act slowly. A lack of robust moderation and supervision for online advertisements, especially on social media and video platforms, has made spam, misleading and outright fraudulent content possible.
Wozniak’s criticism of YouTube reflects that of the British Liberal -Democrat Mp Max Wilkinson, who called last week to be advertised on the platform to be regulated according to the same standards as television and radio in the UK.
“Regulations must catch up with the reality of how people look at content,” said Wilkinson, warning that “unscrupulous advertisers should not use meshes to exploit people.”
Google, which owns YouTube, said Decrypt It removed more than 5.1 billion advertisements and limited another 9.1 billion in 2024, has suspended 39.2 million advertisers for major violations and blocked advertisements at 1.3 billion publishing pages.
The company said it has a strict advertising policy, invests heavily in enforcement and thousands of people work around the clock to guard its platforms.
It is not the only technology company that has come for criticism of the possibilities of the content of the content. Similar claims are leveled on meta, x and other social media platforms.
Daily debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories at the moment, plus original functions, a podcast, videos and more.
