Lawyers for Steve Wozniak and 17 other people adversely affected by fake Bitcoin giveaway scams on YouTube have sued the platform and parent company Google for not acting quickly to ban such content. According to a July 22 announcement from the law firm of Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, Google and its subsidiary YouTube failed to protect users from fake Bitcoin (BTC) giveaway scam channels featuring images and videos of Wozniak and other celebrities. The hijacked channels run ‘giveaway’ scams stating that anyone who sends cryptocurrency to a certain address will receive much more cryptocurrency in return, when in fact they …

YouTube’s legal team has argued the platform is immune from liability for cryptocurrency scams perpetrated as part of its video content or descriptions. Attorneys for Ripple and CEO Brad Garlinghouse filed a lawsuit against YouTube in April in response to the platform’s failure to stop XRP scammers and impersonators. Ripple argued that the platform benefits from the actions of the scammers by profiting from paid ads. But according to a July 21 update on Law360, lawyers for the video-sharing platform argued in a dismissal bid that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — which generally protects platform publishers from …

VeChain is clearly going up in the crypto world, as it is the latest target of the classic fake livestream airdrop on YouTube. The livestream, promising to give away half a billion VET tokens, has 38,000 viewers at time of writing. Double your money It’s a time-honored scam, supposedly originating from the early days of the Runescape online video game. You give me one token, I give you two tokens back. Double your money. Simple. Except for the fact that you never get the two tokens back. The YouTube version involves either hijacking or setting up a fake channel, and …

YouTube’s bans on crypto-related content has been problematic for the industry and is spurring demand for decentralized alternatives. However, according to Wes Levitt, head of strategy at Theta Labs — the firm behind Theta.tv — both YouTube and decentralized platforms can co-exist. YouTube is increasingly banning crypto-related content. In April, Jason Appleton, known as Crypto Crow, was banned from YouTube briefly. In May, Cointelegraph’s Bitcoin halving Livestream was canceled abruptly. Levitt told Cointelegraph, “We definitely see this censorship of crypto content as a problem, and we've recently welcomed several crypto streamers onto Theta.tv platform as a result. A fully decentralized …

Online supporters have donated nearly $100,000 in cryptocurrency to white supremacist and alt-right activist Stefan Molyneux following his removal from YouTube for “fomenting violence and hatred.” After Molyneux posted a video to his Twitter account on June 29 stating YouTube had banned him from the platform, he issued a request for donations in cryptocurrency through his website. The alt-right figure lists addresses for Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ether (ETH), Dash (DASH), Skycoin (SKY), Dogecoin (DOGE) and Monero (XMR). As of press time, his supporters have sent 433 BCH, dozens small Bitcoin transactions of mostly 0.001 BTC or less, three …

As Pride month comes to an end, Cointelegraph hosts an online meetup to discuss LGBTQ+ issues in the crypto and blockchain community. Called “LGBTQ+ and Blockchain: Community-Powered Tech and Tech-Powered Community,” the new session of Cointelegraph Talks features community members like LGBTTech’s Christopher Wood and UNAIDS’ Eric Lamontagne. Other speakers include Hornet’s Christof Wittig, BitBull Capital CEO Joe DiPasquale, LGBT Foundation’s Sean Howell, Muckr AI’s Susan Oh, and Fintech.TV’s Dr Jane Thomason. Hosted by Cointelegraph's opinion editor, Max Yakubowski, the upcoming session is less than an hour away, scheduled to start at 1 pm EST and ending at 2 pm …

UPDATE: Bitcoin.com’s account has now been unsuspended and can be accessed. According to YouTube, the channel was “terminated in error.” YouTube has shut down the official channel of cryptocurrency news-focused website Bitcoin.com for “a violation of YouTube's Terms of Service.” As Bitcoin.com executive chairman Roger Ver told Cointelegraph, YouTube notified them about the ban around 2:17AM EST June 13. The account had over 40 thousand subscribers at the time it was suspended. Bitcoin.com then sent an appeal to YouTube within “a few hours”. Two days later, at 8:59 AM EST June 15, Youtube notified Bitcoin.com that their channel had been …

Those in the know expect President Trump to sign a fresh executive order today, imposing greater accountability on social media providers. The order draft, labeled at press time as "Preventing Online Censorship," brings further clarity to social media industry boundaries, ABC News said on May 28. "This will be a Big Day for Social Media and FAIRNESS!" Trump tweeted on the morning of May 28. The order follows Twitter fact checking efforts Social media powerhouse Twitter recently flagged certain tweets with a fact-check tag. The platform flagged some of Trump's posts about voting and ballots, pinning a noted under the …

It’s been a good week for Bitcoin. The halving doesn’t seem to have done the top cryptocurrency any harm at all, with the dollar value up more than 8 percent over the previous week. Ethereum is up more than 10 percent which just shows that the opportunity for blockchain-based solutions are still red-hot. If you’re taking that opportunity to issue tokens or digitized assets and seeking legal counsel with respect to securities and regulation then you should speak to Josh Lawler at law firm Zuber Lawler. They sponsor the Bad Crypto podcast and they’re specialists in developing technology, including the …

Coming every Sunday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Bitcoin price charts hint at the most exciting breakout in over a year The halving has been and gone — and so far, it hasn’t been the cataclysmic event that some in crypto circles feared. Some market analysts have now set their sights on what will happen next. Cointelegraph’s Keith Wareing says Bitcoin is on …

Scammers are streaming Michael Bloomberg speeches on YouTube, claiming that the former presidential candidate is giving away free Bitcoin (BTC). Michael Bloomberg BTC Giveaway On May 14, there were at least two such incidents with an apparent combined audience of almost 60,000. The scammers asked viewers to send between 0.1 BTC and 250 BTC to the video’s Bitcoin address, promising to return double their value. The channel alleged that Michael Bloomberg was facilitating crypto adoption through this mechanism. All related videos have since been removed by YouTube. Screenshots Of YouTube Streams. Source: Cointelegraph. According to the information from WHOis.net, a …

YouTube’s censorship rabbit hole is deep, especially when it comes to cryptocurrency topics. Cointelegraph had a full day of programming lined up for a livestream that covered Bitcoin’s third block halving on May 11. The agenda mostly went off without a hitch — fintech luminaries like Tim Draper, Roger Ver, Meltem Demirors and many more shared their time and opinions with Cointelegraph editorial staff over the course of a livestream that lasted just under seven hours. But the stream was blocked and deleted six hours and 42 minutes into a nearly finished program, locking more than 2,000 viewers out of …