
Steve Wozniak sues YouTube over ongoing bitcoin scams - Ceezy
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/23/21335554/steve-wozniak-youtube-lawsuit-bitcoin-scam-cryptocurrency-apple
======
Yhippa
I'm kind of surprised by these scams. If you're savvy enough to know how to
buy cryptocurrency in the first place, how can you get duped by these kinds of
scams?

~~~
reaperducer
I think the days of cryptocurrency being for the "savvy" are long past.

It's been featured in everything from The Today Show to supermarket tabloids.
There is no counting the number of crypto buying tutorials on the web. There
are crypto ATMs. I've heard retires with no computer talking about it.

It's not mainstream the way a savings account is, but it's not the exclusive
club the promoters want people to think it is.

~~~
blaser-waffle
There was another post on HN just 2-3 days ago, about how an HN-poster was
taking a cab in Sydney and the cabbie was talking to him about BTC.

Cue the inevitable Joe Kennedy comparison: Kennedy Sr. supposedly got a shoe-
shine one day, and had a conversation with the shoe-shine boy about said boy's
hot stock tips. Kennedy realized everything was overheated and overhyped, and
pulled his cash out of the market; the crash of '29 happened not long after.

~~~
ta17711771
Saw this exact comparison 2-3 years ago.

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creato
These scams are so stupid I can't believe people actually fall for them in
significant numbers, let alone after all this time they've been going on.

The scams must be part of some kind of bitcoin laundering scheme, I just can't
figure out how, it seems more like a bitcoin tainting scheme rather than
cleaning.

~~~
Hokusai
> I can't believe people actually fall for them

There is people with a high level of trust. They will believe almost anything.
Sometimes they are in a vulnerable situation, sometimes it comes with age as
cognitive function gets worse, other times maybe people with high stress
situations looking for a way out of their problems, they exist.

In phishing, the scammer knows that most people will ignore their mails. But,
they are trying to get to the vulnerable people, the ones that will bite the
bait. "significant numbers" is difficult to evaluate. Maybe it is a very low
percentage of the people that is targeted, but when the targeted are in the
millions the victims are going to add up.

And, in my experience, this is a psychological trait. A kind of opposite to
paranoia. A paranoid person will not believe anyone. A too-trusting person
will believe everyone.

Phishing and other scams prey on the vulnerable.

~~~
smlckz
> A kind of opposite to paranoia.

You mean, pronoia?

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pronoia#Etymology_2](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pronoia#Etymology_2)

~~~
Hokusai
> You mean, pronoia?

Yes.

(psychology) A belief (sometimes regarded as irrational) that people conspire
to do one good. [from 1981] Antonym: paranoia

It is interesting how prevalent is "paranoia" in books and movies and how
little attention "pronoia" gets.

Thank you. I didn't knew that the word existed.

------
neurostimulant
I set up a bitcoin (and other crypto) payment option for my client a while
ago, and it's sad to see it's getting used by less and less customers every
month (not even a single customer use it in the last two months).

Bitcoin is much more useful in the early days as a payment option. It let me
receive money for my small gigs from overseas clients back then when I was a
student without getting a major cut from transfer fee, and let me purchase
stuff online via reloadable bitcoin virtual debit card or even direct bitcoin
payment (back then banks in my country treat online purchase as high risk and
disable support for online payment with visa/mc debit cards, and as a student
I couldn't get a credit card yet). It did felt like a currency of the future
back then. Now it's just another financial commodity used by day traders and
get-rich-quick scammers :(

~~~
SergeAx
You said it yourself: sending money from overseas or making online purchases
got much easier today, so crypto is being displaced into more shadier areas,
where fiat electronic payments are less acceptable, like buying illegal goods
or scamming people.

------
nix23
Hello Sir's, we have a new quantum-computer (really fast really safe) send
over bitcoins to safe your own.

Best regards,

QuantumSuperFast ACME Inc.

BTW:

This is what happens when you reply to spam email | James Veitch

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QdPW8JrYzQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QdPW8JrYzQ)

~~~
pedrocx486
Ironically, I tried replying to spam to have fun and never got an answer. I
assume they know their targets?

~~~
nix23
I think most of the times it's just to see if the Address is actually
used..then sell it as an active email-address.

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orionblastar
Bitcoin scams, never send Bitcoins unless you verified the source you are
sending them to. Giveaways don't exist and even if they do you should not send
Bitcoins in a contest but send a Bitcoin address to the person to send you
Bitcoins.

------
SergeAx
I really hope that it's not that percent of retarded (in medical sense) people
is growing thru population, it's just that connecting to internet and buy
bitcoins became extremely easy and seamless.

------
jaimex2
With all their recent moderation changes over the years Youtube have stupidly
opened themselves up to these kinds of lawsuits and it'll be what opens up
oportunity for a competitor to take over.

The DMCA take down system was a legal requirement and one that was hands off,
submission, manual verification and action. By moderating things like hacking
or covid videos automatically they have opened a massive can of litigation
smack down on themselves.

~~~
ravenstine
A competitor would have to do a lot, unfortunately, to compete with YouTube.
YouTube is so much more than just video hosting, and enough time has passed
without any serious competition that YouTube is nearly insurmountable. Sure,
you can make a YouTube "clone" easily, but does it support live streaming at
large scale? Does it allow for superchats? Can it serve 4k? What about buying
and watching shows and movies? The only thing that comes close to competing is
TikTok, which is a gimmick and not truly in the same space. There's BitChute,
but because that becomes the refuge for all the people kicked off YouTube,
it's easy for the media to paint them as "far right"; the same will likely be
true for anyone who creates a real alternative to YouTube.

~~~
tpmx
The technical implementation isn't the the fundamental moat.

The real moat is the advertising/monetization. The ad revenue drives content
creators and now in 2020 likely the (presumably quite insane) operating costs.
Sadly the harsh, Disney-esque moderation appears to have been necessary for
this.

This is also why it seems unlikely why we'll see an alternative, more open
Youtube: It won't be able to able to compete on ad revenue.

It has taken Google 14 years to get to this level. I wonder how many 10s of
billions of dollars have been spent in the process.

------
austincheney
I am so ready for law suits to tear down Section 230 and similar legal
shields. Web sites should not have unique legal protections just to show
outrageous ad content only to plead ignorance when publishing content is the
revenue stream. They should be held liable for all content expressed on their
platforms like any other publisher.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communica...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act)

~~~
TheAsprngHacker
It is my understanding that website owners (especially owners of small
websites) rely on Section 230 in order to host user-submitted content (such as
comments), as they cannot feasibly moderate all the content and they don't
want to be held liable for anything inappropriate or illegal. Am I mistaken?

~~~
fossuser
The person you’re replying to is mistaken - 230 protects owners by allowing
them to moderate, without it the existing legal precedent would force them to
do nothing because any moderation would make them responsible for everything
(as was the case before 230).

This point is often confused and misunderstood. People think without 230
owners would be liable, but they’d only be liable if they moderated (so they
wouldn’t). Without 230 owners would _not_ moderate which would be worse for
everyone.

[https://stratechery.com/2019/a-framework-for-
moderation/](https://stratechery.com/2019/a-framework-for-moderation/)

> “ In other words, the act of moderating any of the user-generated content on
> its forums made Prodigy liable for all of the user-generated content on its
> forums — in this case to the tune of $200 million. This left services that
> hosted user-generated content with only one option: zero moderation. That
> was the only way to be classified as a distributor with the associated
> shield from liability, and not as a publisher.”

> “The point of Section 230, then, was to make moderation legally viable; this
> came via the “Good Samaritan” provision”

> “In short, Section 230 doesn’t shield platforms from the responsibility to
> moderate; it in fact makes moderation possible in the first place. Nor does
> Section 230 require neutrality: the entire reason it exists was because true
> neutrality — that is, zero moderation beyond what is illegal — was
> undesirable to Congress.”

~~~
austincheney
> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as
> the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information
> content provider.

That is section 230 verbatim.

It says a service provider should not be regarded as a publisher of user
submitted content, wherein the user submitting said content thus accepts the
role of publishers. I disagree and believe the service provider to be the
publisher no differently than a magazine showing advertising the magazine did
not themselves create. It’s time the laws reflect the reality of the content
in question.

~~~
fossuser
If you remove that protection then the owners respond by doing zero moderation
so they’ll be classified as distributors (since the alternative of moderating
and being legally liable for all user content is not survivable).

230 was created to allow them to moderate their platforms. The context in my
post (and the history described in that stratechery link) are critical to
fully understand the issue.

What you’re suggesting would lead to the opposite of what you want - it would
force them to not moderate at all.

Facebook being legally responsible for the random musings of two billion
Facebook users and a magazine being responsible for the ads it runs are not
equivalent.

~~~
austincheney
That is an incorrect interpretation of the law. Regardless of whether you
consider them distributors they still retain liability. The point of
separating distribution from content creation, such as with the movie
industry, is to shield the producer from liabilities associated with business
relationships associated with distribution, such as movie theaters, and not
end consumers. The end consumer can still sue the movie producer for content
that is provably libel. In this regard of online content the distributors
would retain liability as well as the creators of advertising content. The
creators of advertising content are more challenging to identify though, since
their intention is criminal.

I am completely fine with that since content moderation is virtually
nonexistent online.

> being legally liable for all user content is not survivable

That is the same argument for opposing slavery. Its a meritless argument.

At any rate the section is most certainly a legal shield both in practice and
intent contrary to your claim:

> this section also protects ISPs from liability for restricting access to
> certain material or giving others the technical means to restrict access to
> that material

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act)

As another example one of my coworkers claims residence in California where he
owns an agricultural services business. He supplies labor to orchards to pick
nuts and fruit. It costs more for the farms to hire him than for them to hire
and manage the field labor directly. The only reason they use him is to shield
themselves from liabilities associated with labor law. He is their legal
shield in the capacity of a distributor and retains liabilities associated
with such.

~~~
fossuser
> “That is an incorrect interpretation of the law. Regardless of whether you
> consider them distributors they still retain liability.”

This seems to contradict everything I’ve read, including the case law history,
do you have something you’re basing this on beyond personal opinion? Given
that you left out the relevant Good Samaritan portion in your previous
comment, it feels like you’re arguing from a position of motivated reasoning.
I think you’re wrong on this issue, but I’m happy to be shown otherwise.

> “I am completely fine with that since content moderation is virtually
> nonexistent online.”

This just isn’t true: [https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/men-are-scum-
inside-...](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/men-are-scum-inside-
facebook-war-on-hate-speech)

As far as meritless argument, sites that allow user content could not exist if
they were responsible for all of it. This is no way comparable to the moral
hazard of slavery (which should not exist) so there’s no conflict.

I’m confused by your last point, I’m arguing that it is a legal shield. It’s
just that the shield _enables_ them to moderate.

~~~
austincheney
See
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._California](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._California)
which was the law in place before section 230 and inspired section 230 for
online content submissions.

My last point is that the producer of physical goods does not need a legal
shield, because they separate distribution from availability. A web server
cannot separate distribution from availability and thus would retain liability
for content regardless of its reclassification.

