The video-sharing site, YouTube, has reportedly filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit by San Francisco-based fintech startup, Ripple, for allowing fake giveaway videos on their platform.
Ripple’s lawsuit submitted in a San Francisco federal court in April accuses YouTube of ignoring the fake Ripple-related fake giveaways, including those misrepresenting Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse.
Ripple argued that instead of removing these videos, YouTube is profiting from them by promoting it to their users.
It is worth mentioning that in the last few weeks, hundreds of these fake giveaway scams have proliferated YouTube’s ads system with hundreds of dollars lost by unsuspecting users. At the same time, YouTube generates advertising income from promoting apparent scams.
But YouTube said in its motion to dismiss filed on July 21 that the company “did not orchestrate or participate in that scam, and after being notified about fraudulent content posted by the hijacked accounts, YouTube removed it.”
Further, YouTube appeared to suggest that the person(s) directly behind the videos should be held responsible for the offense.
YouTube lawyers cited Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to back the fact that “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.”
Time will now tell whether the court will approve YouTube’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, although it seems very unlikely the Ripple will give up without a fight.
Also, unless YouTube is called to order, the platform will likely continue to allow these fake crypto giveaway videos that have stolen millions of dollars that originally should flow into the cryptocurrency industry.
At press time, Ripple’s legal team is yet to publish an official response to YouTube’s motion to dismiss.
Written By W. Michael, Global News Correspondent, CNIR Staff
