My biggest complaint is how Linus is still saying he's not sorry about what he did, at least it doesn't seem genuine, instead he is still apologizing that he didn't realize what the community wanted.
He shouldn't care what the community wants. He should always strive for accurate data, ethical partnerships, and correcting mistakes when they still make it through because they always will.
Linus is doubling down on his opinions, hiding mistakes, doing the bare minimum to fix them, and needs public outcry and the heavy hand of the other executives in LTT to see any course change.
In one of their videos one of the employees said they do better and more accurate GPU tests than other YouTubers called Gamers Nexus and Hardware Unboxed. Then of course those mentioned YouTubers started to hit back and show how often LTT is wrong and makes wrong assumptions, because they don’t do proper due diligence. Since they have to release several videos per week. Gamers Nexus also exposed that LTT auctioned off a prototype GPU cooler from a small startup. But they had no permission to sell the unit. It was only for reviewing. The startup even asked to get the unit back several times. Linus, the owner of LTT, then released a non-apology. Afterwards a former employee came out and told why she left the company and it turns out the work environment is very toxic at LTT. She also reminded everyone that pettiness by Linus caused his fans to harass a small YouTuber called MindChop. Who eventually committed suicide. He fell into a depression because of the harassment and later his mom also committed suicide. She couldn’t bear the loss of her son.
"Several videos a week".
Twenty-five (25) videos a week. Five a day, four if they work weekends which they likely do. Plus the WAN show and other social media. Their velocity is far too high for accuracy to be a priority. As their own employees said in their video, they wish they had more time. And as Linus himself said, their velocity is so high that the instant they publish a video it has to be forgotten because they have to turn to the next one.
It's still mostly one per day per channel, more or less. It's just that they have many channels
The next video might have him lose the plot and have an existential crisis on camera over a 15 hour rant
They have like a hundred employees, which makes it a lot easier to figure out. Though some of those employees aren't directly involved in creating videos, such as doing accounting or creating the many kinds of custom merch that they sell.
They have a bunch of employees doing specialized roles. Not just the usual roles like editing or writing, but they also what they call a "lab" that does stuff like identify findings about tech. But even with so many employees and all the specialization, they're still clearly rushing. Eg, if they make a massive error, rather than fix it and do a reshoot, they'll release it with the error, which is a terrible approach.
That's exactly what happened in their biggest controversy with an expensive water block cooler. They used a completely wrong graphics card despite knowing that it was completely wrong and with an incompatible motherboard, then spent most of the video bad mouthing how it didn't fit the motherboard or card instead of recognizing that they needed to just identify a compatible board, find the right card, and redo the shoot.
There is no actual proof for the suicide of the son and the mom, would love to see actual proof if you have it but i wouldn't really use this as an argument. I admit his behaviour was too much but pointing the blame for the suicide of a child is also too extreme
found this twitter post about it: https://twitter.com/reddit_lies/status/1691895748286177765 Just realized that Twitter account is quite stupid but I still can't find any evidence for it being true or not
Edit: I don't know if I want to believe if MindChop truly did what the reddit post is talking about, but I feel like Linus wasn't at fault for his community bullying the Owner.
Another thing I just found: https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15sjv78/for_anyone_wondering_why_madison_stayed_silent/jwfeg5a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
This whole thing is very complicated and I am not trying to discredit the madison allegations with this, they are a completely different topic
THAT whole thing SHOULD NOT be included in this round of criticism. NO ONE is responsible for everything their fans do. That was a messed up situation that LTT only happened to be involved in. Most of their angst and trouble came from a terrible YT media group (not LMG) pulling their small channel around.
Indeed, the lack of professionalism and lack of respect in the work place are fully legit concerns. Though piling on someone's tragedy just to hurt LMG is a frankly shameful act.
I don't fault those curious about the event, but it is almost wholly and completely unrelated, AND not a fault of LMG per se. At least the severity of the outcome they had nothing to do with.
Can you point to the comment by Madison about the MindChop thing? As far as I can see she never brought it up.
Small note on the cooler subject; the cooler was auctioned to charity - they didn’t keep the money for themselves.
It doesn't matter. It literally doesn't matter.
The problem is THAT it left LMG to anywhere except the manufacturer, NOT how it left. The problem is it left the company at all to the wrong place.
And then offered to pay for the BOM of the device acting as though that completely makes up for the mistake, ignoring the potential harm to Billets intellectual property.
Then their apology is all butt hurt that they THOUGHT they'd offered to pay for it, but only sent the email internally, not realizing their mistake until called out again. Then whining that no one is giving them the benefit of the doubt when they've demonstrated lack of judgement throughout the whole ordeal.
Forgetting to put the actual recipient in the TO filed is such a weird mistake too. You got all the CCs, but ignored the TO?
I get that shit happens, but its not like it was a complex email they drafted several times and wanted to make sure it wasent sent by mistake. Its whole contents was "oops, our bad. Can you send us an invoice and well get this sorted out." Why did they not hit "reply all" like a sane person for something that mundane?
Its just so weird, and honestly is either made up, or points to odd workflows and more sloppy processes, even over on the buisness side.
Love that they clarified that after being called out, as if that somehow makes it more acceptable. "See? It was to charity guys, you think making money for charity is a bad thing?" While still missing the mark completely and refusing to send said prototype back.
Talk about moving goalposts. They fucked up.
It’s still a bad mistake, absolutely. If the cooler hadn’t been sent out already, I’d call it malice. I don’t think they’re claiming themselves blameless, just admitting that while they’re dumb, they’re not greedy.
Idk, taking someone else's property, when not given permission, for your own tax deductions still sounds pretty shitty
You don't get to claim a tax credit on someone else's charitable donations. In this situation, the buyer gets a proof of donation that they get to claim on their taxes. It wouldn't be LMG deducting it.
Do people still not understand how donations/charities work? If they sold it for $100 and donated $100. Yes, they technically get a tax deduction. But it doesn't change how much profit they made. If they had tossed it in the trash they'd still have the same amount of profit. They just aren't paying tax on the $100 they sold it for because that money is being donated.
I mean…they were reviewing it in-house. They had already “taken” it. The question is whether they give it back after - and it’s a very common routine for manufacturers to just not care, in which case a charity auction would be normal.
It sounds like it was just a unique case where they slipped the directions, and forgot the company had asked them to return the prototype after. It was a dumb mistake, yes, but a lot of people are acting like it was super scummy and intentional which I don’t get.
It seems like the other circumstances around poor work environment and low review quality are a lot more important.
I thought the video was a step back, not tripping down. They took actual action and they layed out a plan how they'll improve. What would you have preferred?
Fucked up hard = published numerous videos with inaccuracies and errors due to tight timelines and QA that was not rigorous enough. Also they fucked up communication and sold a prototype at auction. These are mistakes and journalistic ethical issues.
From what I can tell, they have owned up to most of that.
The more serious accusations come from Madison Reeves who not only claims she suffered from being worked like a dog, but also severe sexual harassment and other awful behaviors. LTT put out a statement that they had hired an external investigator and would take corrective action based on the findings.
Now, LTT is for sure in the wrong here, but what have they done wrong since? It seems they are taking the criticism seriously, despite Linus' initial understandable but unacceptable emotional reaction. Curious to hear!
edit: not sure why my summary of events is garnering a negative reaction 😅
Perhaps I'm biased, but "hired an external investigator and would take corrective action based on the findings" translates to "distract folk until the spotlight is off us, so we can then sweep the problem under the rug and go back to business as normal."
Could be! They said they are doing and internal review but also having an external one. I hope they do the right thing.
If you do something wrong, like publish wrong info, and then are OK with that wrong info being published... CONGRATULATIONS!! You just did something unethical.
Ethics does not require you to "do ethics". It requires you to do respectable work. You do not get to decide to avoid ethics.
Totally agree. See my comment where I mentioned numerous mistakes and ethical issues. They will be publishing new standards and guidelines and channels to report inaccuracies apparently to address this.
Madison's situation is the way bigger concern in my eyes. The issue is, they shouldn't have to hire an outside investigator, or they should've done so years ago. They were being told the issues directly for months and refused to do a thing about it until the spotlight was on them. You don't get to grope someone and say "I didn't know it was bad 🥺" a year later. You don't get to work your staff like dogs despite numerous private and public complaints only to say "wow, we had no idea" once it starts to affect your image. If this "external investigation" doesn't start with completely gutting the management and HR structure, and handing out appropriate punishments to employees who have received complaints, then it's clear that they don't care about their company culture as much as their brand image.
Agreed. The shit she endured is egregious. I think I approach from the perspective of the new CEO. Whatever he's done so far seems to be correct, and it should result in swift and sweeping changes. LTT very clearly has a culture problem that appears largely top-down. I'm not in the habit of feeling bad for CEOs, but what a shitshow he inherited...
The problem with inaccuracies on a channel like this is they are basically purchase influencers. One of their wrong graph shown some GPU was 3 times faster than other while it was around 15% faster only in reality. They kept selling the trust me bro attitude on every media and it turned out you cannot really trust them. With big power comes big responsibility.
Video inacurracy i am fine with if they are on the right course to fix that. Auctioning off prototype that are not theirs and knowingly use a wrong spec for the review for me is not. First one no matter what intention it is thief, second one is just disingenuous. It’s fine if Linus admits he is wrong on it, but he double down.
Linus Tech Tips, a large YouTube tech channel, has faced backlash after GamersNexus posted a video detailing their increasingly flawed videos focusing on quantity over quality. LTT releases videos multiple times a week, but these videos almost always have errors that are later corrected or are not noticed by LTT. This results in lower quality videos that can sometimes be misleading (especially product review videos). These criticisms had been expressed by many viewers of LTT prior the GamersNexus video. GamersNexus is also a popular tech channel and amplified these criticisms with the release of their video.
Other criticisms of LTT are that their packed release schedule overworks their employees and their corporate culture is hostile towards stressed employees. These criticisms were merely speculation until a former LTT employee posted on X (formerly Twitter) a detailed account of why they decided to leave the company. Their allegations detailed overworking, harassment, and their declining mental health due to their job at LTT.
GamersNexus does probably more research than a video deserves though. I've always found the accuracy levels of the LTT videos acceptable; I think GN might be sort of spuriously demanding rigor here.
Harassment is no good and must be stopped, though.
Some of GN's criticisms do come off as nit-picky, but remember: This is a response to someone at LMG saying they do a better job than GN or Hardware Unboxed. OFC Steve's obsession with detail would come out on full display when it was insulted like that.
LMG (Linus Media Group) was making careless mistakes and publishing a lot of inaccurate data, sometimes going as far to not recommend or label a product as "bad" after misusing it. This was likely due to an unnecessarily rushed pace of video releases that came from prioritizing sponsor revenue over accuracy, which many feel is a pretty massive ethics breach for a news outlet that is marketing itself as a home for highly objective, data driven content (LTT Labs).
Gamers Nexus called out this behavior in a 40 minute video which kicked off all the drama, and Linus posted a kneejerk response on the LTT forum where he largely defended his behavior and conclusions and badmouthed Gamers Nexus for going public with these criticisms instead of sharing them privately.
A few days later, LTT put out a video that was almost entirely LTT leaders other than Linus admitting how bad everything was, sharing some details on their processes, and committing to being more transparent & taking a week off uploading videos to rework things. But the video also included some tone deaf moments, like a plug for merch and Linus talking for a bit where he sort of apologized but didn't really talk for long enough to acknowledge all of his fuck ups. He did say "I'm sorry" at one point which was pretty meme worthy.
The video was also monetized when it went up and the description had links to their merch store in it, which people called out as slimy and LTT subsequently removed.
Different people have different conclusions -- some think it was a total non-apology, but I personally am satisfied. To me all their issues were the result of bad processes/automation run amok, so their commitment to reworking their processes and being more transparent about them with the community is exactly what I wanted to see.
But that's just me -- I think there are many valid conclusions that can be drawn from this.
Edit: There was also a reddit post on Reddit made by a former employee, Madison, that made allegations of sexual harassment. If true, these would be extremely damning, and to my knowledge LMG has not spoken on them yet. I also am just learning about this, so I don't know whether these statements have been corroborated by anyone.
I went down this rabbit hole last night. This dude accurately summs it all up in about 10 minutes. First 10 minutes of the video
If you have time there are more, longer, videos in the video description
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Do what I do. Don't care about the things that you don't care about.
Although watching this since yesterday has been somewhat entertaining. Seems like a public figure stepped on his dick.
Accurately presenting your past opinions and weaknesses is not weakness. You can recognise your error while accurately describing your past actions.
You may want to change your actions depending on new information though.
For absolute sure. But even if he didn't sell the company, he's got enough money to never step foot there again - go watch Shrek 3 with the kids in the theater room of their mansion or something.
He got offered that much for the company? Yeah, I'd be sipping cocktails on the beach by now.
"We fucked up, and that's why I'm here to cry about people being mean to me on the internet again. Also I'm super not sorry and it definitely will happen again" -Linus
Really it'd be like, "I'm sorry... Just like this segue to our sponsor!"
They can't put out a statement without a segue. It's just not allowed! They love that word.
Even their apology video with the dbrand plug-in at the end, pretty cringey. They're like that Key and Peele slap ass skit, they need to plug-in their sponsors like an addiction. If they wouldn't have mentioned which sponsor, then yeah stupid joke to lighten the mood, but they had to mention dbrand.
I wonder why Dbrand would even offer? That's pretty messed up and certainly makes me think less of them.
You got that from the video? The comment was hot headed, but I thought the video was the best they could have done.
"And a message from our sponsor! Just kidding...
DBrand did offer though. :D
You can watch our progress transparently.... on floatplane"
Is all I loosely heard from it. Shame his newly appointed CEO has to deal with this, I feel like he should have been the only one in the video. It would have put extra value and emphasis on his message, and cut out all the blame passing and job title responsibilities; they could have dealt with all the other stuff separately. They shouldn't need to put their staff out there to dry like that (even if they're management), the issue is blatantly deeper rooted.
If they're trying to address their accuracy, management processes, or talk about video content burnout that influence their staff and viewers, it should have been short and sweet. They should have posted an update video to show us the progress. Not make promises and jokes and put half of it behind a paywall.
They wrote and uploaded their apology so quickly, they didn't even let the fallout settle before more controversy came inevitably to light. Now they need to eventually address that in a video too seeing as there's an investigation. Though it would have been hard to comment on year old incidences without an investigation to be fair.
I was told that when making apologies don't use too many if at all any reasons... Justifying your action with excuses means you felt there was an exception. They shouldn't have gone into specifics and just said "God damn we really ballsed that one up".
I don't watch LTT or indeed hardly anything on YT, so I'm not about to sit through a teary YouTube apology video.
I assume it's the usual "sorry not sorry" arse covering job?
First one was. Second one not so much. It also outlined what actions they plan to take to improve things. We'll see how it going.
If you only see the Linus bit, the second hasn't changed that much, he was still trying to justify it and to feel like a victim.
That is the second. The "first" was linus going on an unhinged rant and shirking blame on the LTT forums
Well, and the stuff on the WAN show. I don't watch it so I only saw highlights.
The timeline as far as I can tell is non-apology on the WAN show, Gamers Nexus releases video calling out Linus on a bunch of stuff, Linus's breakdown in the forums, the last video on LTT.
As all this unfolds, I am more drawn towards the opinion that I don't care that much about the GN call out, because those things can be fixed. I just don't care that much about tech entertainment being dry as bones to ensure accuracy, but am a lot more concerned about the posts from ex-employee Madison about how she was treated.
Sounds like they have made themselves a bit of a mini Blizzard culture. Crunch and sexism abound.
This just confirmed my opinion of Linus as an utter twat and probable sociopath.
His reactions to things like Project Farm's review of his overpriced screwdriver, and the constant, blatant submarining of Linux and opensource tells you what kind of person he is. None of the behaviour I've seen in this latest installment is surprising. Everything is done to get view numbers up, even monetizing the apology FFS.
But the fanbois gonna fan regardless, and he'll come away with more money after this than before because of it.
Im beginning to wonder, if Luke left the video production side of LTT because they truly were working staff like animals to pump out videos and he finally decided "yeah im going back into development type work again..." Then made floatplane and got LTT to be his biggest investor. 🤔
British Petroleum. The meme comes from the South Park episode lampooning the BP oil spill and BP's response to it. The meme is making fun of the fact that youtubers use the same non-apology whenever they're in trouble.
It's also lampooning the video LeBron James made when switching teams for the first time.
BP oil spill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill
BP CEO hearing: https://youtu.be/X8p4s7EE6FY
South Park’s version: https://youtu.be/HQhmGIW7MVU
Edit: Here’s a better South Park one with the OP’s screen… https://youtu.be/15HTd4Um1m4
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British Petroleum. That bit is about the South Park episode which originated the meme rather than whatever Linus did (of which I'm also out of the loop)
British Petroleum, if I had to guess.
They were largely (if not entirely) responsible for the oil that leaked/spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.
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https://piped.video/watch?v=X3byz3txpso
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I have a feeling of "I told you so" because I had mentioned how LTT always just felt like shills and something about Linus just didn't sit right with me years ago when I first started hearing about the channel and decided to check it out. I couldn't prove anything, you know. I just had this gut feeling about how things were presented, the way he talked, etc that things weren't what they seemed and he's probably a fucked up guy behind the scenes.
Turns out I was right.
That has nothing to do with being a shill. As far as I know, lmg still fiercely preserves is journalistic integrity, often cutting ties with brands that try to pressure them.
I get that this is just a meme, but comparing YouTube drama to the reckless behavior of a multi-billion dollar oil conglomerate causing incalculable amounts of ecological damage feels like a bit of an overreaction.
Sexual harassment allegations are not "drama". And anyways, the comparison is in the way they apologize and not the damage they have done.
Dafuq what did I miss??? I thought the criticism was about data inaccuracy and overworking (which they addressed in the apology video (whatever that means))
After tech Jesus posted that, a former employee came out about all sorts of stuff about the work environment were pretty horrible
Two other items happened, the bringing up of a story of a kid commiting suicide supposedly due to Linus fans? (Vague) and claims of hostile work environment and sexual harassment and assault from a former employee within a 24-48 period
The issue with the suicide wasn't at all Linus's fault and is just being thrown around sensationally to make him look as bad as possible.
Linus's old workplace, NCIX (kind of like Canadian Circuit City) went out of business, and he went to the out of business auction to try and get the YouTube silver play button from the NCIX youtube channel that he had started. A young dude that has started his own youtube channel that got screwed out of his own silver play button won the auction, and he just wanted to have one since the marketing network his channel was a part of screwed up and he didn't get one from YouTube despite earning it. Linus approached him and asked to buy it back from him, and the guy agreed. But after Linus saw his YouTube channel and understood his situation, he decided to let the guy keep it since he was being cool about Linus paying him for it at cost of the winning bid, and not trying to extort anything from Linus.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=545&v=cDZfh5IjGv8&feature=youtu.be
But his fans got upset anyway since they're bored teenagers, and started harassing the guy constantly to give the play button to Linus. When he found out, he told the community to stop-
https://twitter.com/LinusTech/status/973694443902533632
But of course they didn't, and eventually the guy stopped making videos. He was already depressed and bullied at school and his personal life, and according to the reddit post by his father, he took his own life a couple years later, and his mother ended up committing suicide as well because of it.
I'm pretty angry about the whole situation and the allegations of harassment, but trying to pin a double suicide on a person that didn't cause it for article clicks and up votes is just sickening and unethical, IMO. Linus already has plenty to answer to, but piggybacking off of the recent controversy to try and pin an incredibly sad and serious situation on him that he didn't cause is a disgusting move by shitty media outlets.
I think it's only comparing the same impression of a fake apology, only to calm down the crowd.
True, there are probably better companies with a toxic work environment, uncompetent managment and rushed products but I can't think of one rn, well except VW but that's over the top too.
