this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2023
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Linus Tech Tips pauses production as controversy swirls (www.theverge.com)
submitted 1 year ago by bacondragonoverlord@feddit.de to c/pcmasterrace@lemmy.world
60 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

What started as criticism over errors in recent YouTube videos has escalated into allegations of sexual harassment, prompting the company to hire an outside investigator.

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[–] azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 158 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Linus Media Group CEO Terren Tong also responded via email, saying he was “shocked at the allegations and the company described” in Reeve’s posts. He went on to note that “as part of this process, beyond an internal review we will also be hiring an outside investigator to look into the allegations and will commit to publish the findings and implementing any corrective actions that may arise because of this.”

Finally, someone in this shit fest of a management structure realized that having the owners of the company investigate themselves isn't the smartest idea here.

I will be interested to see how much power the new CEO really has over operations, or if Linus predictably has got such a founder's syndrome that he tries to "fix" the problems himself (which he can't, of course, since he clearly doesn't believe he has a workplace culture issue in the first place).

[–] shitescalates@midwest.social 45 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The quality and partner/sponsor issues are mostly expected from getting investor money and expanding quickly. The harassment issues are probably a preexisting problem from existing management. So its interesting that these issues are coming out near the same time.

Expect Linus to be reigned in and no longer be responding directly to these issues. Despite that he didnt sell the company, the people/banks that gave him the money to expand will not be happy to lose their money.

[–] WaltJRimmer@lemmy.world 44 points 1 year ago

So its interesting that these issues are coming out near the same time.

I don't think it's that unusual, really. LTT and Linus specifically have had people accuse him before of being unprofessional or creating a toxic work environment or bolstering a toxic fanbase or putting out bad content or all those things. Things I didn't know about because I just started getting into his stuff a couple of months ago. But all those things are being reexamined now because he lost favor for a second. The Gamer's Nexus video opened him up to be criticized where normally he'd have a loyal fanbase that would rush to his defense. But even then, it wasn't until he made that first bad response and Gamer's Nexus responded to the response and called out his gaslighting on the topic that a lot of the controversy blew open.

People who had long been ignored or felt like they weren't safe to speak out against the harm they felt LMG or Sebastion had done to them saw an opportunity to let their voice be heard. And people who had been ignored in the past are being looked at again in new context and by more people. This is a common thing. People often feel frightened to speak out about something because they feel they'll be dismissed or punished for it. Everything from people simply telling them to suck it up because that's just life to people threatening violence to people getting you blacklisted. This is why after just a couple of sexual abuse allegations started coming out, an entire flood of them suddenly were made public and #MeToo happened. That was a case where speaking out against producers, writers, directors, actors, or anyone else big in the motion picture industry would usually be an end to your career, so most people weren't willing to do it. And most of the ones who had spoken out in the past were made fun of, actually laughed at, before being blacklisted and relatively forgotten by the wider audience. An individual victim had no power to do anything, but once a few did, some of the others joined, and then it became a movement.

The LTT scandal won't be anywhere near the same size as that, of course. It's one relatively small company. But my point is that it's the same phenomenon at a different scale. The group and specifically Linus have a fan base that has been absolutely brutal to dissenters before. Sebastion on the WAN show and in previous replies to criticism always dismisses it as invalid and that emboldens his fanbase to hit back at people who are, "Just hating," or, "Don't understand what they're talking about!" The Gamer's Nexus videos started to form a little wedge between Sebastion and his fans as they showed how he wasn't being fair to them either. That created an opening.

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[–] ImpossibilityBox@lemmy.world 94 points 1 year ago (10 children)

I was on the fence regarding wether or not to stay subscribed to his YouTube and floatplane.

The "apology" video started to push me towards staying on board until HE LITERALLY SHRUGGED before his apology.

They are talking the talk about doing better, being more accurate, and going over the videos more thoroughly and then they let that COMPLETELY slide? If no one who watched that video ever said "Hey maybe a shrug before your apology might be sending the wrong message?" than there is definitely somethings NG massively wrong at LMG.

The to top things off this Madison stuff comes out of the woodwork?

Yeah, I'm done with LMG. l hope that the talented people who work there either get rid of Linus completely or are able to move on to roles in healthier places.

[–] Zetaphor@zemmy.cc 55 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The apology video to me rang hollow and self serving. They made jokes (including a sex joke which was very unfortunate timing), they teased a new product and plugged lttstore, they said the details on how Labs does thorough testing will be paywalled, they publicly disclosed Billets prototype price which GN's video clearly stated they did not want public (an error in the video apologizing for errors), and then there's Linus' response.

I've canceled my floatplane subscription and unsubscribed from all of their YouTube channels. I was willing to see them through on the original accusations from GN, but after that "apology" and the accusations from Madison, I no longer feel okay rewarding them with my time and money.

[–] Snowcano@startrek.website 32 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Remember, everyone! Don’t just unsubscribe, click “Don’t recommend channel”!

[–] ImpossibilityBox@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Done and done.

[–] Carighan@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How do I do that?

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[–] KidDogDad@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I respectfully disagree that the shrug should be read as indifference to the issues going on. I think the rest of his apology, regardless of whether it was sufficient or not, shows that he is taking it seriously.

That's not at all to question your decision to be done with LMG. Anyone who chooses that in this situation is completely justified, IMHO. Madison's accusations especially are very troubling, and I hope they deal with it thoroughly, and tell us what they did after it's taken effect. That sort of behavior is completely unacceptable and if it means that Linus needs to go, then Linus needs to go.

[–] Deca@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Tbh when I heard him apologise, it did not sound genuine at all. More like him reading off a script that someone else wrote for him to save face.

If anything, he's not sorry for what he's done, he's just sorry he finally got called out for it

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 year ago

The video would have been better of without Linus in it. He really needed to step back and shut up

[–] jwagner7813@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Keep in mind, some of the "talented" people contributed to these issues. Some of them are to blame as well.

[–] Freesoftwareenjoyer@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Their apology didn't even mention reviewing products that Linus has invested in. They didn't promise to correct that.

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[–] falsem@kbin.social 65 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So much for the flippant "I won't be responding to this outside of this text post".

[–] pizza-bagel@kbin.social 48 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You would think that after so many YouTubers sucked at apologizing and got called out they would figure out how to do it the right way. But no!

That big ass team and you couldn't get a PR person to help you?

None of this was irredeemable. Sure, it will take a significant amount of time to rebuild trust but you can choose to be transparent in response and right your wrongs.

The hubris

[–] agent_flounder@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago

This is how assholes behave. They don't even see themselves as having done wrong.

They just know they got caught and they're pissed off and annoyed about it. Why should they need a pr person, they think.

The whole reason for sexual assault, employee abuse, and egregious errors in test results isn't simple "oops", it's indicative of priorities and biases and behaviors from the top down.

[–] ThunderingJerboa@kbin.social 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I mean the Madison stuff is pretty bad. The rest of it, was probably recoverable from.

I think the thing is in these kind of situations they are typically no win situations. When the fuel is burning really the only answer is let it burn itself out, then deal with the aftermath. I don't think any response would be good enough because right now people are out for blood, some of it very justifiably but people would need to be blind to not see there are people who have an axe to grind and the usual drama chasers. I'm not here to say they didn't do anything wrong but people are going to try to connect some unrelated controversies to keep the fire burning (Note: This isn't about the Madison leak) like the mindchop tragedy.

[–] WaltJRimmer@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To some extent, I agree. But while you'll never craft a perfect response and some people will always call your response, "Not enough," or, "Disengenous," there are better and worse ways to do it. Dan Harmon sexually harassed a coworker, created a toxic work environment, and harmed one of his writer's careers. When that started to come out, he talked to her first, then he laid all the cards on the table, took full responsibility, and talked about how he's trying, not always succeeding, but trying to improve and not do the same things again. It's impossible to ever say that a simple apology is enough, but even the person he hurt said that his was the kind of apology that people should strive for. It was brutal, honest, and it didn't shy away from anything. He admitted fault and talked about the very real and non-idealized path forward.

LMG's response... Was horrible. Even if the apology was only for the bad data stuff, it felt like one of his joke videos like the April Fool's Day slave farm video, in tone. Sponsor segues, jokes, merch promotions, things like that. I admit that maybe a little humor could be justified because some people make jokes when they're stressed out, I do that! My mom was damn near on her deathbed a few years back, barely made it out of that alive, and between the sobs, I cracked jokes because that's how I handle things, so I fucking get that! But that was a scripted video that was supposed to be their apology to the fans, and it felt like an insult. They didn't feel like they were taking the accusations seriously, it didn't feel like they were taking responsibility for the problems, and it didn't feel like they were serious about making changes going forward. It felt like a hollow, "This will help us ride out the storm," response.

So, I agree with you that even if they'd done the best apology video they possibly could have, people would have still criticized them for it. You're right. There's no way around that. But it doesn't change that that's not what they did. They put out that apology video instead. And that was just an insult.

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[–] cybervseas@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

That's when you hire a crisis PR firm because no operating company should have enough experience to handle the situation properly. If the new CEO knows anything they've already done that and muzzled Linus.

[–] pizza-bagel@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

Oh I didn't see the Madison stuff yet I guess I am behind

[–] Stoneykins@mander.xyz 55 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So it seems like Linus is a self-centered, unempathetic kinda boss, who doesn't have even a correct understanding of how to be a better employer.

On the other hand, that is how 90% of all owner/bosses of all business I've ever interacted with are.

There isn't a point to this observation I'm just sad about it :(

[–] starclaude@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

yeah It is funny when people raise their pitchfork just for LTT alone while basically almost 99% companies out there operate like this, welcome to corporatism

[–] rab@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

Ya it's just your average shitty tech company in Canada. Worked at places just like this myself so I'm not even a little surprised by all this

If you work for a company that doesn't shit on you, you should take a sec to be grateful because it's not common lol

[–] Dimok@reddthat.com 13 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Can someone sum up the controversy? I've seen quite a bit but not sure exactly what's what.

[–] Blamemeta@lemm.ee 26 points 1 year ago

Basically, ltt auctioned off a small startups best prototype after telling them they'd get it back. This is after they fucked up the testing and gave them an unfair horrible review.

This comes after a long line of testing fuckups that required corrections that were never properly made, on a pretty frequent basis.

And to top it all off, a former employee was bullied and sexually harrassed until she quit.

[–] ChapolinColoradoNZ@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

They are running their business like teenage kids. An adult pointed out some flaws and they decided they're a minority and are being oppressed. In reality the adult has 15 times less viewer following than the self proclaimed victims. Also, they treat their crew like dog shit and with that came allegations of misogyny which their behaviour seem to support the idea they are, in fact mistreating women. But without concrete evidence these will have to be considered allegations for the time being.

[–] geosoco@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago

One additional point I think some others left out, in a recent LTT lab tour video, an employee took potshots at GamersNexus and HardwareUnboxed by saying LTT wasn't reusing benchmark test results and implying GN and HUB were. HUB responded on twitter pointing out they they'd rerun many benchmarks and pointed to some quality issues in LMG tests. Linus responded on the WAN show in a pretty dismissive way and mentioned journalistic integrity or something. This seems to have lead GN to make that 45 minute video which includes a bunch of evidence from LMG videos.

Toxic workplace accusations aside for a moment, some of this might have blown over were it not were Linus's shitty handling at every turn. He probably could've diffused some of this current situation, but just keeps being dismissive and adversarial. Steve of GN said they'd been thinking about these issues for the past few months, but I'm not sure this video would've dropped this week or in quite the same format had Linus not fucked up his response on the WAN show.

[–] CerineArkweaver@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The train wreck ain't stopping at the locomotive.

edit: I've read the thread and removed the meme, this isn't the time for memes, holy fuck.

[–] Dimok@reddthat.com 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thanks! Edit: Link isn't working for me for some reason. Bummer

[–] Silvus@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

gamernexus went over everything, It is fairly damning.

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[–] collegefurtrader@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I had no idea this operation was so big

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