- cross-posted to:
- linustechtips@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- linustechtips@lemmy.ml
There were a series of accusations about our company last August from a former employee. Immediately following these accusations, LMG hired Roper Greyell - a large Vancouver-based law firm specializing in labor and employment law, to conduct a third-party investigation. Their website describes them as “one of the largest employment and labour law firms in Western Canada.” They work with both private and public sector employers.
To ensure a fair investigation, LMG did not comment or publicly release any data and asked our team members to do the same. Now that the investigation is complete, we’re able to provide a summary of the findings.
The investigation found that:
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Claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated.
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Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
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Any concerns that were raised were investigated. Furthermore, from reviewing our history, the investigator is confident that if any other concerns had been raised, we would have investigated them.
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There was no evidence of “abuse of power” or retaliation. The individual involved may not have agreed with our decisions or performance feedback, but our actions were for legitimate work-related purposes, and our business reasons were valid.
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Allegations of process errors and miscommunication while onboarding this individual were partially substantiated, but the investigator found ample documentary evidence of LMG working to rectify the errors and the individual being treated generously and respectfully. When they had questions, they were responded to and addressed.
In summary, as confirmed by the investigation, the allegations made against the team were largely unfounded, misleading, and unfair.
With all of that said, in the spirit of ongoing improvement, the investigator shared their general recommendation that fast-growing workplaces should invest in continuing professional development. The investigator encouraged us to provide further training to our team about how to raise concerns to reinforce our existing workplace policies.
Prior to receiving this report, LMG solicited anonymous feedback from the team in an effort to ensure there was no unreported bullying and harassment and hosted a training session which reiterated our workplace policies and reinforced our reporting structure. LMG will continue to assess ongoing continuing education for our team.
At this time, we feel our case for a defamation suit would be very strong; however, our deepest wish is to simply put all of this behind us. We hope that will be the case, given the investigator’s clear findings that the allegations made online were misrepresentations of what actually occurred. We will continue to assess if there is persistent reputational damage or further defamation.
This doesn’t mean our company is perfect and our journey is over. We are continuously learning and trying to do better. Thank you all for being part of our community.
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So basically they hired a law firm that gets paid by corporations to dissolve evidence and destroy lawsuits and they “didn’t find anything”
Right, another day in capitalist heaven
Though that is fruit for thought I can not find any information to back op that claim. I did however found articles about them defending remote working. It’s a bit too easy to me to throw out claims such as this without backing it up with facts. But if you do have any other examples I would love to read them.
I did not do any research but to me the comment you replied to made me pause and think for a bit.
If someone immediately assumes that a third party investigator is just being paid off by the firm they’re investigating, how is that firm supposed to prove their “innocence” to someone like that? A second investigator could just get a paycheck aswell, so that doesn’t change anything. They obviously can’t just publish the relevant information for privacy reasons.
What else are they supposed to do? I think that a certain amount of mistrust is good, especially when it comes to things where money and/or reputation is on the line, but the closer you get to personal relationships the more harmful unwarranted mistrust can be. Idk why I’m writing this reply to you, its more directed at the original comment poster, but ig I’m continuing on a tangent
Obviously, it would still be stacked against the employee, but the biggest thing would be that the person under investigation could sue the law firm and hurt the law firm and their client through social media or by encouraging unionization if there was any proof of misconduct during the investigation.
What else are they supposed to do?
Unions, arbitrate with the employee the selection of the investigative firm, have the government labor office choose the firm, there are options. They went and unilaterally chose the guys who plaster on their webpage that their goal is to help businesses. Not a single mention of employees rights or ethics.
Their work is to make problems go away for the companies. I’m sure they are awsome at their job. But certainly I agree there’s no win scenario for LTT here, and they are beyond fucked as a company anyways. Like all tech bro media companies, they have no clue what they are doing while they grow exponentially and end up hurting people, intentionally or not, but have too much power and money to ever face any consequences.
Ooh no that’s a fair point. Some mistrust is definitely justified until proven differently due to the high potential in conflict of interest.
Honestly, the best evidence they could provide to someone like that is suing Madison for defamation and winning. But they don’t want that, I don’t want that, and I’m sure you don’t want that either. It would also look mega bad for LTT. Which is why I think they mentioned that they could sue in the post, but chose not to.
And it’s not like some rando is going to be invested enough to pay a 3rd party to investigate LTT without a conflict of interest being there.
Everything else kinda needs to stay locked up due to employee privacy and data protection laws. So, I honestly can’t see how they can “win”.
I will say, LTT is a big corporation, and there is a massive power deferential between them and a single person. And given how difficult it is to stand up that, especially when you’re afraid of rocking the boat and losing your job, plus how fucking annoyed I am about the Billet Labs debacle and how they responded to that. I still believe that most of what Madison said was true, or at the very least, she believes what she’s saying is true
It’s hard to trust a firm that is explicitly being paid by the company they’re investigating. I could be convinced that they are actually a neutral third party and that their investigation was unbiased if they had a track record of finding fault with their clients a significant portion of the time. (I haven’t done the research to see if that’s the case.)
However, you have to ask yourself - how many companies would choose to hire a firm which has that track record? Wouldn’t you pick one more likely to side with you?
The way to restore credibility is to have an actually independent third party investigation. Firm chosen by the accuser, perhaps. Or maybe something like binding arbitration. Even better, a union that can fight for the employees on somewhat even footing with the company.
Oh no lol I don’t have anything against this particular law firm, but IME law firms “specializing in labor” are a right cunt
Fair enough, do you have some examples you know off to feed my curiosity on this topic? If not I understand if you want to hide the negative feelings in a deep part of your brain.
I feel like the fact they paid the same party that investigated them is an obvious enough conflict of interest to dismiss this out of hand. Whether the report is actually trustworthy or not, there is an incentive to come to a conclusion that aligns with whomever paid them and that alone should make people question the conclusions being made.
Okay. So what should LTT have done?
Ignore it completely and not respond?
Invite a third party to do it. The funds could have come from crowd-sourcing.
What.
In what world does this happen?
It’s how all the serious stuff in the world are handled.
- Courts of law
- Open source code
- Scientific peer review
Although there’s a fair bit of corruption in all if the above platforms, they are consistently better than “I investigated myself and didn’t find any evidence” solutions. Mind you, even EY the financial audit giant was caught red handed presenting what their client wanted to say, instead of trying to find the truth. I recommend that you look into this scandal.
That’s not what I was referring to. I meant using a commercial third party investigation for the alleged wrongdoings of a company (just like what happened here), except it’s funded through crowd sourcing. When has that ever happened?
Like, who is the demographic that would pay for that? In the end, I figure it would still most likely be an invested party coughing up a substantial part of the money.
Only in fantasy. That’s when it happened.
Subscribers donating to Gamer Nexus so that they can do investigative journalism without licking manifacturer boots? That’s crowd-sourcing. Didn’t you watch their recent couple of videos?
Don’t forget that that’s how this whole fiasco started. Do you think Linus would have done this without GN doing that video? And the viewers giving Linus hell because of it?
You keep trying to move the conversation to different subjects, but I want to address your initial claim - inviting a third party to do an independent investigation of a company’s alleged wrongdoings. I never heard of such a thing occurring.
But fine, let’s go with your example.
If there was a scandal at GN, and they’d use that crowd source money to pay for a third party investigation, it would somehow be better than what LMG did now?
Unless I’m reading it wrong thats exactly what they did, hire a third party, external agency to conduct an investigation. If the complaint is that it’s biased because they paid them, then idk what else you wanted them to do. I could understand not fully trusting them still, that’s your opinion and choice, but criticizing them for conducting a voluntary third party investigation is a little silly
They hired an outside firm to audit them. That’s industry best practice
As far as the payment for the outside fund, I think they would have come under even more criticism if they crowdfunded the third party investigation. And then they would still be accused of having undue influence, because they would have chosen the third party.
In one sense they did crowdfund it, they just paid for the whole thing themselves.
They hired an outside firm to audit them. That’s industry best practice
That practice has lost its credibility. Look into EY (Earnst and Young) scandal.
Sounds like you have a bit of a hate boner.
I’d like to receive criticism to what I presented instead of you resorting to ad-hominem, please.
They tried that. It didn’t seem to work. This was just plan-b.
Nobody wants to watch a video to participate in a text-based debate
The independent outside organization to do this, is the labor board. The original complainant did not want to involve the labor board for whatever reason. And chose to air their grievances on social media.
I don’t believe a business can invite the labor board to prove they didn’t do something they haven’t officially been accused of doing. And that’s the only organization that would be a credible third party, not paid for by the business
So in the realm of standard business practices, they did the best they could do
for whatever reason
The reason is probably because LTT hasn’t done anything wrong in this case, as this report shows.
Not be involved at all with the investigation.
So then who pays the investigators? Money trees?
Not the people being invedtigated. How hard is it to understand what a conflict of interest is?
Why would anyone who has no skin in the game bother?
Are you randomly paying legal firms to investigate companies you are completely unaffiliated with?
Okay. So you didn’t want LTT to do anything, and just wait for the courts?
The courts who, almost certainly, are not going to get involved in adjudicating a social media post accusation
If the accusations are as serious as they seem to be, there’s going to be a court case. In which case, people can wait until that investigation concludes to decide one way or the other.
Great. A court case would satisfy a lot of the people in this comment section. It would be a third party. It definitely wouldn’t be paid for by Linus tech tips.
However, on the balance of data we have, there will be no court case. The complainant specified they were not going to file with the labor board. Without an official attestation a labor board will not investigate.
As far as a criminal prosecution goes, almost certainly the original complainant would have to testify as well.
In either circumstance, I don’t see any government action, without somebody going on the record and officially complaining under penalty of perjury.
Why would there be an automatic court case?
So they just have to sit around and hope that another company does the investigation then for free? I really don’t know what you want, I understand your point, but there’s literally no solution to that problem.
They sue for defamation or don’t
Who else should pay them?
LITERALLY ANYONE THAT DOES NOT STAND TO GAIN FROM ONE CONCLUSION OR ANOTHER.
So, a charity should fund it?
Because the acuser cannot afford it. And you take issue with the company doing it. An unrelated 3rd party thst gains nothing wod literally just be losing money for no gain at all. So a non-profit or charity.
So you advocate for charities underwriting corporate sexual assault investigations instead of the companies involved?
Maybe the journalists that levelled the accusations public ally should contribute?
Shut up
Okay. Who are those people and why should they have to pay?
Develop an original thought instead of the same one the other linus simps copy pasted as a response.
I don’t get it mate, you had me at your first comment because it seemed fairly written. But lose me at the following 2.
Yeah, but who pays for it then?
These firms get paid before they release their findings. They have no incentive to make their clients look good, and it would tarnish their reputation as a neutral third party
ROFL, their incentive is the next job. Companies aren’t going to higher a company that finds against its clients…
The point of these firms are to be an imperial 3rd party. You pay your notary to confirm that you signed a document. But if they just lied for whoever paid them they wouldn’t be trusted to provide that service.
At my work we pay auditors to assess our security controls and I would chose a different company if I thought they were being anything less than honest with us on their findings. The agreements and SOW are set up at the beginning of the engagement, so the investigators get paid regardless of their findings. It’s not like the bond rating agencies on Wall Street.
There’s a difference in stakes and impact and intent: the client firm is actively interested in finding security holes and the outcome of a negative security report does not (usually) directly affect the continuing operations of the business or impact on the personal reputations of the business owners their ability to conduct business, or how moral they’re perceived by society.
A negative report here would be a devastating blow on Linus himself, his business is built around him and relies on audiences trusting him, it would also open up the door for legal action that could result in massive monetary damages and fines.
I’ve had “independent” valuations and audits. I’ve seen how these firms work - and it’s not independent. They obey the people that pay them or they don’t get any work in the future from anyone else “that firm destroyed my business”.
The most suspect aspect of the report is that they found nothing negative, everything was perfect. This on its face doesn’t ring true for any business I’ve ever seen, as well as how they responded to the accusations and how many people came out to accuse them.
Yep, the law firm here says anything bad and they’re opening themselves for ltt being sued by ex employee. And if employee loses ltt will go after law firm for defamation.
You don’t think it’s possible that the accusations were mostly unfounded and the LTT crew are just decent people? They did bring up some issues with onboarding which are completely expected on smaller companies.
Of course it’s possible. But after that devastating Gamers Nexus debacle, Linus being actively dismissing of peoples concerns until it became a public issue, the multiple employees saying they were worked off their feet unable to do their job properly, and generally being a toxic environment… this firm gives it a perfectly clean bill of health - that’s not likely.
yeah, lets remember that the sexual misconduct allegations were just a part of a far larger overall issue with regards to LTT. From Linus being a cunt about warranties, to stealing prototypes and refusing to return them, to lying to the public about having to come to an agreement with the said victims of the theft before ever having even contacted the victims in the first place, to putting out a fake apology video where they joke about the actual crimes they committed.
and this firm they paid saying they are clear does nothing to absolve them from all the other shitty, asshole, dishonest shit they’ve done, nor does it make Linus any less of a cunt.
It’s entirely possible that literally everything she claimed was false or exaggerated but there’s still enough evidence of Linus acting less than decently on the WAN show with regard to his other actions that cast doubt.
The man who took another company’s prototype and auctioned it off then claimed that they already had an agreement before contacting them somehow had zero evidence of abuse of power? We should assume that his willingness to abuse his power ends at his businesses doorstep because some of his co-workers are decent people?
As with corporate mediators though, wouldn’t such investigation companies have a financial incentive to favor their clients, so as to improve the odds of being rehired?
Yes and no. The reason companies are hiring them is for the image of impartiality they bring. If your firm gets a reputation for just always siding with the company, regardless of what actually happened, that image gets destroyed.
Plus, I’m willing to bet that there’s not a whole lot of recurring business from individual companies for this type of service. That would kind of defeat the purpose of being the “neutral third party”.
Haven’t you seen The Big Short?
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As someone who used to work in a job that involved giving companies reports they paid for, I gotta say while large auditing firms will likely defend their reputation before the company that hired them, mid and small companies will just follow the paycheck. Doesn’t look that big to me.
It’s a business completely built on reputation for impartiality and thruthfullness. The second they take money to tilt their findings and it’s discovered, their whole business it dead.
Having worked at a company that had to hire a similar firm, I can tell you they had a huge contract up front that stipulates that they will find everything, they will be impartial, and if you, as their customer try and obfuscate or hinder their findings, they’ll terminate the contract, and report any actions they’re legally required to report.
That’s niave. You don’t think words are spoken behind closed doors. All the paperwork is to cover their ass so they can point to it later when questions. Everything gets swept under the rug when you are hired to investigate the people who hired you.
I think part of it was the stress of the grindset that Linus running the show was getting all the staff into. Pushing out content at a regular schedule, getting sponsorships and all of that.
The whole GN saga with data accuracy and the donated cooler that made LMG look inward for a bit and improve their process was for the best I think.
The investigation to me is just one element making sure LMG weren’t getting off on the wrong foot.
I think the complainant wasn’t wrong or defamatory at all to bring up concerns because even in LTT’s channel there was a video where the front and center stars of the team comment on how stressful things can be. When there’s an implicit hierarchy imbalance (Linus can say “we’re all equals here” all he wants) but fact is there’s a leadership structure in one way or another, which can cause one to take certain treatment in different ways.
It was a necessary “drama” imo. You mentioned the stress the team was put through but also I think Linus’ ego needed to be brought down a lot. The way he talked on wan show about the cooler is like someone who thinks he is a tech god, saying something is bad is expected but outright claiming the product is worthless and will never amount to anything is just bad taste specially when you got it for free AND didn’t bother testing it properly.
One can hope this situation will bring positive lasting change to the way the company is run but also the image Linus has of himself.
specially when you got it for free
This is irrelevant IMO, getting a product for free shouldn’t impact your review at all. The issue is they didn’t test it properly, which is what people watch the video for.
That said, I like GN’s policy here: no free stuff.
I literally wrote they didnt test it properly after
Yup, and I never said you didn’t. I just pointed out that “getting something for free” should have absolutely nothing to do with the product review. The review is about the merits of the product and whether it’s worth the asking price, how much they paid for it is completely irrelevant information.
It does make it worse because by accepting a free item they have a commitment to making at the very least a decent review, they didnt have to accept it, they could have sent it back (specially considering it was their prototype, you cannot buy a product at that stage). If they bought it and decided to shove it up their ass to test how well it cools their intestines I would find it extremely weird but fuck it, they bought it and they can do w/e they want with it.
The only issue I see is the implication that if they leave a negative review, they won’t get free stuff anymore. So if the reviewer is honest and willing to buy the products they review, I don’t see an issue with accepting random free stuff in exchange for taking the effort to review it.
That said, GN’s policy is great too, they buy the stuff they review so there are no conflicts of interest.
The problem is that they couldn’t buy it if they wanted, product wasn’t release yet. This kind of review can only happen by receiving the product for free, if they weren’t happy with that they shouldn’t have accepted it and since they did accept then they have to make a review in due time with proper procedures then return the product (and the GPU that apparently they lost) as fast as possible.
by accepting a free item they have a commitment to making at the very least a decent review
Clearly not, because they didn’t. And we wouldn’t want free stuff to require good reviews, that’s called bribery.
That’s why the thing being ‘free’ makes what they did after even worse, they committed to it and fucked up royally. And I never said ‘good reviews’ just well done reviews instead of using a non supported GPU and just drawing conclusions out of his ass
I’m reading “decent review” as “put in the effort to make a thorough review” instead of “good review,” and I definitely agree that by accepting the free product they should be agreeing to put some effort into the review.
It’s unbelievable how much hate for LTT there is on this platform. I like them. No one is perfect. This investigation from a third party is a good thing and the findings are good as well. The statement about defamation, I feel, is warranted because the ex-employee made a ton of very damning claims and really hurt their image. The Fediverse is a great example of this damage.
The hate from this community towards LTT is extreme and unfounded.
I don’t have LTT, I just find it worthless. Their content is frequently shallow, I dislike the presentation (clickbait-y titles and thumbnails, annoying segways, etc), and I find Linus himself annoying. Then again, I do watch their content from time to time, if they have something worth watching. That’s not very often, but they do make some decent content occasionally. I rarely care about PC shenanigans, but sometimes I’ll watch Jays2Cents if I want some of that (he’s perhaps more annoying than Linus, but it is what it is, I guess).
I mostly watch Gamers Nexus for reviews, news, and benchmarks. I find the delivery much more in-line with what I’d like, though I find Steve a bit long-winded so I tend to skip a bunch in the videos. But the content is high quality.
To each their own though. My coworker really like LTT and went to LTX recently, so I’ll watch a video here and there for water-cooler discussions.
An investigation from a neutral third party is a good thing, but in this case LTT hired the third party investigator so the investigators obviously have an incentive to find LTT innocent of all charges since LTT is paying them through Linus Media Group (LMG). It’s better than nothing, but it’s like when there’s an internal affairs investigation into police misconduct… by the police… Nobody believes it and for good reason.
There’s a big difference, it’s not like Linus did the investigation himself like the police do
The law firm would be putting themselves on the line for LTT if there was any further legal action, or if the subject of the investigation brought forth more evidence.
I doubt LTT is big enough to give them the incentive to do that.
Hiring a third party investigator is not the same as internal affairs. Internal affairs have only one client and little incentive to bite the hand that feeds them.
If LTT goes down after this and it comes out that the law firm missed something major or outright lied, it would call into question every investigation they’ve done (at least recently) and destroy their reputation.
Who would be paying for an investigation if not LMG? Firms don’t hire auditors/investigators to give them a rosy report. They want the truth so they can adjust their processes so they don’t spend more money on regulatory actions/fines.
If the report is bad they just don’t release it to the public. But a third party audit lying to a firm to make them look good does not provide value. The company isn’t biased just because they are being paid by LMG, that’s just not how it works. LMG could just say they investigated themselves and found no wrong doing if that was their objective.
Saying that you don’t believe the report because the company investigating it was paid for by PMG shows that you are biased more than they are.
Firms don’t hire auditors/investigators to give them a rosy report.
That’s exactly why firms do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwbq9OsHvp4
But a third party audit lying to a firm to make them look good does not provide value.
Why not? Making them look good IS providing value according to the client that pays tha audit firm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTxt96DwaFk
If the absolute auditing giant EY is caught of lying on behalf of their clients, this firm doing it is certainly within realms of possibility.
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https://www.piped.video/watch?v=C_0XEIFGK5o
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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Withholding payment based on results with a negative outlook is illegal.
If the results are negative you just pay them and don’t release the results.
Yeah, but there’s still the possibility of them releasing it. Anyway, my point is that there’s no monetary incentive for them to skew the results.
Not within the span of one client, no, but businesses would have an incentive to hire firms that are more likely to find them innocent.
The law firm will gloss over as much as it can do safely, but if there was clear evidence of wrongdoing, they would have to report it or risk severe consequences. I am not familiar with Canadian regulations so I cannot comment on what those consequences would exactly be, but there would definitely be some.
That’s not how this works. Maybe if you get some business consultants, but this ain’t it. Just because you hire them yourself, doesn’t mean that they’ll fall in line with your wishes.
Of course LTT hired the investigator, who else would hire an investigator?
If the law firm bungled the investigation, it would affect their reputation and future business. Wouldn’t that mean they have a monetary incentive not to favor LMG in their investigation?
Bro, CEOs pay them to not find things. Finding things would make CEOs not want to pay them
That’s…no…that’s not how this works.
I doubt you pay a doctor for him to say something you want to hear
Do you think a CEO would want to hire a firm that MISSES facts? Facts that would make said CEO vulnerable to a costly lawsuit?
These firms build their business on a reputation for thorough, truthful investigation, and they put a contract in place that says that when they’re engaged by a company. It would destroy their own business if they took money to tilt their findings.
Yea, and Monsanto needs to produce suicide seeds that can’t generate crops. It’s not that they’re greedy or brutalist in their control of the market at all.
Wow what a false equivalency strawman argument.
The defamation statement was maybe a bit much, but also warranted. People need to know that just throwing accusations out there that are just plainly not true is actually legally problematic.
I also don’t get why people feel this is “threatening people who want to speak up in the future”.
If your “speaking up” has merit, it’s not defarmation. Plain and simple.
Companies make mistakes (and aparently some were made in this case, and dealt with).
But I find it concerning that people also just blindly trust any and all claims that individuals make about these kind of situations. Believe that they are telling the truth, but also verify that this is actually true. The latter part is important. Blind trust is as damaging as not doing anything at all about a proble, There are people out there who get laid off for legitimate reasons, and try to retaliate for that. Even by claiming BS reasons.
I wish you never have to find yourself facing a corporation. The power imbalance is so massive that you feel like an ant, it’s the most disempowering experience anyone could face in legal terms. LTT could destroy people’s lives and it would be decades if ever, for them to ever have to face consequences.
This is why I always default to believing the individual over the corporation. The corporation has no soul, no heart, no conscience and no remorse. Imagine being a person who wants to speak up about something else you know for certain happened, but a million dollar law firm just put in writing that such kind of thing didn’t happen. You have no recourse or power, it’s your word against a literal army of lawyers. Regardless of whether the investigation was good or not. The result still has a silencing effect.
It’s one of those things you just have to accept about this kind of social media and, in a sense, Lemmy users specifically. I’m not too surprised that parts of this community are in the camp of disliking things because they are popular and don’t fit their specific wants/needs. Many people are here because they dislike the more popular Reddit, after all.
In a more general sense, most people when they don’t like something are neutral about it, and those people won’t show up in the comment section, so all we see are these more “extreme” opinions.
I enjoy watching LTT videos, but you won’t find me jumping into comment sections saying I’m a huge fan and there’s no way they could have done something bad because I like their channel, for example. Getting the independent audit was a good idea, and I’m glad they went through it. I don’t think the defamation comment was necessary, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the message is worth ignoring.
The hate from this community towards LTT is extreme and unfounded.
Are you just going to ignore Linus and the companies abhorrent response to the situation? That alone should make anyone lose any respect they had for them.
I agree, I don’t think it’s unfounded, their immediate response was really tone deaf and I’ve yet to see them own up to that.
I’m a bit uncertain as to how I feel about the overall response. I don’t exactly fault people for getting publicly upset, and I don’t hate anyone for still watching. I personally don’t feel the need to broadcast my thoughts. I canceled my floatplane subscription and stopped watching LMG videos on YouTube, but I haven’t tried to get anyone else to stop- or really even talked about them much at all, save for this post
Yeah, same for me. Linus’ response was so stereotypicaly defensive, dismissive and shitty, I lost all trust. Couple that with GN’s fact checking of LMGs sloppyness, and I was done ever watching their channel.
No, you’re right. That was shitty, but this report sorta puts a different light on it. I would hope that Linus was caught off guard by the allegations and responded poorly. I’m clearly giving him the benefit of the doubt though and I hope I’m not wrong.
Time may tell. Idk.
It’s unbelievable how much hate for LTT there is on this platform.
They have a huge reach and tremendous influence, but are not always conscientious, careful, and thorough as they should be given their sway. Still, that doesn’t justify the vitriol.
I’m glad this report showed their innocence but I unsubscribed after the GN/Billet Labs thing.
I might check them out again later but that situation made me kind of uncomfortable with supporting them
fwiw, they changed their process and output amount a lot after that
According to who?
Tbh I don’t trust anyone that reacted the way Linus did in response to GN’s investigation or that only changes things once they get called out on it publically.
Okay, let’s go back in time, gamers Nexus just releases the video. You’re Linus. How do you respond?
If I were Linus I’d stay as far the fuck away from any investigation as possible if for no other reason than having anything to do with it would sow doubt in any conclusion favorable to LTT.
No one should trust the conclusions of an investigation paid for by the accused any more than you should trust an inspector that was hired by the real estate agent selling you a house and for the exact same reasons.
… the investigation has nothing to do with the GamersNexus video, so your reply is irrelevant to the parent comment. But since you posted, I’ll take the dive: you really think it’s better they don’t investigate? If you were Linus, you’re saying you would rather bury your head in the sand about potential employee abuse because your reputation is too important? Sounds like your morals are worse than LTT.
I saw that which is why I’m willing to give them another chance. I really don’t think Linus is a scummy guy or anything, they just grew too fast without thinking.
I haven’t had a strong desire to get back into the channel but if a video pops up on my feed again, I might resub.
personally, I think they handled the situation the best way the could.
Gamers Nexus had genuine good criticism, and they took it, took a moment to pause and implemented fixes.
Mistakes happen. And they learned from them
I agree but it did shake my confidence enough to make me back off. I watched LTT mostly for entertainment (GN for news and reviews) and I’ve since “filled that spot” so it’ll probably only make its way back into my watch list once a different thing falls off.
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It’s important to remember that the people who are okay with this report probably won’t speak up. Those who find reasons to not be okay will speak loudly. Personally, I take reports like this with a grain of salt and an assumption we are told only the good or neutral bits. I then decide if those bits are enough to constitute good will. In this I feel they are.
So good job: LTT.
Yeah, I definitely see that now. The loud ones are apparently all I saw.
I just don’t like Linus because he’s annoying and abuses clickbait thumbnails and titles.
Some of their videos (from other people than himself) are good, but usually I’ll avoid LTT content all together.
For that reason I’m not really sure what happened, and I don’t really care.
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He said previously that he also dislikes the clickbait thumbnails, but they do it because it works. If they adhered to what the enthusiasts wanted their view counts would drop and they wouldn’t be able to have so many employees on payroll.
Maybe, whatever. It’s just too annoying for me to click on that shit.
Same. While Linus is part of the problem for using practices he claims to disagree with, I’d rather be part of the solution by not rewarding it with attention.
Have you ever looked at the DeArrow extension?
He said previously that he also dislikes the clickbait thumbnails, but they do it because it works. If they adhered to what the enthusiasts wanted their view counts would drop and they wouldn’t be able to have so many employees on payroll.
there are a lot of reasons to dislike LTT outside of this incident. I don’t have anything against them, but I can understand why others would.
I have no issue with LTT as a whole, I just really don’t like Linus. He portrays an almost weaponized incompetence in a lot of computing topics and doesn’t accurately represent his own lack of understanding to the audience that couldn’t tell on their own. By all accounts there is one hell of a team working there, they just chose a really bad face to represent the actual content.
Just my personal take for what it’s worth.
I watch almost all of the LTT videos as well as most of the videos across all the other LMG channels. While I think I’d probably get along really well with Linus as a friend or acquaintance, and I don’t necessarily have any issue with him as a person, he has had some pretty irritating takes and used his bully pit to essentially swat away or mock legitimate criticism on his takes. Usually about things that are outside of his core competencies. The ones that come to mind are some of the things he has said about unions (he’s not anti Union to be clear), the backpack, car dependency in North America, and worker cooperatives.
I personally think it would be pretty interesting if he had experts in those areas come on the WAN show to talk about those things. Instead he does the super ADHD thing (something he has admitted he has, and something I have definitely recognized him doing having had a partner with severe ADHD exhibit similar behaviors) where he spends seconds finding an article, skims it not noting much nuance, and then somehow simultaneously says something confidently while also saying he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He often wants the best of both worlds. He wants to be taken seriously while also being given the latitude to joke around and just make hot takes.
Even with all that said, as stated above, I will still watch most of his videos and wish him well. Recognizing the flaws in something I enjoy doesn’t mean I hate something, especially if I take the time to voice it. It usually means I care and I want to see something I like or that is good improve and get better.
I really key in on the language of these types of releases. First is,
To ensure a fair investigation, LMG did not comment or publicly release any data and asked our team members to do the same.
So… keeping yo mouth shut is not ensuring a “fair investigation.” It’s protecting yourself.
Next, phrases like,
Claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated.
Is not proof of anything- other than there was no proof. That’s why you hire a third party to speak for you. Instead of you saying, “I didn’t do it,” (which of course almost anyone would - true or not) the “independent” investigator can say, “I didn’t find any proof.”
The strongest language here,
Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
…is interesting. I guess it depends on what they mean by “addressed.” If I slapped a colleague on the back and said, “That was hilarious!”, I hardly ignored it. You could even say I addressed it.
I’m not saying I believe I’ve way or the other. All I’m pointing out is this means basically nothing.
Yup. The weasel words are very telling (for those with eyes to see).
Is not proof of anything
You’ll be waiting a while then. You can’t prove a negative. If LMG says they didn’t do a thing, and an investigation concluded that there was no substantial evidence that they did that thing, what more do you want?
LMG says they didn’t do a thing
Yes, please show me this language.
And I never said I was waiting for proof, thanks. Feel free to read the whole thing.
Yea idk.
After having dealt with some audits (although not this exact topic), in general they followed the same format. “Assert that we do the thing we claim to be doing”. So if the thing they claim to be doing is a low bar, the audit means nothing. If they dont release any evidence, or a report of what they were ascertaining it means very little IMO.
I can’t remember if the employee released any evidence with her claims either though, but in general I’d prefer my odds with assuming her story is closer to the truth against a company which has had other mishaps recently, underpinned by evidence. All of which they tried to brush under the carpet.
So yeah. I’m pressing X for doubt.
I’m pressing X for doubt.
I see what you did there!
Assume for a moment the investigators were acting in good faith and knew what they were doing. They are still only able to find what they are given access to, and evidence that wasn’t destroyed. LTT is not the most technically competent staff in the world, but I bet if those guys know how to do anything technical, covering their tracks is probably high on that list.
I’m not skeptical of the firm that was hired. I’m skeptical that LTT and gang didn’t scrub everything before handing over the keys. We know LTT aren’t dumb, and we know they are unethical.
I understand my argument falls into “can’t prove a negative” territory. I’m going on instincts. The main dude has techbro-creep energy. Reminds me of a Blizzard executive. The whole thing stinks of a South Park apology episode to me.
I understand you can’t put someone in jail over instincts. I wouldn’t want that, either. That’s not how the system should work.
But it’s 100% OK to stop following some dumbass YouTuber because you trust your instincts.
I’d rather get my tech infotainment elsewhere. It’s a big wide world out there on the internet. LTT isn’t the only game in town. And honestly, they were never that great to begin with. Their methodologies are lousy.
Fair, but you used a of words to just say…
Guilty or not, I don’t like them.
That changes my perspective on them a lot. Well, another lesson taken - don’t jump too quickly onto conclusions.
It’s SOOOO easy to jump on the mob hate bandwagon. Especially for content creators that have so much content going back so long. People can pull all the worst bits from a decade up and draw all sorts of conclusions that seem totally plausible if you consider that information in a vacuum. Also it’s just cathartic, Linus can be really annoying sometimes. His videos are everywhere. He’s making tons of money. It feels GOOD to shit on him. Then when the dust clears you realize you were the one being the asshole off the basis of shakey hear-say and anonymous opinions online. Feels bad man. Those are the times in life we really have to remind ourselves of our morals and ethics and only act on what we really know. But it’s hard.
Thats well said. In a climate where we not only get our information dramatized we also get our reactions performed to us from media outlets as well. And it did feel good to think about the downfall. But that is because of my opinion of Linus. I learned that I just don’t like his personality. That is separate from the accusations against his company and even after the dust settles and no wrongdoing was found, I still think the guy is a dick. And that is ok, but worth recognizing and separating fact from my own opinion.
Could someone just give us a quick summary of what LTT is accused of?
Do we know if there is a court case about it? As this would be more interesting than just a release from the company auditing them?
Personally, I clearly don’t know so much about LTT, but I love their videos.
Here is a good writeup how it started: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamers-nexus-vs-linus-tech-tips-billet-labs-review-controversy
Relevant part is this:
On August 16th, 2023, ex-LTT employee Madison Suop posted a thread on X explaining her reasons for leaving Linus Tech Tips and the kind of workplace misconduct she purportedly experienced during her time there: https://x.com/suuuoppp/status/1691693740254228741
It’s important to talk about the timing. This person waited until there was already drama with Linus tech tips and they’re very unfavorable review of the liquid cooler they put on the wrong device. Which is a f***** up review.
The dogpiled on, did not involve the labor board, made the accusations and then said I don’t want to be involved and walk away. So the investigation is not about the water cooler review, which was the initial trigger for all the media, but about the accusations that were basically dropped drive-by-style
How else were they supposed to air their accusations?
LTTA fans would have immediately gone after her for her accusations if she randomly made them. LTT fans have done this in the past.
She definitely bandwagoned, but it was likely the safest way.
Labor board, sue ltt, go to the police.
Release a public statement referring people to the ongoing investigation.
What they did instead, was make a bunch of social media accusations, which the company cannot respond to without violating their privacy. And did no follow-up with an outside authority.
The timing is a factor, you can weigh that one way or the other, but it needs to be indicated
Here is a good writeup of how it started: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamers-nexus-vs-linus-tech-tips-billet-labs-review-controversy
Relevant part is this:
On August 16th, 2023, ex-LTT employee Madison Suop posted a thread on X explaining her reasons for leaving Linus Tech Tips and the kind of workplace misconduct she purportedly experienced during her time there: https://x.com/suuuoppp/status/1691693740254228741
Here’s an overview by The Verge
But basically it started when Gamers Nexus called out some issues LTT had with testing methodology and also an incident where LTT accidentally auctioned off another companies products that they had reviewed poorly.
Then Linus responded pretty poorly (and ended up stepping down as CEO and is now a chief creative something or other iirc)
Then a former employee tweeted about why she left LTT and accused LTT of having a toxic workplace environment. And specifically said she had been sexually harassed by a coworker but not taken seriously.
There’s no court case, LTT just did this to clear their name basically.
Ok thanks for the explanation.
Then Linus responded pretty poorly (and ended up stepping down as CEO and is now a chief creative something or other iirc)
Linus didn’t step down in response to this. I don’t remember the exact timelines, but he either stepped down before this, or was in already in the process of transitioning to the new CEO when this happened.
Oh yeah, I think I do remember that announcement being before everything else went down, my bad for misrepresenting that
I don’t understand why LTT wouldn’t negotiate a settlement first with the accuser in exchange for a nondisclosure and non-disparagement agreement before releasing any statement. You could view their posturing as defiance.
Yes. Correct. A person made accusations and those accusations were exaggerated by cowboy journalism in part by gamer Nexus and various other YouTube channels.
They are most definitely being definite. And if they were to agree to some kind of out of court settlement with a nondisclosure agreement it wouldn’t be made public.
I don’t think GamersNexus covered Madison’s case? I know they covered Billet Labs and the performance metrics being off though
that’s probably what the accuser wanted and i respect the refusal
The problem is the repuational damage, and subsequently financial damage to the brand. A not ingsificant number of people unsubscribed and stoped watch watching their videos. More importantly sponsors could stop sponsoring them because they don’t the association - just as we’ve seen LMG drop sponsors over the years.
If they just settled this quietly, the assumption would be the settlement was an admittion of guilt.
Assuming the allagations are false, the defimation suit is a legimate response - for a business model that relys on sponsors and reputation, having that damaged is a big deal financially.
In realty, there is nothing to gain to from pursing the case - a business going after an individual is a horrible idea for PR and the individual isn’t going to have the money to make up the cost anyways.
And that’s of course they actually didn’t do anything and the accusations are entirely false in which case why would they settle with someone trying to just get money out of them?
Because it’s simpler than dealing with the courts/media
Yeah but then you look like you hire predators. So no, not a good move.
You don’t need to admit anything. Settle the matter confidentially without an admission of guilt. If you are asked, say that it was an HR matter that you are not allowed to discuss.
Then you can be less guarded about the investigation findings in your statement and you don’t have to worry about defamation and a potential lawsuit that could further damage your reputation.
If you’re one of the people in this thread insisting this does nothing to exonerate LTT, what would you accept as evidence that they’re innocent? I don’t follow YouTube drama much at all, I just think it’s wild when people form an opinion based on on set of statements and then are never open to learning more facts about the case ever again.
I asked myself the same thing bc i read this and I’m still skeptical.
I don’t think they could present anything that would exonerate them except literal recordings proving the accuaations false. Which sucks if they’re innocent, but like i said im skeptical.
What sits wrong with me here is that one of the underlying complaints was on the basis of there being few or no other women in the workplace and it allowing for the existence of a hostile work environment. Thats not a problem that gets fixed by suing the woman speaking out on these potential issues.
I’d start watching them again if they prove consistently that they are trying to resolve the underlying issues that were brought up. Having more female representation etc. That and time.
Nothing will. They want to see LTT fail because they made a few bad mistakes. These are the same people on the relationship forms who say “break up” at the slightest negative.
Receipts. The actual data used to come to these conclusions. I have worked with attorneys in corporate law firms in some capacity for almost 20 years and while I am not a lawyer I can confidently say they don’t take these engagements to find the truth. They do it to prep for a case and to build a chain of events that show they are acting in good faith increasing their chances filing a motion to dismiss while identifying liability and building a defense. The one point they conceded regarding her claims that they lied in onboarding the attorneys are basically saying if that case gets filed there is a high chance a judge will find it has merit and move it forward. Idk of Canada court system is the same but in America thats corporate lawyer for youd probably pay a settlement or damages on this point.
What if that standard were to be applied to the people making the assertions? Shouldn’t the burden of proof be on the accuser, not the accused? Seems kinda backwards the way you described it, someone can just say some things about you and now you are obligated to release internal documents/chat logs/emails or whatever else to prove their assertions wrong?
No they’re not obligated to release anything, and neither is she. In a situation like this its up to the observer to form their own opinions. People will take each parties past and future actions in account as well. It is very believable to me that LTT has a toxic culture based purely on the upload schedule and past conflict with other reviewers and product startups. I think most of the claims were descriptive enough to be believable although some may have been exaggerated and painted by the whistleblowers past experience such as the bait and switch onboarding. My opinion doesn’t really matter though, im just going to stop interacting with LTT based on how theyve reacted and conducted themselves over multiple public incidents.
Generally speaking, the employer has all the power and own the records which would prove the whistleblower right or wrong and it is much more difficult to retain that information as an employee. The power imbalance in the relationship and the role of the company as custodian of records here is what changes the expectation. Power imbalance is what has caused high profile people with money and fame to get away with bad behavior for thousands of years so society is working to address that now. Not going to be perfect at first but its a good start
Welcome to the Internet. You must be new here.
Just because we’re still astonished by people’s stupidity doesn’t mean we’re not veterans of it. People/humanity still disappoint(s) me, even though I’ve watched them/it fail each other/itself for decades now.
IDK how these typically work. Does the law firm release a summary of their findings? Or sign off on LTTs statement? Otherwise, it’s still just a statement they could have made with or without a successful investigation.
Also, I read the “we have a strong case for defamation” as a bit threatening. That didn’t need to be aired as a public statement.
Recommendation for better onboarding… very believable, that’s been most companies I’ve worked for.
Yeah, I was trying not to be biased and immediately think this was all BS. Then I read the part about a case for defamation and just immediately went back to “fuck these guys”.
Just came across as the bully playing the victim trying to show how reasonable and nice they’re being by not “retaliating” by bullying any further.
I agree with you, it reads that way to me as well. Playing devil’s advocate, if the accused company really was innocent of these charges and it was a disgruntled / vindictive employee…I can understand them wanting to put that out there. However, considering the power imbalance here, I think it was a dumb move. They should have taken the high ground this time and held that idea in reserve. I don’t think LTT is innocent here, BTW. I don’t know how guilty or not guilty they are. The place has a bad smell to it, though.
Linus himself just seems to give off that “nice guy on camera, exact opposite behind the scenes” kind of vibe. I’ve seen him get a bit riled up on podcast videos and it really comes off like he’s holding back. Perhaps the employee’s story was all too believable from others who get that perception of him. So I could see how the defamation threat would be like him/the company to try to show “we’re really angry and could do more but we’re gonna hold our temper”.
Completely agree. His creepiness is obvious to me. Unfortunately half this community will rally behind their boy no matter what he does. It’s disappointing but not surprising. It’s never been a serious / professionally operated channel, but it’s popular with a certain demographic.
I kinda get that vibe too. But without knowing more about him, I imagine what I perceive might also just be someone who’s very confident in themselves who doesn’t necessarily care very much what others think about him. Which, Linus has built his own company from the ground up, and it has made him very wealthy, so, he has some legitimate reason for that confidence, in his competence and his f you money. I suppose that might also co-occur with easily overlooking other people’s problems, or being narcissistic though. Which is bad for a boss (e.g. Elon). Still, hard to just summarily judge without more information
Appreciate the nuanced take and you make some great points. I question his actual competence, though. I think he’s good at faking it. The channel has always lacked rigor.
The channel has always lacked rigor.
Then again, they’re doing 10-15 minuite videos on what is essentially an entertainment platform, not multiple hour PHD dissertations.
If he’s just making videos for entertainment, then stop putting up false benchmarks and bad data. People are using his videos to make expensive buying decisions, and I don’t see any disclaimers on said videos saying “this is just for entertainment purposes”.
Then again, they do reviews and give tech recommendations all the time. It’s even in the name.
They should have taken the high ground this time
Any time there is this big of a power imbalance they should always take the high ground. And when they don’t that’s a good sign that you shouldn’t have much respect for them.
Weren’t there a few (ex?) employees that came forward shortly after the initial accusations surfaced and confirmed it was true?
I could be misremembering things but I also vaguely recall the initial accusations being backed up with receipts. Wasn’t there an Imgur album with a whole bunch of screenshots of conversations proving the accusations weren’t made up? Or am I confusing two completely different situations together?
I didn’t follow the situation super closely, and moved on and forgot about it until I saw this post.
If you’re referring to APrime, he did release an updated statement on Twitter/X.
Last year, I made the decision to leave LMG influenced by a series of negative emotions that clouded my judgement. So over the past few months, I’ve taken the time to apologize privately to Linus, Yvonne, and others on the team because my actions and words were unfair to them.
Throughout my five years of employment there, they’ve shown nothing but kindness and forgiveness. We’ve had our differences, but none of them justified the comments I made or the disturbances I caused after my departure.
My decision to leave was unfortunately precipitated by a challenging period in my personal life, which I felt was affecting my work. The “drama” unfolded while I was on vacation, a time when I was hoping to recharge. Instead, I returned feeling more frustrated & immediately quit.
Since then, I’ve continued with therapy, which I had started in the Spring under the company health plan, and this eventually led to a diagnosis of certain mental health conditions. I’m grateful for the support I received, as it helped me understand and address these issues.
I genuinely miss the people at LMG (though the feeling may not be mutual) & feel my motives for leaving were misguided.
However, I’ve been fortunate to work with some incredibly talented and wonderful people since, & I’m excited about the prospect having more in the future. :)
I didn’t follow it closely either, in fact this is the first I’ve heard about ex employees confirming and an album of screen shots.
However, I am hesitant to accept screenshots as proof of anything - this is a company of artistic tech nerds, I’m sure 70% of the staff could make a convincing screenshot and 30% of them will know to make the metadata match.
As for ex employees speaking up, it’s all hearsay. It could be true, but it could also not. There’s no reliable way to determine that with out substantial evidence backing them.
I would accept it if someone took them to the courts and won - unfortually thats a huge finaical burdern for an individual, so that’s unlikely to happen.
Alternatively if the labor board started issuing fines for crimes, that’d be a clear indicator something bad was happening.
In this case, I am sticking with inoocent until proven guilty.
I mean I guess its slightly reassuring. Truth is, its hard to trust a “moderator” that you paid for. Its just the nature of how shit works.
That’s pretty much my thinking too. I mean, what’s the less biased alternative to get to the truth here? The law firm has an incentive to satisfy the people paying them, but they also have their own reputation to maintain.
So I guess I’d be inclined to skeptically believe their findings. Although, it would be better if the firm released their own summary (or endorsed this one).
The thing is that it’s the best they can do, which is about all we can ask for. No one is going to do a good job at the investigation for free.
The summary could’ve been an official statement from the lawfirm in formal letterhead, without unnecessary legal threats. But I’m not PR on LTT, so what do I know. They just keep fumbling and bumbling about like the idiots they collectively are.
That’s kinda where I’m sitting
“We’ve thoroughly investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong”
Is anyone shocked?
I get it’s fun to dunk on them with a meme comment, but that’s literally the exact opposite of what they did.
We’ve thoroughly investigated ourselves
They didn’t though?
We paid for someone to investigate ourselves and coincidentally they found nothing?
That’s the thing though… how could you investigate something (which costs time, thus money) without letting someone pay for it? Would you suggest that alleged victims should pay for the investigation instead?
What construction would be reasonable for you to investigate wrongdoings?
Uh… Do you work for free? I sure don’t. If courts assigned an impartial investigator, I certainly didn’t hear about it.
I’m sure you have sources on how an independent, third-party wasn’t engaged to investigate this, right?
What?
We’ve thoroughly investigated ourselves
but that’s the point… they didn’t
They paid someone with incentive not to find anything, to investigate what LTT decided to share. Yeah, no, I’m not resubscribing. But I guess consultants recommended more trainings so at least there’s some competition for least surprising outcomes.
so now it’s just shit you made up… (i cannot believe i’m defending lmg)
I think you’re forgetting initial responses from LMG to this whole fiasco. They didn’t appear to be acting in good faith then and now I’m setting a bar for trust higher than I would otherwise.
i think they did act in good faith, but since linus can’t handle any form of criticism and most of them are inexperienced with stuff like this they made a metric fuckton of mistakes… however, this has nothing to do with the outcome of the investigation. “setting a bar for trust higher” does not mean “the outcome is invalid because i think they paid the investigators hush money”
The outcome of the investigation is a statement by a third party which can’t present proof so ultimately this is still about trust.
How would you suggest a firm to investigate wrongdoings other than asking a third party to do it?
Release an actual report of the investigation by the third party rather than a statement.
What claim was investigated, what proof did they find if any, what evidence did they have access to etc.
Finding no proof of wrongdoing or proof of no wrongdoing is a big difference.
You can’t have “proof of no wrong doing,” because you can’t prove a negative.
Good point, thank you for pointing it out.
Maybe a better way to phrase it is that a report from the investigator could qualify what they considered/found when they said the claims were false, baseless etc, and any evidence they found/data they had access to. (E.g. if they could look at all internal communication but their data retention policy is 6 months and this happened 7 months ago, its not the same as not finding anything)
For example, “allegations of sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed” is a wide range. It could be there were no allegations recorded from the employee (as in, they weren’t reported), or they were addressed by a slap on the wrist or a “just don’t do that again” to introducing workplace behaviour training, forcing the perpetrator to go through it, suspending them without pay and so on.
You are right it’s not proof of no wrongdoing, but it would serve as proof that they handled things in a generally suitable manner, rather than that they managed to twist things around to check a box for the investigator.
Release your proof of a negative! Square your circle! Invent a perpetual motion machine!
