- cross-posted to:
- linus_tech_tips@discuss.online
- linustechtips@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- linus_tech_tips@discuss.online
- 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:
-
Claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated.
-
Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
You must log in or register to comment.
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.
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.
Of course LTT hired the investigator, who else would hire an investigator?
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.
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.
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.
I doubt you pay a doctor for him to say something you want to hear
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 doesn’t say anything bad on behalf of their clients, this firm doing it is certainly within realms of possibility.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=qwbq9OsHvp4
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=CTxt96DwaFk
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=C_0XEIFGK5o
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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.
There’s a big difference, it’s not like Linus did the investigation himself like the police do
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Have you ever looked at the DeArrow extension?
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Who else should pay them?
deleted by creator
Okay. Who are those people and why should they have to pay?
deleted by creator
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.
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
deleted by creator
Get off my internet
deleted by creator
Deleted by creator
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
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…
Yeah, but who pays for it then?
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”.
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.
Haven’t you seen The Big Short?
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://m.piped.video/watch?v=vE8E7_PNm98
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Ooh no that’s a fair point. Some mistrust is definitely justified until proven differently due to the high potential in conflict of interest.
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.
deleted by creator
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”.
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.
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.
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.
Edit: looks like i was indeed wrong and confusing two separate situations.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Yup. The weasel words are very telling (for those with eyes to see).
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.
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 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).
That’s kinda where I’m sitting
“We’ve thoroughly investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong”
Is anyone shocked?
e: imagine being so pathetic you get your rocks off by being a ltt boot licker. Oh wait at least 50 of you don’t need to imagine that do you.
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 the least surprising outcome.
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.
Release your proof of a negative! Square your circle! Invent a perpetual motion machine!
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.
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.
deleted by creator
What?
That changes my perspective on them a lot. Well, another lesson taken - don’t jump too quickly onto conclusions.
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.
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.
that’s probably what the accuser wanted and i respect the refusal
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Okay, they’ve found themselves to have do nothing wrong and are threatening a defamation suit. Another great, “Trust me Bro.” moment here.
Maybe they should focus more on doing reviews and testing methodologies that don’t suck.
What part about “third party” do you not understand?
There’s a million different ways “third party” can go. Sometimes they take the job seriously and have enough mandate to get it done, sometimes they don’t. The latter is especially risky and problematic when they’re hired by the party accused.
The only way to ensure you get the former is to let somebody not involved in the accusations make the choice of which auditors to hire
What part of I don’t have any trust in that company don’t you understand. I bet you’re a huge fan of “third party” arbitration too.
Then move on with your life. There’s literally nothing that could ever change your mind, so arguing with you is even more fruitless than usual.
I certainly didn’t ask you your opinion on a public forum.
To be fair, there were lots of words to read
What part of “we paid these guys and they said we’re fine” do you not? Why would they choose and pay and release the results from a company they didn’t trust to clear them?
I’m not saying it’s rotten, but the fact that the third party was unilaterally chosen by and paid for LMG makes all the results pretty questionable.
My guy, that’s a common business practice. If the third party skewed the results to favor their client, they risk massive reputation and monetary losses.
That’s how any auditing works.
Look up Arthur Andersen and what happened to them.
