What’s new in this article, compared to prior coverage of the (as of time of posting) current Linus Media Group controversies, is CEO Terren Tong has said that an outside investigator will be...
What’s new in this article, compared to prior coverage of the (as of time of posting) current Linus Media Group controversies, is CEO Terren Tong has said that an outside investigator will be brought in regarding harassment accusations by former employee Madison Reeves.
Also, Linus claims to not recall any of the accounts Madison has talked about.
As damning as this has all been I think it's possible for the brand to be saved if Linus steps away and employees supporting the present toxic culture are purged from the company.
As damning as this has all been I think it's possible for the brand to be saved if Linus steps away and employees supporting the present toxic culture are purged from the company.
He has plenty of money. If he actually had wanted to step away, he would have done so already. It's not a bad PR move to re-iterate the desire though, or was at least in recent times until now. It...
He has plenty of money. If he actually had wanted to step away, he would have done so already. It's not a bad PR move to re-iterate the desire though, or was at least in recent times until now. It keeps currently disgruntled and gruntled employees onboard as they think things might actually change once the CEO is gone. Which he won't be, but they don't know that.
He's literally the public face of the company, and obviously his name is on it too. I'm not sure they even can separate without starting an entirely new company.
He's literally the public face of the company, and obviously his name is on it too.
I'm not sure they even can separate without starting an entirely new company.
For what its worth, it has been nearly ten years since Anand Lal Shimpi left Anandtech and they seems to do fine. Of course it's easier to separate the content from the author when you're dealing...
For what its worth, it has been nearly ten years since Anand Lal Shimpi left Anandtech and they seems to do fine.
Of course it's easier to separate the content from the author when you're dealing with text compared to video.
There's enough comments talking about Linus and the company, as well as enough going on about Billet Labs, but I wanna talk about Madison. I've seen many people online vilifying Madison for...
There's enough comments talking about Linus and the company, as well as enough going on about Billet Labs, but I wanna talk about Madison.
I've seen many people online vilifying Madison for talking about her experiences. How the timing is off, how it's a he said she said situation. Unfortunately, red tape is a fuckin mess. The legal system has a lot of cogs and redundancies that are supposed to help, but it also doesn't because nowadays... for the younger people, the government is corrupt, and corporations get away with it. Which is true.
I'm just really sad that no one on the Internet understands that sexism in the workplace DOES happen to women. Very common. Esp in STEM. My mom has gone through it herself, and I have experienced my own sort of "privilege". Even tho I'm not a man, and I really hate that I'm always seen as one.
I love how 'Strike while the iron is hot' is completely disregarded these days in favor of 'It's too soon' or 'you're taking advantage of x situation.' Like, duh, that's the point.
I love how 'Strike while the iron is hot' is completely disregarded these days in favor of 'It's too soon' or 'you're taking advantage of x situation.' Like, duh, that's the point.
Because I am unsure what situation you are referencing and I don't want to wade through a billion google results, can you point me in the right direction to learn more about this?
Given that there is a history with LTT fanboys driving someone to suicide
Because I am unsure what situation you are referencing and I don't want to wade through a billion google results, can you point me in the right direction to learn more about this?
I believe this is what they are referring to. I have no idea how accurate this info is, I've just been lurking on the LTT sub over the last days to watch this situation unfold...
Fuckin hell. I heard about this but I didn't know if it was true cause I heard it secondhand. While damaging and very very misguided, the anger that father feels is 110% justified and no one...
Fuckin hell.
I heard about this but I didn't know if it was true cause I heard it secondhand. While damaging and very very misguided, the anger that father feels is 110% justified and no one should judge him for his reaction. To not only lose his son but his wife too, and to suicide no less.
Ofc, there's no way to corroborate this. And I hate that so much shit has happened like the Lil Tay situation that I'm always gonna be unsure, but... regardless if this happened or not, I don't believe there would be anything to gain by lying. My heart goes out to him.
The irony is... apparently, Linus was fine with him getting his play button? Also heard that secondhand so.....
FYI a r/LinusTechTips mod claims to have received evidence that debunks this. https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15y8szz/update_regarding_mindchop_rumor/
A r/LinustechTips mod is now claiming to have evidence that debunks this story. https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15y8szz/update_regarding_mindchop_rumor/
Yeah, i had come across a bit of evidence that at least makes me take pause in whether the single post was true or not. That being said, I also think it is valid to feel reticent about coming...
Yeah, i had come across a bit of evidence that at least makes me take pause in whether the single post was true or not.
That being said, I also think it is valid to feel reticent about coming forward due to the community's potential backlash anyway.
The timing is bad for LMG but I can see why she chose it. LMG are in a weakened position and people are ready to rage about every thing, real or imagined. She states the biggest reason why not...
The timing is bad for LMG but I can see why she chose it. LMG are in a weakened position and people are ready to rage about every thing, real or imagined. She states the biggest reason why not earlier is fear of retaliation from fans. So striking while the iron is hot allows her to get it out with a good chance that she'll have avengers coming to her side. She was always going to see flame for making the comments as that's just how online drama goes, but with this timing she has a better chance at drowning out the negative comments about her.
And no, I don't mean any of this as an evil mastermind sort of planning. I'm sure she just saw all of the angry comments at LMG and got riled up herself. She made the comments at 2AM in the morning. That's some late night doom scrolling going on.
As to what happens next? This one is going to be a slow roll if it does go anywhere. LMG isn't going to toy about with making comments on it. Maybe she'll bring charges? Hard to say. I don't think she wants to draw in more drama on herself than has already been stated as dragging this to court would not be enjoyable, no matter how right she is or isn't. Most likely I foresee the external review leading to a luke warm statement and then all parties moving on.
I feel like the people questioning motives or veracity are missing the overarching point when painful accounts like these are brought up, and it is emblematic of the generalized complacency and...
I feel like the people questioning motives or veracity are missing the overarching point when painful accounts like these are brought up, and it is emblematic of the generalized complacency and desensitization that's been cultivated. The critical part is that her account is, as you say, unfortunately very recognizable because it speaks to a recurring pattern of workplace toxicity that eats away at everyone to different degrees, whether you're its target, a family member, bystander or associated in some other way.
If there's any takeaway to be had for us who are viewing these events from the outside in, it's to recognize how harmful such a workplace culture is and to try to push back against it when we can in whatever small ways we're able to. Any other action someone takes, like unfollowing this or that person, is at best secondary.
I think it's a lot more than workplace culture. It's crazy how fucked women are in Western society. Beyond femininity's sex appeal, its surprising and sad how inherent running women into the...
If there's any takeaway to be had for us who are viewing these events from the outside in, it's to recognize how harmful such a workplace culture is and to try to push back against it when we can in whatever small ways we're able to.
I think it's a lot more than workplace culture.
It's crazy how fucked women are in Western society. Beyond femininity's sex appeal, its surprising and sad how inherent running women into the ground is. Women have historically been seen as secondary — terms like "feminine cadence" or "wife beater", traditional families are cultivated to be patriarchal, the biological difference between women and men is manipulated for arguments and, among other things, women who gleefully express or flaunt themselves are often seen as "wanting it" by creeps.
Something casual like "calm your tits" down may seem fine, and tbh... maybe it is! Hell, I make a lot of "ur mom" jokes. Yet, there is a reason why it's slang or vernacular. Some of Madison's experiences in her X/Twitter thread hit home, and it's sooo... infuriating how for decades, we haven't even solved a basic thing like discrimination. We just don't want to.
Not every woman is objectified or harassed. But srsly! Men are so off the hook it even hurts them — men can't be raped at all, in spite of the fact that male rape victims CAN & DO EXIST!! I do believe in believeing whatever you want, yet it does not help that fem politicians who buy into the regressive bs of trampling on things like abortion — when Roe v Wade got overturned, it wasn't just abortion rights that were hit! The SJW craze about "feminism" back in the mid-2010s also didn't help as well. We've made a lot of steps but it's still a HUGE problem.
Like, in Fortnite, a lot of ppl apparently switch to female skins based on the claim that they have smaller hitboxes. Which, based on a quick Google search, doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe it doesn't lead anywhere or it's a red herring, but it does get you thinking...
Seriously. You are right in that we need to try to push back whenever we can, but how about a preemptive solutuon is to just respect women? To sincerely understand women/fem peeps? Women of colour? How about trans women too? Legit. Trans women have it worse lmao.
Of course, it goes without saying that this issue extends beyond the workplace. But the workplace is a social space/arena where power can more casually, inconspicuously and insidiously be abused...
Of course, it goes without saying that this issue extends beyond the workplace. But the workplace is a social space/arena where power can more casually, inconspicuously and insidiously be abused compared to many other situations, and people are often ensnared in them due to outside obligations (e.g. bills) or poor labor protections. So I do think it is a special context in which it pays to be extra mindful of how you behave with colleagues, and, when possible, try to nudge the workplace dynamic in a healthier direction.
I'm not sure what "SJW craze" around feminism you're referring to. But social justice is an important field both academically and in our day-to-day, so I personally would not pair it a term like craze, considering there already is a tendency from more cynical people (euphemistically speaking) to attribute a negative connotation to it.
In the mid 2010s, there was an uptick in feminism or smth like that around Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn, etc. Esp with GamerGate being a thing, and the increased visbility of LGBT communities as...
I'm not sure what "SJW craze" around feminism you're referring to.
In the mid 2010s, there was an uptick in feminism or smth like that around Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn, etc. Esp with GamerGate being a thing, and the increased visbility of LGBT communities as well.
I don't know exactly how it happened, but a lot of people ended up subscribing to a kind of radical feminism. I have no 'real' problems with radfem, yet this specific strain of it was very misandrist, stereotypical and superficial. Like 'blame the patriarchy" type shit. Eventually, "social justice warrior" became SJW and was weaponised into a derogatory term; those kinds of feminists and queer ppl were targeted with that label. For a while, "feminist compilations" and "SJW compilations" became very popular on YouTube and it spread anti-feminism, homophobia and even transphobia across social media. It's kinda crazy how seemingly right-wing the Internet became for a bit, esp w figures such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Steven Crowder, Ben Shapiro going viral and ppl agreeing with them.
So in that way, it was a craze. Esp bc it was a trend to dunk on those ppl.
...social justice is an important field both academically and in our day-to-day, so I personally would not pair it a term like craze, considering there already is a tendency from more cynical people (euphemistically speaking) to attribute a negative connotation to it.
I think the latter part of this is exactly why I am explaining.
I don't mean anything against in-person activists who go out and do shit. They have my respect. Esp those in Iran who have been protesting after the death of Jina Amini (aka Mahsa Amini) at the hands of the Iranian government. Or those in France rn.
I'm just explaining what I mean. Esp as someone who was "anti-SJW" and rightwing-pilled at that time.
Are you sure you are not HEAVILY influenced by this still? Your description of radical feminist uses the lens of gamergate and the alt-right and is not really the reality of what was happening in...
Esp as someone who was "anti-SJW" and rightwing-pilled at that time.
Are you sure you are not HEAVILY influenced by this still? Your description of radical feminist uses the lens of gamergate and the alt-right and is not really the reality of what was happening in feminism generally (or even the online feminism) at that time. Above all else, you thinking that this feminism was mysandrist is the biggest giveaway.
I still have some backwards thinking. I've been challenged before on it too. I consumed that content in high school. As a teenager, I was bullied and bashed in political corners for my own...
I still have some backwards thinking. I've been challenged before on it too.
I consumed that content in high school. As a teenager, I was bullied and bashed in political corners for my own naivete, so I had prejudice for a loooong time. I still kinda do. You never forget that fear of being scared for your life on the Internet.
I enjoyed those compilations and I admit I did. At the time. Nowadays, I dislike outrage content cause it's just to provoke anger and I'm tired of it. I don't try to seek out right-wing videos, and I certainly don't like the right. My feelings on politics overall is complex.
I don't know how else to say this but I'm not gonna defend or try to defend my original comment. I'm wrong. I feel learning from this is better. I don't know much about radical feminism, GamerGate and that shit because it's been really hard for me to get into it. If you have anything I should look into or read surrounding what I erroneously said, I really do wanna try to read it. If not, that's fine.
I'm just unlearning whatever I can one step at a time.
Then hate Madison has been getting online for speaking up is disgusting, especially from LMG fanboys who think Linus can do no wrong. Vilifying her for things like resorting to self-harm to get a...
Then hate Madison has been getting online for speaking up is disgusting, especially from LMG fanboys who think Linus can do no wrong.
Vilifying her for things like resorting to self-harm to get a day off and avoid being fired from a categorically anti-union and hostile workplace is the kind of shit that's gonna make fewer women speak up about sexual harassment and gender discrimination.
I was shocked to find out that my one female programmer colleague makes less money than me, because frankly she's the one holding a few business criticial components together and I'm already...
I was shocked to find out that my one female programmer colleague makes less money than me, because frankly she's the one holding a few business criticial components together and I'm already considering moving on due to money reasons. It's fucked. I should make considerably less than her because while I do business-important work, I don't do business-critical work, unlike her.
Have not yet checked back, but that'd add one more reason to leave, to me at least. :'(
I decided against commenting this on Reddit or YouTube, because of the severe lack of nuance. Hopefully here is different. While not 1:1, I recently observed an organization I'm a part of go...
I decided against commenting this on Reddit or YouTube, because of the severe lack of nuance. Hopefully here is different.
While not 1:1, I recently observed an organization I'm a part of go through something similar. First critiques were leveled at the upper management. Then more serious critiques, then anger at the reactions to those critiques, then anger at THOSE reactions. Then straight up accusations (that ended up being almost completely false if not hyper-exaggerated).
The analog to the "audience" in this case was out for blood. They demanded firings left and right, public apologies, and transparent processes moving forward (all of which happened).
That wasn't enough.
They kept screaming for blood. Finally, someone was literally RUN OUT OF TOWN. As in this person had to move away, uproot family, and leave the entire city.
I wish there was a way to grab these hot-take-spewing jackwagons crying for blood and demanding Linus resign and ask them to slow down and take a deep breath. None of this is worth what hate is being thrown around.
I'll try and be charitable here, but takes like this make my blood boil. To be clear, I am talking about the Madison allegations, not the original Gamer's Nexus video, as I believe you are. There...
Exemplary
I'll try and be charitable here, but takes like this make my blood boil. To be clear, I am talking about the Madison allegations, not the original Gamer's Nexus video, as I believe you are. There are many problems and shitty things strongly shown in the GN video, but systemic sexism, verbal/emotional abuse, sexual assault and management complicity in all it of it is a much bigger deal.
At least 9/10 sexual assault accusations are true, so given no evidence, the rational choice is to believe the victim. In this instance, it is early in the story and MAYBE she is in the 1/10 where its exaggerated or completely untrue, MAYBE. But it's also a very credible and believible story. It is boringly terrible; most false accusations are more grand, more theatrical. None of her claims were wild or over the top. Linus in videos acts like he shits gold and can do no wrong, why shouldn't I believe he does the same in private?
But not picking a side is picking a side; you are picking the side with power and influence, Linus and LMG. No matter what Linus is rich as fuck and will be fine; acting like him resigning is some horrible fate is a bit silly. Retiring at his age is a fantasy for many people. On the otherside is a normal person who was most likely used and abused by people she looked up to. She has a lot to risk and lose by making these accusations.
None of this is worth what hate is being thrown around.
I beg to differ; sexual assault and a cover-up are exactly things that should get you a lot of hate and scrutiny.
Takes like this don't make my blood boil, but I view them as harmful nonetheless. It's an immediate "us vs. them" mentality. If you're not with us, you're against us. It's black and white thinking...
Exemplary
But not picking a side is picking a side
Takes like this don't make my blood boil, but I view them as harmful nonetheless. It's an immediate "us vs. them" mentality. If you're not with us, you're against us. It's black and white thinking and it comes across as threatening in the sense that you're basically trying to make an enemy out of someone who simply hasn't pulled their pitchforks out with you. Arguably, you're not helping sexual assault victims to the degree that you think you are when you're trying to leverage their situations into shaming people into taking an opinion they aren't yet ready to define and making them out to be as bad as the people who are actually either actively doing the harm of assaults or who are supporting it.
This mentality is what is eroding society, because there's no nuance anymore, it's 'your opinion must match mine or else I hate you and I'm justified in hating you because I'm on the right side' and people aren't allowed to be uneducated or uninformed on things you personally care about, because that means they're not picking a side, or they must take an uneducated or uninformed decision to comply with your unrealistic standards of always taking your side. There are things that I care about deeply that I believe are rooted in being an ethical or humane person that I bet you haven't explored much, or that you don't agree with me on, am I justified in hating you because of it? No, I can't possibly know the depth of your experiences or thoughts based on simplified explanations in discussions that are driven by particular motives at any given time. Sometimes the things I choose to talk about are driven because of what I'm currently feeling at the moment or just my overall life experiences recently, and had I approached them 6 months later while I might still have had a very similar opinion or thoughts they could easily come from a different perspective if other aspects of my feelings or life have changed sufficiently over that time.
I'd like to avoid a pointless flame war, so I'll try to keep my response to a minimum. I don't hate you or anyone else that is honestly engaging with this conversation in good faith. It makes me...
I'd like to avoid a pointless flame war, so I'll try to keep my response to a minimum. I don't hate you or anyone else that is honestly engaging with this conversation in good faith. It makes me angry when people make wishy washy and deflecting statements about very serious claims, but I don't hate people over it. Please don't tell me what I feel.
In what way was I not nuanced? I fully acknowledge its early and more information is needed. I admit its possible that she is wrong. My argument is that she is credible and should be taken seriously, not that she is 100% correct and true and perfect. I am happy to change my opinion if concrete evidence appears. Until then I will continue my default position of siding with the victim/accuser.
As to the second paragraph, I don't know, okay? I'm talking about the alleged crimes against Linus and LMG, not SOCIETY. If you want to talk about SOCIETY, start a thread somewhere else.
On a more personal note, I have strong feelings about this issue because it is personal for me. I have been sexually harassed multiple times and groped before. I have known many, many people who were sexually assaulted. To my knowledge, none of the perpetrators were punished, in a big part because victims are afraid to come forward. So yes, I come in hard on this, and I am not going to apologize for that.
The level of evidence needed for in-person sexual harassment to be proven is nearly unattainable apart from rare circumstances where it's caught on film or something like that. Saying "wait and...
The level of evidence needed for in-person sexual harassment to be proven is nearly unattainable apart from rare circumstances where it's caught on film or something like that. Saying "wait and see" is functionally identical to dismissing it entirely. Not believing victims because the abuse they've received is by its very nature nearly impossible to prove scares victims into silence and lets this whole culture continue, which also takes lives. Taking each side can take lives, and so can taking no side, as that is again functionally the same as siding with the accused. There's no way OUT of that problem.
These things are almost always one person’s word against another’s and getting details proven is a rarity. Given that when I look at the world around me and live my life I see sexual harassment and violence ruining far more lives than accusations of them (even including all of the many more true cases where that life-ruining is earned!), I choose to believe the victims until shown otherwise. Our personal standards for judgement need not be as strict as those for legal action.
Of course, that doesn't mean I'm behind internet hate mobs and the like going after the accused (even if their feelings are understandable).
My comment was not to mischaracterize you as having stated you hated anyone or to concretely state that was your feelings, but I was partly including that language because of the parent comment,...
but I don't hate people over it. Please don't tell me what I feel.
My comment was not to mischaracterize you as having stated you hated anyone or to concretely state that was your feelings, but I was partly including that language because of the parent comment, the one you replied to and what set the stage for the topic in this chain of comments.
None of this is worth what hate is being thrown around.
That was what they ended their comment with, and that was seemingly what their whole comment was about as they described their experience prior to that and ended it with that summary. Then you responded saying that comment made your blood boil. While you didn't state that you were hating anyone, and I don't believe that I said you did, what I did do was carry the conversation that the parent comment had started and blended it with your remarks. Whether or not you hate anyone over it I don't know for certain, but you did also include this in your response
I beg to differ; sexual assault and a cover-up are exactly things that should get you a lot of hate and scrutiny.
Where you also seemed to substantiate that you believed the accusations against Linus and LMG and thus seemed to imply it was fair for him to be hated.
So while I don't believe I ever said you hated anyone, I did take it that you supported hating people from your remark that I quoted above. Maybe I misunderstood what you were saying, in which case I'm open to being corrected.
As to the second paragraph, I don't know, okay? I'm talking about the alleged crimes against Linus and LMG, not SOCIETY. If you want to talk about SOCIETY, start a thread somewhere else.
They go hand-in-hand. It's just as relevant to point out a broad issue when it's happening in a particular situation, so it shouldn't be forced to only be mentioned in a separate venue. Being able to point out when a particular idea or behavior is problematic at the time it is happening is perhaps even more beneficial than just making a generic philosophical discussion about it. If a kid can't buy school lunch and the government isn't giving this kid the ability to get free school lunch, it's fair to mention it when the kid misses lunch, shouldn't have to address the issue at a separate time. Especially when the parent comment you replied to had sort of been talking about this topic broadly as well as weaving it into this particular situation. My comment was on topic if we consider what the parent comment had set the stage as.
In what way was I not nuanced? I fully acknowledge its early and more information is needed. I admit its possible that she is wrong. My argument is that she is credible and should be taken seriously, not that she is 100% correct and true and perfect. I am happy to change my opinion if concrete evidence appears. Until then I will continue my default position of siding with the victim/accuser.
I quoted the part of your comment that I found to be most problematic and lacking nuance and that I also felt represented the overall tone of your comment, and responded to that.
I agree that she should be viewed as credible and be taken seriously, but it's not really for internet strangers to decide much beyond that, we have no ability to get any closer to the truth of the story in a responsible way. I view it as, she should be taken seriously and not vilified online by random people who know nothing about her and in my view, that is siding with the victim/accuser, but I also don't think I need to pass judgement on the accused without knowing more. I think it's possible to support the victim/accuser while not rushing to judgement of the accused by giving the victim/accuser the support of authorities or labor departments to investigate the company or people who are accused of wrongdoing. If the authorities don't offer this support, then the public should be focusing their attention on them instead of performing mob "justice". I'm not claiming that you advocated for this, but it is often what happens when people are saying that people should take the side of the victim/accuser.
That isn't to say that I think every person is free to do what they want without consequence unless they've been proven guilty in a court of law. I don't prescribe to that particular hard-line ideology either. But it's a really fine line to walk between coming to your own conclusions and deciding when someone has done enough that you don't personally want anything to do with them anymore and being influenced by the mob to make decisions, and that was part of my original comment about not trying to force people to take a side on something they may not know enough to make a conclusion about. I don't think anyone needs a jury to tell them whether or not they can avoid walking next to someone on the sidewalk, but I also don't think we should be trying to unduly influence people into avoiding walking next to those people on the sidewalk if there isn't something a little more concrete than someone's personal judgement of the matter.
That is extremely thorough but to the extent that I struggle to keep your entire comment, let alone "the set stage" in mind when contemplating it. IMO the school lunch analogy goes nowhere and...
That is extremely thorough but to the extent that I struggle to keep your entire comment, let alone "the set stage" in mind when contemplating it. IMO the school lunch analogy goes nowhere and your 7th and 8th paragraphs could be distilled down.
I actually don't desire to be a comment length police, but I do think yours is a tough comment to respond to, and suspect that if this thread continues participants should keep in mind the increasing complexity.
Yes it's a problem of mine to keep the comment short, but it often happens when people reply to me without understanding what I originally said. It makes me feel like I have to expand on...
Yes it's a problem of mine to keep the comment short, but it often happens when people reply to me without understanding what I originally said. It makes me feel like I have to expand on everything in my reply because when I tried to condense it originally, they either mischaracterize what I say or misunderstand something that I could have provided more detail on but chose not to because I wanted to keep it short.
To the extent what I mean about "set the stage", read the top comment to this comment chain. It's not talking about Linus or LMG for the bulk of the comment. Out of the 10+ sentences in that original comment, only one is actually referencing Linus or this incident. Yet in my comment, I was told that I should have posted elsewhere because it wasn't on topic since it wasn't specifically about Linus/LTT. The context of the discussion was set by the parent comment.
IMO the school lunch analogy goes nowhere
Yeah it wasn't great, I didn't really put much thought into it other than I attempted to pick a less extreme topic that probably would have conveyed the point more, but then would have made it a target for criticism because I could have been accused for equating their remarks to something more serious. For example, if I had said something like, "Guns are relevant to talk about after a school shooting, we shouldn't be forced to talk about them another time", I could either be accused of equating that person to someone who deflects gun talk after school shootings (which is a political partisan issue these days) or comparing the seriousness of the two even though that wouldn't be the point. The point is that when something relevant occurs, it should be OK to talk about it when it happens rather than being told to take it somewhere else simply because we're talking about a more broad issue rather than the specific topic.
Again, the 7th and 8th paragraphs could be distilled down, and I can see 10 different ways I'd have someone criticizing them if I did. For example, just leaving the 8th paragraph out entirely (if the 8th is the last as you're counting it anyhow) opens it up to the interpretation that I'm effectively saying that no one is allowed to say anything unless someone is proven guilty in a court of law which isn't really my stance either. It is rather dismissive of the rights of each individual to make decisions for their own life without all of them having to be based on what a court has ruled on.
Largely I agree with your sentiment but I don't think it's so clear cut in this instance. Grand statements require grand evidence - and so far all we have are several (believable, but...
Largely I agree with your sentiment but I don't think it's so clear cut in this instance.
Grand statements require grand evidence - and so far all we have are several (believable, but unsubstantiated) claims of abuse. I don't think it's responsible to condemn anybody on the face of simple statements. I'm not saying I don't want to give her the benefit of the doubt, I'm just saying I feel wrong to immediately assume guilt without any sort of evidence or even just a chance for the other party to retort.
To my knowledge, she is the only confirmed former employee to make specific claims regarding sexual harassment, inappropriate conduct/contact, or specific verbal abuse. That doesn't mean she's lying, it just means that we don't even have multiple people (yet) to help corroborate her version of events.
She could be witch hunting, or she could be trying to finally get her voice out when she hasn't felt comfortable doing it before. Until someone can provide evidence one way or the other, it's incredibly not my place to make a judgement on it.
She could also be right and wrong at the same time. From her own statements, she was not doing well at LMG. She said she committed self harm because she was in such a bad place mentally. Now it's...
She could also be right and wrong at the same time. From her own statements, she was not doing well at LMG. She said she committed self harm because she was in such a bad place mentally. Now it's a horrible state to be in, but not everyone handles stress equally. She almost certainly experienced a hostile work environment and she did not like whatever handling was experienced. She describes it as "inappropriately grabbed multiple times". Was it an intentional ass grab or an incidental touch caused by a small working space? We really don't know what the context is, only that she did not like it and attempted to report it. Those reports didn't go anywhere and eventually it all lead to her resigning.
Anyway, all of that is to say that it's possible for someone to feel they've been assaulted while also being considered an innocent situation to observers. I've certainly felt my hand brush against random body parts squeezing along a train, and it's certainly possible for a person is a highly emotional state to react strongly to that same brushing. Not trying to excuse away the possibility of outright assault, just saying LMG not finding wrongdoing doesn't mean Maddison made up her experiences.
I mean Linus did a quick retort in the linked piece: An "I don't recall" excuse is a cliche at this point and I personally think its telling that he isn't explicitly denying it, but I agree this...
I mean Linus did a quick retort in the linked piece:
I was in a state of shock reading through these allegations, plain and simple. They aren’t consistent with my recollections. They aren’t consistent with our internal processes. They aren’t consistent with our company values.
An "I don't recall" excuse is a cliche at this point and I personally think its telling that he isn't explicitly denying it, but I agree this isn't a settled and done thing. As long as you are taking it seriously, I have no beef with you.
No, the rational choice is to get evidence so that we can make sure that supposed 10% chance doesn't occur. I get having an emotional response to these horrible allegations and you should...
At least 9/10 sexual assault accusations are true, so given no evidence, the rational choice is to believe the victim.
No, the rational choice is to get evidence so that we can make sure that supposed 10% chance doesn't occur.
I get having an emotional response to these horrible allegations and you should absolutely give the victim the emotional support they need since that doesn't require attacking anyone else, but you're literally advocating for innocent until proven guilty guilty until proven innocent, that's ass-backwards and leads to situations like Slazo, Pyrocynical, etc.
You do know the phrase "you can't be neutral in a moving train" right? I don't like that metaphor, but let's go with that train of thought, since it's similar to your turn of phrase. Right now,...
But not picking a side is picking a side; you are picking the side with power and influence, Linus and LMG.
You do know the phrase "you can't be neutral in a moving train" right? I don't like that metaphor, but let's go with that train of thought, since it's similar to your turn of phrase.
Right now, the train is moving towards an investigation and the productions have been halted. How is "neutrality" in this case siding with LMG?
What can I really do here that will affect the train currently in motion? comment on Twitter and add to the already noisy discourse with my unoriginal take on the issue? If someone is going to accuse my inaction of causing harm, at least give me a call to action. Is there something, anything I can do to help support the investigators? I honestly don't know because the suite isn't named (and thinking more closely, they probably don't want to be named in lieu of public opinion influencing their investigation). Is there an organization to donate to to raise awareness for these issues? I am not aware of a specific one.
I never liked twitter to begin with, so I choose not to go down the route of commenting on The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter.
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not...
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
Desmond Tutu
Its also been a common phrase in the Black Rights movement. I'm not saying that you have to stop the train, but if you are standing back in an unequal power struggle, you are letting the oppressor do what they want to the oppressed.
It's hard to always care enough about everything to weigh in. And thoughts and prayers or words on the internet rarely do much. But sometimes the people being oppressed are reading what we say. It's important to do what little we can.
I'm pretty new here and using a third party app so I don't know how to do quotations yet.
I used to agree with platitudes like this, and to some extent I still see some validity to the core idea, but there's clearly a line somewhere. I don't know if anyone knows where that line is, but...
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
Desmond Tutu
I used to agree with platitudes like this, and to some extent I still see some validity to the core idea, but there's clearly a line somewhere. I don't know if anyone knows where that line is, but it used to frustrate me a lot that people don't care about one issue or another, and anyone who doesn't care is a bad person. That's how I felt. You don't care that animals are being tortured daily to produce the meat you eat. You don't care that the environment is taking hit after hit. You don't care enough to fight the rich buying politicians and evading taxes or abusing the working class etc. You're not doing enough. Everyone is not doing enough and anyone who doesn't care is a piece of shit. That's how I felt at the time. Probably every single person in this thread would not live up to such standards. Not a single one, including myself, though of course at the time in my naivety I thought I was so much better than everyone else.
But I was wrong. You can't care about everything. You didn't even do it justice when you said it's "hard" to always care enough about everything to weigh-in. It's not hard, it's impossible. This idea that everyone has to weigh in on everything otherwise they're the neutral party that really is just representing all the evil in this world leads to the blind leading the blind because you have all these people who don't know shit and have no education on the matter weighing in on something they know very little about so they can win the morality wars. We're a specialist society, to live a good life you're tasked with spending much of your time and resources focusing on very specific subject material for a good portion of your time. So each person in their specialist role is raising the ceiling for what knowledge it requires to be able to competently discuss anything in that realm, and at the same time we're getting further and further away from the ceiling of every single other subject that we're not focusing on that is being raised by other specialists.
To me, there's different forms of "neutral" and one that people are most calling out is arguably not even neutral, but it's the ones who are motivated to maintain the status quo. They don't want change, they want to keep things as they are now by resisting all forms of change. In the quote of the mouse and the elephant, it'd be someone who doesn't want anyone to change the fact that the elephant is stepping on the mouse's tail. They're not saying they support the elephant, they're just saying they don't want you to step in. Of course preventing you from stepping in has the same result as supporting the elephant. A neutral party could maybe be more described as someone who may or may not see the elephant stepping on the mouses tail, but also may recognize they don't know the circumstances and they aren't going to stop you from trying to move the elephant off the mouse's tail but they also aren't going to jump in and help you move the elephant either. Of course this doesn't work that well with the elephant and mouse analogy because that analogy was chosen to be more obvious to make the original point the person who is quoted intended to make, the elephant shouldn't be stepping on the mouses tail or it's not reasonable, but in life there's many other situations where it's not as obvious what should or shouldn't be happening.
Just turning everything into one side or another side, and there's nothing in between or no possibility of being neutral, creates polarization. It gets even worse too, because the extremists on each "side" then take that same game and play it again, now if you aren't with the extremists you're effectively no better than the ones being neutral, who are already the enemy, and now you're the enemy too if you don't join the extremists. Of course, the other "side" is playing the same game, so you're still closer to the extremists on your side than you are to the extremists on the other side, it's the easier task to join the extremists on your side than to be cast as the opposition and to fight them.
It isn't to say there aren't some situations where even if you're more of a true neutral that isn't attempting to interfere that there aren't situations where the idea of being neutral can't land you on the wrong side of history or perhaps make you not upholding what is ethical. If a true neutral stands by and watches as children are married off in the middle ages, with any concept that there's possibly something wrong there, and simply doesn't want to make a choice for fear of consequence of being involved, well that person could certainly be seen as ethically compromised even if they didn't support those doing the marrying off. Having said that, I think there's still some value in not painting everyone the same in one stroke. Viewing someone as ethically compromised for being neutral shouldn't equate them to being literally Hitler.
I think you're missing a key aspect, which is that neutrality is different from not having the capacity/knowledge to care. If you don't know enough about something to say whether you're for or...
I think you're missing a key aspect, which is that neutrality is different from not having the capacity/knowledge to care.
If you don't know enough about something to say whether you're for or against it (or so where inbetween), it's okay to say "I don't know" and request more information or stay out of it. People respect that approach more than someone who has an uninformed opinion on everything.
It's not different, not having the capacity or knowledge to care ends up being one of the forms of neutrality that I referenced before. The distinction you seem to be making is that somehow...
I think you're missing a key aspect, which is that neutrality is different from not having the capacity/knowledge to care.
It's not different, not having the capacity or knowledge to care ends up being one of the forms of neutrality that I referenced before. The distinction you seem to be making is that somehow neutral means someone has knowledge of the matter, but is choosing not to take a side, as though neutral is always a chosen position rather than just an actual status. I don't think you have to choose to be neutral to be considered neutral, and much of the discussion here does not seem to be supporting that definition of neutral either.
For example, the quote that person used
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
Does not leave room for someone to feign ignorance or lack of capacity to care. It doesn't imply if you have (chosen) neutrality, it's if you ARE neutral.
In this case, people are arguing that they aren't respecting someone who is uninformed and neutral, the quote and the arguments surrounding neutrality people are discussing in here casts you as the oppressor if you are neutral. They would rather you be uninformed but on their side than to be uninformed and stay neutral. The problem is that the other sides of any particular argument are making the same arguments for their side, while you the uninformed, are being asked to just follow any particular side on faith. The whole point of this conversation is that people AREN'T being respected for "staying out of it", they're being told they're no better than the ones doing the wrongdoing if they don't join the "right" side now.
Sure there are some circumstances/situations/people that will respect someone who acknowledges that they're uninformed and doesn't want to throw their uninformed opinion in the ring, but then there are situations like here where people are posting quotes about neutrality makes you the oppressor and being neutral means you're backing Linus/LMG over a woman that has accused them of awful things.
I fully agree and that quote has been in my mind throughout this chain, but if, as raze2012 said then I don't think we can say yet that this is fully a situation of injustice. A wrong may have...
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
I fully agree and that quote has been in my mind throughout this chain, but if, as raze2012 said
Right now, the train is moving towards an investigation and the productions have been halted.
then I don't think we can say yet that this is fully a situation of injustice. A wrong may have been done, but it sounds like action is being taken to investigate and protect the wronged if necessary.
Is it, though? What if the company pulls the classic of investigates itself and finds no wrongdoing? This could be PR spin, potentially. That said, I agree there's not much we can do right now...
Right now, the train is moving towards an investigation
Is it, though? What if the company pulls the classic of investigates itself and finds no wrongdoing? This could be PR spin, potentially.
That said, I agree there's not much we can do right now besides wait and see if it pans out.
It definitely could be PR, but (keeping in mind that I know very little about the situation) they're not investigating themselves, are they? Sounds like a 3rd party. Still could end up going...
It definitely could be PR, but (keeping in mind that I know very little about the situation) they're not investigating themselves, are they? Sounds like a 3rd party. Still could end up going nowhere but it seems more likely to be productive than if they were literally investigating themselves.
Given no evidence means innocent. Someone can be accused of a lot of things, but grabbing statistics and saying crime x has y% conviction rate so he/she is most likely guilty. And then someone...
Given no evidence means innocent. Someone can be accused of a lot of things, but grabbing statistics and saying crime x has y% conviction rate so he/she is most likely guilty.
And then someone gives an exemplary tag as well. Disgusting!
A lack of evidence doesn't mean innocent -- that's why juries find people "not guilty". Regardless, this is a problematic framing because we aren't in a courtroom, and there is evidence -- namely...
A lack of evidence doesn't mean innocent -- that's why juries find people "not guilty". Regardless, this is a problematic framing because
we aren't in a courtroom, and
there is evidence -- namely her testimony; it's just a matter of which party you believe is more credible.
That said, you don't have to pick a side. It's fine to say I think X's story lies closer to the truth, but I don't know for sure.
I, or anyone else can, at any time, make a false claim against you, or anyone else. Like for instance, I claim you are sending me threatening emails and death threats. You aren't but I can claim...
I, or anyone else can, at any time, make a false claim against you, or anyone else.
Like for instance, I claim you are sending me threatening emails and death threats. You aren't but I can claim you are and potentially report you.
Does that make it evidence against you without even showing the emails?
This is why innocent until proven guilty exists.
And there's a reason why it's called the "court of public opinion", many victims of false accusations have themselves branded for life and have their entire life ruined despite being vindicated in court. It is very much applicable to a court room framing, but with the burden of proof being subjective per person, so way worse and less just.
Well, that's why I said As for this particular example (you falsely accuse me of sending threatening messages), I don't find it especially illustrative. Most allegations are truthful. Some...
I, or anyone else can, at any time, make a false claim against you, or anyone else.
Like for instance, I claim you are sending me threatening emails and death threats. You aren't but I can claim you are and potentially report you.
Well, that's why I said
it's just a matter of which party you believe is more credible.
As for this particular example (you falsely accuse me of sending threatening messages), I don't find it especially illustrative. Most allegations are truthful. Some allegations are misinformed. Other allegations are intended to harm someone's reputation. But rarely does someone falsely accuse some random passer-by for shits and giggles.
That's the issue with this example -- you're asking me to assume the least likely scenario and extrapolate from there. As they say, bad facts make for bad law. You wouldn't base your assumptions about murders off a biography of Ted Bundy.
Does that make it evidence against you without even showing the emails?
I mean, yes. But obviously it would make you look less credible. Presumably if I sent you threatening emails, there exists a written record. Sure, you could argue that you somehow lost access to them, but that would sound rather suspicious, wouldn't it?
The problem I have with these court analogies is that people assume by default that the standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt", i.e. criminal standards. (To your credit, you didn't say this.) However, the actual allegations regarding LTT are civil in nature (at least in the US -- I realize this all occurred in Canada), so the burden wouldn't be to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" but simply a "preponderance of the evidence", i.e. 51% or more.
If the only evidence is testimonial -- that is, his word against mine -- that can, in fact, be enough. For a recent example, consider E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit against Donald Trump for rape, which she filed despite a lack of "hard evidence" (e.g., DNA). Indeed, her testimony was the linchpin of that case.
Ultimately the jury found Carroll more credible than Trump, and so she won.
You say yes, but you are really saying no, because you're asking for the written record of the emails, which IS actual evidence, my accusation is not in-itself evidence, because that's literally...
Does that make it evidence against you without even showing the emails?
I mean, yes. But obviously it would make you look less credible. Presumably if I sent you threatening emails, there exists a written record. Sure, you could argue that you somehow lost access to them, but that would sound rather suspicious, wouldn't it?
You say yes, but you are really saying no, because you're asking for the written record of the emails, which IS actual evidence, my accusation is not in-itself evidence, because that's literally circular reasoning. The claim itself does not validate the claim.
That's my point. We need receipts before any retaliation is done.
Civil or criminal, 99% or 51% doesn't matter, because so far we have 0% to support the claims so far.
Regardless, the mob is willing to operate on that 0% to attack someone.
I disagree that it’s 0% — you can dismiss it as circular evidence, if you like, but the fact that an employee raised an issue at all (especially given the quite likely consequences from the LMG...
I disagree that it’s 0% — you can dismiss it as circular evidence, if you like, but the fact that an employee raised an issue at all (especially given the quite likely consequences from the LMG fanboys) already raises this well above zero. Things like this don’t exist in a vacuum, and pretending that they do will always give you a result of zero. Reality is much more messy, and there’s a lot more going on than you or I can possibly consider.
I said yes because I mean yes. I'm merely distinguishing between the facts in this situation where there isn't necessarily a written record (a hostile work environment) and one where there...
You say yes, but you are really saying no
I said yes because I mean yes. I'm merely distinguishing between the facts in this situation where there isn't necessarily a written record (a hostile work environment) and one where there necessarily is (your hypothetical). As I said previously, I don't think your analogy is particularly germane.
Civil or criminal, 99% or 51% doesn't matter, because so far we have 0% to support the claims so far.
Again, see the E Jean Carroll case. It's not
some hypothetical; it's a lawsuit that actually happened. Testimony is evidence, and often it's the most important evidence in a case.
But just because somebody says something doesn't mean you must believe them. You have to judge their testimony against the other's.
Regardless, the mob is willing to operate on that 0% to attack someone.
In my opinion, this is a separate issue, but I suspect it's the one you're actually concerned about. So yes, I agree with your sentiment -- people on the internet are generally way too eager to pull out their pitchforks and guillotines. I think there's a middle ground here, though. You can believe Madison without demanding the heads roll. At the very least, her allegations warrant an investigation, right?
At the same time, reactions like yours where there's lots of talk about how this might be made up and false, and we have to slow down and wait until a potentially unattainable level of proof is...
At the same time, reactions like yours where there's lots of talk about how this might be made up and false, and we have to slow down and wait until a potentially unattainable level of proof is attained allows for the continued existing of problematic people. I can't comment on your personal experience, but sometimes when there's lots of smokes and people are willing to potentially ruin their reputation in order to make things change, it points to fire, not people telling lies.
We all remember the case of Reddit detectives and the Boston bombing and how well that went? Sometimes it's best to just touch grass, take a deep breath and wait for actual results. Internet...
We all remember the case of Reddit detectives and the Boston bombing and how well that went?
Sometimes it's best to just touch grass, take a deep breath and wait for actual results. Internet outrage moves at the speed of light, investigations involving actual people don't.
Cases like this give people an excuse to go comment sections just to say "I always thought XXX was creepy/suspicious!". And of course they don't go around saying "sorry" when the actual investigation proves otherwise...
Just go on any news story or video an check the comments, count how many people are specifically joining the conversation just to say how they stopped watching LTT many years ago because of <reason> or saying how they had a "feeling" that something was off at LTT.
Also don't forget the story of Uber founder Travis Kalanick, how the Internet was all abuzz with allegations of sexual misconducts against Uber cabbies and how those allegations vanished instantly...
Also don't forget the story of Uber founder Travis Kalanick, how the Internet was all abuzz with allegations of sexual misconducts against Uber cabbies and how those allegations vanished instantly when Travis was made to resign and replaced by some other CEO. As it turned out later, that whole thing was a ploy by the other board members to kick out Travis from management.
It sounds like this has been an issue for years, and honestly this shitshow couldn't have happened at a better time with the new CEO just having joined. Terren has no responsibility for what...
It sounds like this has been an issue for years, and honestly this shitshow couldn't have happened at a better time with the new CEO just having joined. Terren has no responsibility for what happened to Madison, or any of LMG's faults. Linus has wanted to retire for years. They have it all lined up to pivot to a more traditional company ran by old-school people with proper HR practices and a healthy work/life balance.
At this point they've ordered a 3rd party investigation and we will see if anything comes of that. Honestly it could go either way as technically Linus is still in control of everything. This all rests on him digging deep for the most humility he's every felt.
A fair point. In my (again, not 1:1) case, the accusations were indeed brought by people who were "willing to potentially ruin their reputation" and unfortunately ended up using THAT as the...
A fair point. In my (again, not 1:1) case, the accusations were indeed brought by people who were "willing to potentially ruin their reputation" and unfortunately ended up using THAT as the ultimate trump card. In other words, even though the accusations were false and/or wildly exaggerated, the fact that their "reputation" was at stake became their ammo. "I wouldn't say this if it weren't true, look at what I'm risking!" It ended up being disgusting.
These people (again, this is not 1:1) ended up rallying around each other, patting themselves on the back, and continuing to cause harm by moving on to new targets.
Not saying this is the case here. Just smells similar.
Whether this is true or not, and I very much disagree that it is, the alternative is literally just witch hunts over accusations. Receipts are important before you go raking someone over the...
At the same time, reactions like yours where there's lots of talk about how this might be made up and false, and we have to slow down and wait until a potentially unattainable level of proof is attained allows for the continued existing of problematic people.
Whether this is true or not, and I very much disagree that it is, the alternative is literally just witch hunts over accusations.
Receipts are important before you go raking someone over the coals.
We should obviously take the accusations seriously, but that doesn't mean we should preemptively destroy someone with no evidence.
Even if I agreed with the internet mob, the issue is that the internet is fickle. For every story like rhis that "rises to r/all", you'll have a bunch of buried accounts, all because they didn't...
Even if I agreed with the internet mob, the issue is that the internet is fickle. For every story like rhis that "rises to r/all", you'll have a bunch of buried accounts, all because they didn't metaphorically yell loud enough or a big enough influencer didn't re-tweet the story. Maybe they simply posted at the wrong time. Its all so flimsy.
The authorities may be slow but they are consistent. I don't want victims to forget their resources if the Internet turns a blind eye.
I'm not sure why we are talking about Reddit, since this is not Reddit. We can talk about how we want this space to react, instead of how Reddit is reacting. Also "The authorities may be slow but...
I'm not sure why we are talking about Reddit, since this is not Reddit. We can talk about how we want this space to react, instead of how Reddit is reacting.
Also "The authorities may be slow but they are consistent.", I agree they are consistent. They consistently uphold the status quo against women and minorities. Consistency in the "authorities" is not a positive in my book when you talk about the majority of authorities in North America.
So the solution is to turn to the inconsistent internet mob for justice rather than continuing to push for reforms to the authorities? Internet mobs have zero ability to actually fine-tune their...
So the solution is to turn to the inconsistent internet mob for justice rather than continuing to push for reforms to the authorities?
Internet mobs have zero ability to actually fine-tune their punishment. It's often an all-or-nothing matter, which is what the parent comment you replied to had mentioned. Even when there's "justice" on the internet, it's rarely ever the case that the punishment fits the crime because there's no way to control individual persons within a mob this way. It's the reason why mobs are so capable of doing bad things, much as the phrase goes, no individual raindrop feels responsible for the flood. Furthermore, people are acting out of feeling rather than logic, there's no process or procedures to define what level of proof needs to exist or anything else, it's purely whatever meets the level where someone can emotionally engage with it to the point where they'll spend time and energy posting about it and going to whatever further lengths they go.
Also one particular thing about internet mobs versus the authorities, there's even less accountability when internet mobs go too far than there is accountability when authorities go too far. The police get away with an awful lot that they shouldn't, but out of however many internet mobs have come about, how many people have ever really been held accountable when things go too far?
I wasn't, it was simply a metaphor (As I mentioned). Use Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, any other large social media where things spread. The effect is the same. They make a few things go viral and a...
I'm not sure why we are talking about Reddit
I wasn't, it was simply a metaphor (As I mentioned). Use Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, any other large social media where things spread. The effect is the same. They make a few things go viral and a lot more than people expect goes ignored. we see a few huge victories and suddenly think it's a boon, without considering the overall population
We can talk about how we want this space to react
We could. But I don't think this space is really doing much outside of talking about the issue. Anyone wanting to take action will probably go to the youtube channel, or Twitter.
That wasn't really my point here. I don't think we've had a situation where someone sought the tildes community for help against injustice. And to be honest, we lack the channels to properly help as a community if someone does. We would probably redirect such a person to those same influencers, social media, or even the proper authorities.
Also "The authorities may be slow but they are consistent.", I agree they are consistent. They consistently uphold the status quo against women and minorities.
Yup, and the internet is a bastion of goodwill and justice. Totally doesn't have a history of suppressing minorites/women.
You think I wasn't implying that some of these victims pleaing to the internet aren't in fact suppressed prematurely by ne'er do wells? Another reason not to trust the internet. The only thing worse than being ignored is finding the wrong crowd to push you down further.
I don't like how we seem to be accepting the notion of "the representatives of our area aren't representation us" and that we should give up on it and work around them. Why not try to address the root issue instead of throwing our hands up and giving up, hoping the court of public opinion sorts things out?
So a lot of the accusations (the actions around Billet labs, the quality stuff) has been confirmed or is publicly confirmable at this stage. So I think that LMG has made some fuckups is clear. The...
So a lot of the accusations (the actions around Billet labs, the quality stuff) has been confirmed or is publicly confirmable at this stage. So I think that LMG has made some fuckups is clear.
The Madison stuff... look, LMG deserve their presumption of innocence and Madison deserves her right for the claim to be properly investigated and its unfortunate that it's in the public sphere at this stage where people feel a side needs to be picked.
My own impression at the time Madison joined and left was that it was a mistake for both sides, hiring a relatively inexperienced person for a role that's not really the skillset they're practicing for on the back of "people thought they were funny in a video". So at the time she joined and left I didn't think too much of it other than "Oh, guess it didn't work out, well that's not a surprise".
Yeah the GN video and Madison's accusations are two different things. That said, the GN video was bad enough for me to decide to no longer consume LMG content. Although, I'm waiting to see where...
Yeah the GN video and Madison's accusations are two different things.
That said, the GN video was bad enough for me to decide to no longer consume LMG content. Although, I'm waiting to see where the chips lie with the rest of the team to see if I'll look to see more content from them on other channels, should they continue their careers in YouTube tech videos.
Glad to hear the CEO has made a statement especially after Linus's 'response'.
I'm curious why the GN video was that bad for you? If it was around the sloppy QA, then you really weren't paying much attention during the videos. The awful slop has been steadily getting worse...
I'm curious why the GN video was that bad for you?
If it was around the sloppy QA, then you really weren't paying much attention during the videos. The awful slop has been steadily getting worse and worse.
If it was Billet Labs, then it's not that cut and dry.
The review of it sucked ass and should have been dropped, but that was completely obvious from the content of the video itself. The video should have just been scraped but Linus's aggressive schedule has him trying to turn turds into dog food. He's admitted to this multiple times on WAN as well, so GN didn't drop a bombshell there.
As to the prototype, in the apology letter you can see that Billet themselves said they gave LMG the prototype. They never expected it back. They're main hope was that he'd use it in other videos after the initial video but after the video they decided to ask for it back. Now at this point, LMG screwed the pooch on not properly documenting that and so it wasn't pulled from inventory and shipped back. So it was sold. But again, GN and Billet were making claims about how damaging their precious prototype was to their company when they themselves never expected to get it back. So the only real damage was the shoddy video that every viewer could see was scuffed to hell.
So again, I ask what GN actually said that made you change your mind when it was all plainly visible?
Well, I'd say I was a much more casual viewer, I certainly wasn't pausing the videos to ensure I read every benchmark's frame rates and I've never been huge on overclocking so I can say that when...
Well, I'd say I was a much more casual viewer, I certainly wasn't pausing the videos to ensure I read every benchmark's frame rates and I've never been huge on overclocking so I can say that when discussing the coolers I wasn't really paying that much attention, just interested in general. I had actually watched the cooler video and didn't even notice the thermal throttling.
I don't watch the WAN show outside of a few clips here and there and I hadn't seen the 'Big whoop, I could've done it right but I chose not to.' comments from him.
It was plainly visible if you cared enough to consume everything and I'm assuming most more casual viewers don't. So, the GN video plainly laid out what I was missing and how I was consuming misinformation.
I won't say I was a 'fan' of LTT but I enjoyed the content and although I'm not the 'most' technically minded it was usually understandable enough.
So, basically, what may be plainly visible to you is not so apparent to others.
Billet are not faultless here. They made claims about how important getting the prototype back was to their company and it's loss would set back their company massively. Reality is though, they...
Billet are not faultless here. They made claims about how important getting the prototype back was to their company and it's loss would set back their company massively. Reality is though, they didn't want it back. They wanted it used in chaotic watercooling builds that LTT sometimes does. They wanted to get continued residual exposure.
The cost to manufacture this prototype was not a major investment. No it wasn't free but at £2000 it was not a significant investment for a company that wants to do boutique manufacturing. I'm sure they spent much more than that in man hours designing it, which they still have the CAD files for.
So yeah, LTT and Linus looked like idiots on camera. They put egg on their own faces there. But Billet is over stating the harm everything else than the shoddy review has caused.
to be clear, are you basing this on a statement from Billet? or is this a conclusion you're reaching on your own? if I was an engineer for Billet, I'd be very interested in inspecting it up-close...
Reality is though, they didn't want it back.
to be clear, are you basing this on a statement from Billet? or is this a conclusion you're reaching on your own?
They wanted it used in chaotic watercooling builds that LTT sometimes does.
if I was an engineer for Billet, I'd be very interested in inspecting it up-close afterwards. it's a valuable torture test.
is the prototype block completely trashed by the testing LTT did? great! in what ways, exactly? are the failures mechanical, such as some part of the block getting chipped/bent/dented, or chemical, such as corrosion on some of the surfaces?
or, is it still in reasonably-good condition? (which would be the hope since it's a big ol' block of copper) OK, that's fine too. it means it could continue to be used for Billet's internal testing, as well as inspecting whatever minor defects it accumulated during LTT's testing.
any way you slice it, it's reasonable for Billet to want it back, not just because "it's ours" but because it's valuable engineering data. even in the case where it's trashed, you could still put it to good use by putting it into another "torture test" type rig and running it to complete failure. maybe you'd run it with saltwater to intentionally test for corrosion, for example. (the general term for this is destructive testing vs nondestructive testing)
also (this was mentioned in the original GamersNexus video) there is the risk that the prototype might be purchased in the auction (or sold afterwards) to a possible Billet competitor. prototypes like this are generally treated as trade secrets, for a very good reason.
No it wasn't free but at £2000
I had only seen the value quoted as "$XXXX", do you have a source for this more-specific number?
it was not a significant investment for a company that wants to do boutique manufacturing.
I mean...£2000 is £2000, right? why should the size of the company matter?
if I steal a £2000 TV, does it matter if I steal it from Wal-Mart or from a mom & pop electronics store?
or, if it had been a £2000 prototype from a large, established company like Noctua, would it make a difference compared to a £2000 prototype from a brand-new company that was say funded on Kickstarter?
Both them not expecting it back and the price come from the apology video. They show a sample of the email exchange where Billet says they did intend on LMG to keep the prototype. They do clarify...
Both them not expecting it back and the price come from the apology video. They show a sample of the email exchange where Billet says they did intend on LMG to keep the prototype. They do clarify that hadn't intended LMG to sell it but we don't get to see the original agreement. So we know LMG was supposed to keep the prototype, we just don't know if there were any contractual stipulations. I doubt there were as LMG wouldn't want to deal with a finicky deal over a maybe product from a no name manufacturer.
As to price, it's also from the email snippet where Billet says they want £2000 as restitution. The price is now blurred as Billet requested it to be with GN but had not originally communicated that to LMG.
As to the price, £2000 was a fabricated number. I doubt they tracked how long it took them to manufacture. They could look up the raw stock costs, but all that together is unlikely to come out to an even number. Since Billet have the upper hand here, the price is more likely to be inflated than it is to be under.
Still, £2000 is nothing in a machine shop. Machinists regularly turn hundreds of dollars worth of stock into worthless chips on the floor. If that price was a significant investment, then they were unlikely to ever have been able to bring this product to market. It's just a simple fact that creating a consumer product takes a lot of up front investment in the form of research, prototypes, and tooling.
I'm assuming by "the apology video" you mean What do we do now? (which I haven't watched yet, I prefer text sources to these YouTube back-and-forths). but I fast-forwarded through it and it looks...
Both them not expecting it back and the price come from the apology video. They show a sample of the email exchange where Billet says they did intend on LMG to keep the prototype.
I'm assuming by "the apology video" you mean What do we do now? (which I haven't watched yet, I prefer text sources to these YouTube back-and-forths). but I fast-forwarded through it and it looks like the email you're referring to is at 13m18s (screenshot)
where Billet says:
Right. We originally said you could keep it because we thought it would be good for you to have it for future builds - it wasn't so you could sell it (whether for charity or not). Then when Linus clearly didn't like it, we asked for it back and you agreed.
so there may have been some original "you can keep it" communications, it's hard to say for sure without reading the rest of the email history. (which I would love to read, with appropriate redactions, if Billet and/or LTT decided to publish them) for example, were there any caveats or expectations discussed in those original conversations, with regards to LTT keeping the block?
something that doesn't seem to be in dispute is that after Linus said it was shit, Billet asked for it back and LTT agreed.
As to price, it's also from the email snippet where Billet says they want £2000 as restitution. The price is now blurred as Billet requested it to be with GN but had not originally communicated that to LMG.
yeah, from the pinned comment on the video:
Update 2: We've heard the feedback from our community and from our team internally and monetization has been turned off for this video.
Update 1: It's come to my attention that in Billet Labs' Reddit post, they censored the quoted cost of their prototype water block. We were never asked to keep this information private, and given that our sources for the matter were our own correspondence with them rather than Reddit, we didn't know to include the censorship.
At this point, there's probably not much point Streisand Effecting it, but I'll blur it anyway on YouTube and we'll get it blurred on Floatplane as soon as one of our editors is awake -LS
when a major thrust of the criticism was that they're rushing out videos too quickly and making sloppy mistakes...it's kind of a bad look if their "here's how we going to do better" video is also making those same mistakes.
"we were never asked to keep this information private" is a bit ironic. in another email screenshot, this one at 13m25s, you can see that this "head of business development" guy has one of those generic email footer messages saying the email may be privileged and/or confidential and if you're not the intended recipient you should delete all copies of the email and not disclose the contents to anyone.
so they care enough about confidentiality to put that copypasta on their own outgoing emails, but not enough that they stopped to consider whether other companies' confidential information might be in screenshots they posted to YouTube.
As to the price, £2000 was a fabricated number. I doubt they tracked how long it took them to manufacture.
Billet's email, from that same screenshot, says:
You agreed to send it back and we planned our finances accordingly. This is not okay at all.
just to be clear, it seems like you are directly accusing that Billet employee of lying. is that correct?
not that they guesstimated or fudged the number or pulled the valuation out of their ass - when the Billet employee says they planned their finances around the return of the prototype, it sounds like you think that's an outright lie?
Woah bud slow down. Just because they gave a rounded number doesn't mean I accused them of lying. I was simply clarifying that it very likely cost them less than that £2000 to manufacture as...
Woah bud slow down. Just because they gave a rounded number doesn't mean I accused them of lying. I was simply clarifying that it very likely cost them less than that £2000 to manufacture as there's not much reason for them to shortchange themselves, but that number is not an exact figure.
As to the confidentiality notice, that's something LMG tacked on. They are free to break their own confidentiality notice at any time they want. Perhaps there's another one from Billet in the blurred area but we don't know. And yes they were accused of rushing videos, but it's ridiculous to say that LMG needs to scan the entirety of the interwebs for a scrap of anything possibly maybe related before posting. No that's a totally unreasonable expectation. As to the "proof" that Billet didn't want it public. Well they made a Reddit post a day ago and said £XXXX rather than the price. You can infer they don't want it public, but they never stated "this shall not be public" to anyone but GamersNexus personally. I don't think they ever said it to LMG either, just people yelling at LMG to cover it up, which they did.
you said "fabricated" before. now you're saying "rounded". "for the purpose of deception" is, like, in the literal dictionary definition of the word. I'm not sure if you meant to accuse them of...
Just because they gave a rounded number doesn't mean I accused them of lying.
you said "fabricated" before. now you're saying "rounded".
I'm not sure if you meant to accuse them of lying...but the words you used definitely had those connotations. which is why I was asking if that's really what you were trying to say.
maybe you're in a hurry to make these comments, choosing your words poorly, and having to come back and clarify them? if so, you and LTT would have something in common.
Why is the asking price even a discussion point? They could have wanted a million dollars and it wouldn't change a thing about the current situation. LTT fucked up multiple times along the way,...
Why is the asking price even a discussion point? They could have wanted a million dollars and it wouldn't change a thing about the current situation. LTT fucked up multiple times along the way, but this stuff happens unfortunately sometimes.
The problem here, which prompted GN critic, is that it reached a tipping point where they felt it is important to point out how LTT's reviews are consistently sloppy, and filled with errors which only get inadequately corrected, despite them now trying to market themselves as credible in that area. Their apparent focus for the reviews isn't the quality but instead the profitability, citing that Linus wasn't willing to spend a few extra hundred bucks to give a product a fair review, wasn't giving his staff enough production time, and subsequently his initial response where he basically didn't acknowledge any wrongdoing.
The asking price adds useful context. The GN video spent a long time talking about how damaging the missing prototype was to the company, as it was their only one. The facts that the company...
The asking price adds useful context. The GN video spent a long time talking about how damaging the missing prototype was to the company, as it was their only one. The facts that the company didn't want it back originally and that it did not cost them much to make are very relevant. GN was saying this missing prototype could kill their company when that's just not true based on these facts.
If the number had been much larger and had they only sent the prototype on loan like GN implied, then yes it would have been a more serious issue. I do hope GN issues a correction to that segment.
No it wasn't. GN accused LMG of stealing the prototype then selling it. GN was wrong. Billet gave LMG the prototype. There was no theft involved. LMG was free to keep it and do as they wished....
No it wasn't. GN accused LMG of stealing the prototype then selling it. GN was wrong. Billet gave LMG the prototype. There was no theft involved. LMG was free to keep it and do as they wished. After the video, Billet decided they wanted it back instead. LMG said ok, but they were under no obligation to do as such. Then LMG messed up and sold it because they didn't properly update the status of the item in inventory. That's not theft. A screwup for sure, but not theft like GN accused them.
GN also hypothesized that a competitor may have purchased the prototype and that could maybe lead to IP theft from the competitor, but that doesn't appear to be the case. This potential is why most companies don't let prototypes out in the wild. Billet messed up when they told LMG they could keep it originally. If they wanted to secure their IP, they should have specified it as a loaner from the beginning. That is on Billet unless they specified that the device was to never be sold/gifted/lost, which it doesn't appear they did. They gave it away freely and LMG sold it as part of clearing out their warehouse.
I gotta be honest, your passionate defense of LTT on this thread seems heavily biased. There are certainly good defenses to be made, and I'm certain that you argue in good faith, but it feels like...
I gotta be honest, your passionate defense of LTT on this thread seems heavily biased. There are certainly good defenses to be made, and I'm certain that you argue in good faith, but it feels like you are too emotionally invested, and in a way that is not conducive to sound reasoning.
If you want to call trying to be reasonable biased then sure. All I've done is clear up misinformation. LMGs list of issues is very real and I've not avoided it. Their production schedule was way...
If you want to call trying to be reasonable biased then sure. All I've done is clear up misinformation. LMGs list of issues is very real and I've not avoided it.
Their production schedule was way too aggressive. Their corporate structure and organization has been total crap. Their childish jokes need to learn some place and time (it's ok to joke but there are situations for dry information). Their managers act way too immaturely and create a hostile work environment. Their QA workflow was totally insufficient (even worse that their QA actually did catch errors but then they failed to fix the edit anyway). They fail to scrap bad shoots and scripts, opting instead to try salvaging garbage and releasing garbage. They likely do have a problem of sexism in the office from the earlier stated immature management. And Linus is a hot head that makes reaction responses rather than letting the company address issues as a unit.
All that said, it's not like they didn't know. They've been working on improvements without provocation from media. They hired a CEO months ago to address the corporate issues. They've hired dedicated HR to address the inter employee issues. No it's not perfect but nothing is. What's most important is effort at improvement and that's been happening. Yet Reddit and others would rather see LMG burn to the ground and a hundred plus people lose their jobs because they didn't perfectly execute the move from 12 employees to 100.
Why you feel we want LMG to "burn to the ground"? I certainly don't feel that way. When something or someone receives strong criticism, you shouldn't assume critics want them to cease to exist. I...
Why you feel we want LMG to "burn to the ground"? I certainly don't feel that way. When something or someone receives strong criticism, you shouldn't assume critics want them to cease to exist. I actually like that channel, and wish it to remain in existence. I also expect it to sufficiently address the criticisms. Isn't that reasonable?
That is reasonable. I wasn't trying to accuse you of anything, and generally the conversation on Tildes has been much better (I made the unfortunate choice to browse Reddit as they had the most up...
That is reasonable. I wasn't trying to accuse you of anything, and generally the conversation on Tildes has been much better (I made the unfortunate choice to browse Reddit as they had the most up to date information even if they had the most braindead arguments over it). This conversation thread has grown quite long in the tooth. Probably best for me to let sleeping dogs lie at this point.
GN never said they stole it, the said they sold it. Which it true, just at an auction. It was theft of a product, why would they let them keep their only prototype?
GN never said they stole it, the said they sold it. Which it true, just at an auction. It was theft of a product, why would they let them keep their only prototype?
The value of chips is not the same as it's weight in billet. Recyclers have to try and verify the contents of the scrap which cuts into it's value quite a bit. And they can't just trust the...
The value of chips is not the same as it's weight in billet. Recyclers have to try and verify the contents of the scrap which cuts into it's value quite a bit. And they can't just trust the customers claim of what the metal is. Machinists regularly leave cleaning out the chip tray until it's full/end of day and so it could have any number of mixed metals in there.
They shouldn't need support. The only thing that should matter was the contract they signed for the advertisement. All this talk about the prototype should have been in the contract. If it wasn't,...
They shouldn't need support. The only thing that should matter was the contract they signed for the advertisement. All this talk about the prototype should have been in the contract. If it wasn't, which it probably wasn't because they would have sued otherwise, then why should anyone care.
I'd like to pick the side of "I'm glad actual investigators outside of the internal HR are auditing this case". The unfortunately thing for the internet is that this investigation will likely take...
I'd like to pick the side of "I'm glad actual investigators outside of the internal HR are auditing this case".
The unfortunately thing for the internet is that this investigation will likely take a few months, and waiting is anathema to this medium. But I prefer a thorough one over one that satisfies Twitter's instant gratification.
Yeah, this is unfortunately normalised anger across social media. Because of, ironically, the lack of accountability when it comes to anonymous or pseudonymous accounts. While the distrust is very...
Yeah, this is unfortunately normalised anger across social media. Because of, ironically, the lack of accountability when it comes to anonymous or pseudonymous accounts. While the distrust is very understandable and I share it, there's a reason why executives do what they do.
They're good at their job. Or competent enough to complete a goal no matter the cost, to an extent. That's why Linus stepped down as CEO into CVO (which is a real occupation), and why Terren is the new CEO. Business is business. That doesn't excuse Linus still being the/an owner of LMG, as well as his actions while he was CEO.
I honestly feel really bad for Terren having to deal with all of this so early into his tenure at LMG. So far I think he's done a really good job. Overall, I thought his parts of the video, and...
I honestly feel really bad for Terren having to deal with all of this so early into his tenure at LMG. So far I think he's done a really good job. Overall, I thought his parts of the video, and now this response to the allegations (hiring a third party, publishing the results) are both great, and moving the company in the right direction.
I would agree, but I think the fake sponsor throw was a terrible idea and makes it a lot harder to accept that they are taking any of this seriously. I get that the video was put together quickly...
I would agree, but I think the fake sponsor throw was a terrible idea and makes it a lot harder to accept that they are taking any of this seriously.
I get that the video was put together quickly and, crucially, before they were aware of Madison coming forward…but if they went through the trouble to put together a video responding to serious allegations about the quality of their work, it should be a serious video.
The fact that they still have it up in light of the new allegations and, in fact, had it replaced in place with a newer version to obscure some email details, is just awful.
I did think that the jokes were in poor taste, but as far as apology videos go, I thought it was good. Outside of some bad jokes, I'm not really sure what else I would've wanted out of the video....
I did think that the jokes were in poor taste, but as far as apology videos go, I thought it was good. Outside of some bad jokes, I'm not really sure what else I would've wanted out of the video. I don't know if I'd support them taking the video down necessarily. I think they should at least acknowledge the allegations somewhere on their YouTube channel. I guess I'm agnostic to them leaving the video up, I haven't really thought about it.
I think what we disagree on is whether or not it can be a good apology video with the jokes. I think the jokes being in there show that they don’t (or didn’t at the time) understand how serious...
I think what we disagree on is whether or not it can be a good apology video with the jokes. I think the jokes being in there show that they don’t (or didn’t at the time) understand how serious the situation is, therefore it’s not a good apology video.
But I agree that if those weren’t in there, it would be acceptable as a response to Gamers Nexus.
Worst part for me was the product advertisement such as the announcement of their new screwdriver color way or their joke about LTTStore.com. Really comes off as poor taste to seem like you are...
Worst part for me was the product advertisement such as the announcement of their new screwdriver color way or their joke about LTTStore.com. Really comes off as poor taste to seem like you are trying to sell things in your apology video talking about pushing too hard for videos to keep profit up.
I think it was a bit in poor taste, but largely I think it's because they're kind of trying to demonstrate that they are still the same people. They don't want to make it seem like they're erasing...
I think it was a bit in poor taste, but largely I think it's because they're kind of trying to demonstrate that they are still the same people.
They don't want to make it seem like they're erasing their identity, they're just trying to be better.
Personally I still think it was a bit off-putting, but largely not completely irresponsible. Though that's always going to be personal opinion. More importantly, I agree with the decisions made in trying to make the Maddison situation out to be a serious thing.
I don't think so, I think the problem was that they were trying to change their reputation and make themselves out to be a reputable media outlet for the tech industry, but fell short in terms of...
I don't think so, I think the problem was that they were trying to change their reputation and make themselves out to be a reputable media outlet for the tech industry, but fell short in terms of accuracy blamed (in many opinions) on an overly hectic film schedule that didn't allow for errors to be corrected properly.
People, for better or for worse, like the personalities of LMG.
The jokes are inappropriate and show a lack of appreciation for the gravity of the situation. But I am of the opinion that it is not really possible to do a good apology when something like that...
The jokes are inappropriate and show a lack of appreciation for the gravity of the situation. But I am of the opinion that it is not really possible to do a good apology when something like that happens. It will never be enough. The apology is like a letter saying "we will do better", which is fine, but the important part is actually doing it.
So yeah, it is a flawed yet adequate apology, but apologies are cheap. A "good apology" only shows that you are good with words, it doesn't require genuine contrition. Anyone can apologize. Not everyone can change.
The gravity wasn't that large though. It was made in response to GN which was about shoddy quality and mishandling of a product. While Reddit and others are bringing up accusations of workplace...
The gravity wasn't that large though. It was made in response to GN which was about shoddy quality and mishandling of a product. While Reddit and others are bringing up accusations of workplace abuse, that's not what the video was apologizing for. They were apologizing for soiling their own reputation as content creators.
Yes but people go to LTT for jokes and humor, not dry numbers. So it's really not hard to see why they kept some levity in the situation. Again, it's not a grave situation such as someone being...
Yes but people go to LTT for jokes and humor, not dry numbers. So it's really not hard to see why they kept some levity in the situation. Again, it's not a grave situation such as someone being seriously harmed or harassed. They didn't send the wolves after GN or Billet resulting in an apology for doing such. It was a "sorry we've been making bad videos" apology.
I'm not saying "it could be worse". I'm saying the situation they apologized for is not as heavy as you made it out to be. They paused production in the meantime to stop harming their own...
I'm not saying "it could be worse". I'm saying the situation they apologized for is not as heavy as you made it out to be. They paused production in the meantime to stop harming their own reputation with sloppy errors, not because the mistake made was too massive to work through.
The video was scripted. I do understand the scripts themselves are as sincere as they can get, and the humour does show the point that they are human. And I 110% agree that it will never be a...
The video was scripted. I do understand the scripts themselves are as sincere as they can get, and the humour does show the point that they are human. And I 110% agree that it will never be a perfect apology.
But all of them are reading a prompt. Most, if not all, of the jokes don't land for me bc they're so awkward. This was arguably Linus's biggest skill as a host — he was able to take a script, and apply personality to it. I really don't think these kinds of jokes were done well — we already have sponsor jokes, we already have LTTStore.com jokes. I do give all of them some slack because some of them aren't good on camera. I did like Colton's bit.
If they genuinely did write these jokes, I can completely understand. But I didn't like them. Even Linus said that LMG is not your friend, so we should respect them as a company. And as @lou said, apology videos are cheap. YouTuber apology videos are a meme. The better action is to just do what you say.
...it's not a grave situation such as someone being seriously harmed or harassed.
Yeah, but LTT has over 15 million subscribers. Whether infotainment or not, people do watch their videos to get a gauge on what is good and what isn't. And their transition from goofy infotainment to in-depth lab results mean that more seasoned viewers expect accuracy and correct information.
Which they wanna avoid as much as possible since Labs is gonna be open to third party and contractor work when it's done. So yes, it's not grave but I don't like the implication that this is an easy fix either.
I agree, that's probably the case. I certainly would have preferred there not be jokes in there, I guess I'm just ignoring the jokes for the sake of the actual content within. I totally get where...
I agree, that's probably the case. I certainly would have preferred there not be jokes in there, I guess I'm just ignoring the jokes for the sake of the actual content within. I totally get where you're coming from though, and I think that's a fair assessment.
The merchandise jokes were from Nick. Considering he's in charge of lttstore, I suppose I'm not too shocked. Unless they state otherwise, I'm assuming they each wrote their piece independently....
The merchandise jokes were from Nick. Considering he's in charge of lttstore, I suppose I'm not too shocked. Unless they state otherwise, I'm assuming they each wrote their piece independently. Only mildly coordinating to link the sections together. I will admit Luke's 69 joke caught me off guard, he's not usually the one popping off cheap sex jokes on camera. Colin's getting fired joke was very relevant considering part of the Billet drama was his mess, though Linus probably should have followed it up with a "no one's getting fired".
Overall, you could tell they are all quite beat up in the video giving their piece. None of them are good enough actors to fake it. As to results, I suppose we'll see soon enough how good on their claims they'll be.
The Madison issue is completely separate from this GN/Billet/audience apology. They absolutely should not be making any comments about Madison. For one, doing so only draws more attention to her...
The Madison issue is completely separate from this GN/Billet/audience apology. They absolutely should not be making any comments about Madison.
For one, doing so only draws more attention to her directly and only makes things bigger. Yes that's bad for LMG but it's also bad for Madison. I doubt she wants to be accosted online anymore than she's already getting.
Additionally, what even could they say? "I hear you Madison and we'll look into it?" No viewer is going to accept that as the blood sacrifice they demand, nor does it make things any better for her. Though they have actually stated that they've heard her and they are looking into it, just they didn't blast it on Youtube.
If Madison wants to go deeper she certainly can but you'll notice she didn't name drop anyone. If she wanted heads to roll, that would be how to get them rolling. The only name drop was Linus but not as to anything that happened to her, only about broad company issues. I don't think she has any desire to go further than she already has.
I’m not expecting them to say anything about Madison’s statements. I was saying that the joking attitude in the video plays very different with the addition of sexual harassment claims than it did...
I’m not expecting them to say anything about Madison’s statements.
I was saying that the joking attitude in the video plays very different with the addition of sexual harassment claims than it did when they shot it. So I was surprised they didn’t take it down.
Yeah...I don't personally feel bad for any executives. It seems like the CEO role was made to babysit/provide cover for Linus. As this incident shows, it's a role that is needed, but I can't see...
Yeah...I don't personally feel bad for any executives. It seems like the CEO role was made to babysit/provide cover for Linus. As this incident shows, it's a role that is needed, but I can't see any meaningful change being made that isn't vetted by Linus and CFO Yvonne (his wife btw).
As for the response, it seems like pretty standard corporate playbook (no substantial reply to the allegations -> hire an "external" party -> wait until the controversy dies down -> release a "no wrongdoing was found" report or a quiet settlement otherwise).
I think the only thing that LTT (or Linus + Yvonne) can do right now to fix anything at all would be to go full hands off for a while and let Terren do his thing. Their claim is that he's the only...
I think the only thing that LTT (or Linus + Yvonne) can do right now to fix anything at all would be to go full hands off for a while and let Terren do his thing. Their claim is that he's the only person who can manage Linus, so I just hope they let him do that.
Also, maybe I just don't remember, I feel like there's almost never a third party investigation? Certainly never a publication. That feels like going beyond the standard set everywhere else. I could be wrong though.
That is uncomfortable. Some things on this video are inappropriate, there shouldn't be any jokes here. I can feel the pain on this video. I watched a lot of Linus in the last 4 to 5 years. If that...
That is uncomfortable. Some things on this video are inappropriate, there shouldn't be any jokes here.
I can feel the pain on this video. I watched a lot of Linus in the last 4 to 5 years. If that is just an issue of bad practices, I deem that an appropriate response. Not perfect, it's a first step. I'm not hard to please, I suppose. Everyone makes mistakes.
However, there are allegations of more serious abuse that may need to be addressed as well.
What’s new in this article, compared to prior coverage of the (as of time of posting) current Linus Media Group controversies, is CEO Terren Tong has said that an outside investigator will be brought in regarding harassment accusations by former employee Madison Reeves.
Also, Linus claims to not recall any of the accounts Madison has talked about.
As damning as this has all been I think it's possible for the brand to be saved if Linus steps away and employees supporting the present toxic culture are purged from the company.
I don't think there's any chance he steps away.... but agree with you.
Linus expressed the desire to retire multiple times in recent years. It is conceivable for him to choose this time to do so.
He has plenty of money. If he actually had wanted to step away, he would have done so already. It's not a bad PR move to re-iterate the desire though, or was at least in recent times until now. It keeps currently disgruntled and gruntled employees onboard as they think things might actually change once the CEO is gone. Which he won't be, but they don't know that.
He's literally the public face of the company, and obviously his name is on it too.
I'm not sure they even can separate without starting an entirely new company.
For what its worth, it has been nearly ten years since Anand Lal Shimpi left Anandtech and they seems to do fine.
Of course it's easier to separate the content from the author when you're dealing with text compared to video.
damn he forgor about abusing his employees, that's crazy and definitely believable lol
There's enough comments talking about Linus and the company, as well as enough going on about Billet Labs, but I wanna talk about Madison.
I've seen many people online vilifying Madison for talking about her experiences. How the timing is off, how it's a he said she said situation. Unfortunately, red tape is a fuckin mess. The legal system has a lot of cogs and redundancies that are supposed to help, but it also doesn't because nowadays... for the younger people, the government is corrupt, and corporations get away with it. Which is true.
I'm just really sad that no one on the Internet understands that sexism in the workplace DOES happen to women. Very common. Esp in STEM. My mom has gone through it herself, and I have experienced my own sort of "privilege". Even tho I'm not a man, and I really hate that I'm always seen as one.
reminds of me of the other shutdown tactic of "now is not the time to talk about gun control; it is the time for grieving."
I love how 'Strike while the iron is hot' is completely disregarded these days in favor of 'It's too soon' or 'you're taking advantage of x situation.' Like, duh, that's the point.
Because I am unsure what situation you are referencing and I don't want to wade through a billion google results, can you point me in the right direction to learn more about this?
I believe this is what they are referring to. I have no idea how accurate this info is, I've just been lurking on the LTT sub over the last days to watch this situation unfold https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15sjv78/for_anyone_wondering_why_madison_stayed_silent/
Edit: a r/LinusTechTips mod claims to have received evidence that debunks this story. They say it is a "bet my life" confidence level.
Fuckin hell.
I heard about this but I didn't know if it was true cause I heard it secondhand. While damaging and very very misguided, the anger that father feels is 110% justified and no one should judge him for his reaction. To not only lose his son but his wife too, and to suicide no less.
Ofc, there's no way to corroborate this. And I hate that so much shit has happened like the Lil Tay situation that I'm always gonna be unsure, but... regardless if this happened or not, I don't believe there would be anything to gain by lying. My heart goes out to him.
The irony is... apparently, Linus was fine with him getting his play button? Also heard that secondhand so.....
We'll never know.
Seems like it.
https://imgur.io/XRekQzw
FYI a r/LinusTechTips mod claims to have received evidence that debunks this. https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15y8szz/update_regarding_mindchop_rumor/
A r/LinustechTips mod is now claiming to have evidence that debunks this story. https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15y8szz/update_regarding_mindchop_rumor/
Yeah, i had come across a bit of evidence that at least makes me take pause in whether the single post was true or not.
That being said, I also think it is valid to feel reticent about coming forward due to the community's potential backlash anyway.
The timing is bad for LMG but I can see why she chose it. LMG are in a weakened position and people are ready to rage about every thing, real or imagined. She states the biggest reason why not earlier is fear of retaliation from fans. So striking while the iron is hot allows her to get it out with a good chance that she'll have avengers coming to her side. She was always going to see flame for making the comments as that's just how online drama goes, but with this timing she has a better chance at drowning out the negative comments about her.
And no, I don't mean any of this as an evil mastermind sort of planning. I'm sure she just saw all of the angry comments at LMG and got riled up herself. She made the comments at 2AM in the morning. That's some late night doom scrolling going on.
As to what happens next? This one is going to be a slow roll if it does go anywhere. LMG isn't going to toy about with making comments on it. Maybe she'll bring charges? Hard to say. I don't think she wants to draw in more drama on herself than has already been stated as dragging this to court would not be enjoyable, no matter how right she is or isn't. Most likely I foresee the external review leading to a luke warm statement and then all parties moving on.
I feel like the people questioning motives or veracity are missing the overarching point when painful accounts like these are brought up, and it is emblematic of the generalized complacency and desensitization that's been cultivated. The critical part is that her account is, as you say, unfortunately very recognizable because it speaks to a recurring pattern of workplace toxicity that eats away at everyone to different degrees, whether you're its target, a family member, bystander or associated in some other way.
If there's any takeaway to be had for us who are viewing these events from the outside in, it's to recognize how harmful such a workplace culture is and to try to push back against it when we can in whatever small ways we're able to. Any other action someone takes, like unfollowing this or that person, is at best secondary.
I think it's a lot more than workplace culture.
It's crazy how fucked women are in Western society. Beyond femininity's sex appeal, its surprising and sad how inherent running women into the ground is. Women have historically been seen as secondary — terms like "feminine cadence" or "wife beater", traditional families are cultivated to be patriarchal, the biological difference between women and men is manipulated for arguments and, among other things, women who gleefully express or flaunt themselves are often seen as "wanting it" by creeps.
Something casual like "calm your tits" down may seem fine, and tbh... maybe it is! Hell, I make a lot of "ur mom" jokes. Yet, there is a reason why it's slang or vernacular. Some of Madison's experiences in her X/Twitter thread hit home, and it's sooo... infuriating how for decades, we haven't even solved a basic thing like discrimination. We just don't want to.
Not every woman is objectified or harassed. But srsly! Men are so off the hook it even hurts them — men can't be raped at all, in spite of the fact that male rape victims CAN & DO EXIST!! I do believe in believeing whatever you want, yet it does not help that fem politicians who buy into the regressive bs of trampling on things like abortion — when Roe v Wade got overturned, it wasn't just abortion rights that were hit! The SJW craze about "feminism" back in the mid-2010s also didn't help as well. We've made a lot of steps but it's still a HUGE problem.
Like, in Fortnite, a lot of ppl apparently switch to female skins based on the claim that they have smaller hitboxes. Which, based on a quick Google search, doesn't seem to be the case. Maybe it doesn't lead anywhere or it's a red herring, but it does get you thinking...
Seriously. You are right in that we need to try to push back whenever we can, but how about a preemptive solutuon is to just respect women? To sincerely understand women/fem peeps? Women of colour? How about trans women too? Legit. Trans women have it worse lmao.
Anyway, here's Family Guy.
Of course, it goes without saying that this issue extends beyond the workplace. But the workplace is a social space/arena where power can more casually, inconspicuously and insidiously be abused compared to many other situations, and people are often ensnared in them due to outside obligations (e.g. bills) or poor labor protections. So I do think it is a special context in which it pays to be extra mindful of how you behave with colleagues, and, when possible, try to nudge the workplace dynamic in a healthier direction.
I'm not sure what "SJW craze" around feminism you're referring to. But social justice is an important field both academically and in our day-to-day, so I personally would not pair it a term like craze, considering there already is a tendency from more cynical people (euphemistically speaking) to attribute a negative connotation to it.
In the mid 2010s, there was an uptick in feminism or smth like that around Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn, etc. Esp with GamerGate being a thing, and the increased visbility of LGBT communities as well.
I don't know exactly how it happened, but a lot of people ended up subscribing to a kind of radical feminism. I have no 'real' problems with radfem, yet this specific strain of it was very misandrist, stereotypical and superficial. Like 'blame the patriarchy" type shit. Eventually, "social justice warrior" became SJW and was weaponised into a derogatory term; those kinds of feminists and queer ppl were targeted with that label. For a while, "feminist compilations" and "SJW compilations" became very popular on YouTube and it spread anti-feminism, homophobia and even transphobia across social media. It's kinda crazy how seemingly right-wing the Internet became for a bit, esp w figures such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Steven Crowder, Ben Shapiro going viral and ppl agreeing with them.
So in that way, it was a craze. Esp bc it was a trend to dunk on those ppl.
I think the latter part of this is exactly why I am explaining.
I don't mean anything against in-person activists who go out and do shit. They have my respect. Esp those in Iran who have been protesting after the death of Jina Amini (aka Mahsa Amini) at the hands of the Iranian government. Or those in France rn.
I'm just explaining what I mean. Esp as someone who was "anti-SJW" and rightwing-pilled at that time.
Are you sure you are not HEAVILY influenced by this still? Your description of radical feminist uses the lens of gamergate and the alt-right and is not really the reality of what was happening in feminism generally (or even the online feminism) at that time. Above all else, you thinking that this feminism was mysandrist is the biggest giveaway.
I still have some backwards thinking. I've been challenged before on it too.
I consumed that content in high school. As a teenager, I was bullied and bashed in political corners for my own naivete, so I had prejudice for a loooong time. I still kinda do. You never forget that fear of being scared for your life on the Internet.
I enjoyed those compilations and I admit I did. At the time. Nowadays, I dislike outrage content cause it's just to provoke anger and I'm tired of it. I don't try to seek out right-wing videos, and I certainly don't like the right. My feelings on politics overall is complex.
I don't know how else to say this but I'm not gonna defend or try to defend my original comment. I'm wrong. I feel learning from this is better. I don't know much about radical feminism, GamerGate and that shit because it's been really hard for me to get into it. If you have anything I should look into or read surrounding what I erroneously said, I really do wanna try to read it. If not, that's fine.
I'm just unlearning whatever I can one step at a time.
I highly recommend you watch Inuendo Studio on YouTube, especially the Gamergate video.
Then hate Madison has been getting online for speaking up is disgusting, especially from LMG fanboys who think Linus can do no wrong.
Vilifying her for things like resorting to self-harm to get a day off and avoid being fired from a categorically anti-union and hostile workplace is the kind of shit that's gonna make fewer women speak up about sexual harassment and gender discrimination.
Not to mention all the false allegations that people come up with on social media.
I was shocked to find out that my one female programmer colleague makes less money than me, because frankly she's the one holding a few business criticial components together and I'm already considering moving on due to money reasons. It's fucked. I should make considerably less than her because while I do business-important work, I don't do business-critical work, unlike her.
Have not yet checked back, but that'd add one more reason to leave, to me at least. :'(
Thanks for your comment. Please tell your colleague this.
I decided against commenting this on Reddit or YouTube, because of the severe lack of nuance. Hopefully here is different.
While not 1:1, I recently observed an organization I'm a part of go through something similar. First critiques were leveled at the upper management. Then more serious critiques, then anger at the reactions to those critiques, then anger at THOSE reactions. Then straight up accusations (that ended up being almost completely false if not hyper-exaggerated).
The analog to the "audience" in this case was out for blood. They demanded firings left and right, public apologies, and transparent processes moving forward (all of which happened).
That wasn't enough.
They kept screaming for blood. Finally, someone was literally RUN OUT OF TOWN. As in this person had to move away, uproot family, and leave the entire city.
I wish there was a way to grab these hot-take-spewing jackwagons crying for blood and demanding Linus resign and ask them to slow down and take a deep breath. None of this is worth what hate is being thrown around.
I'll try and be charitable here, but takes like this make my blood boil. To be clear, I am talking about the Madison allegations, not the original Gamer's Nexus video, as I believe you are. There are many problems and shitty things strongly shown in the GN video, but systemic sexism, verbal/emotional abuse, sexual assault and management complicity in all it of it is a much bigger deal.
At least 9/10 sexual assault accusations are true, so given no evidence, the rational choice is to believe the victim. In this instance, it is early in the story and MAYBE she is in the 1/10 where its exaggerated or completely untrue, MAYBE. But it's also a very credible and believible story. It is boringly terrible; most false accusations are more grand, more theatrical. None of her claims were wild or over the top. Linus in videos acts like he shits gold and can do no wrong, why shouldn't I believe he does the same in private?
But not picking a side is picking a side; you are picking the side with power and influence, Linus and LMG. No matter what Linus is rich as fuck and will be fine; acting like him resigning is some horrible fate is a bit silly. Retiring at his age is a fantasy for many people. On the otherside is a normal person who was most likely used and abused by people she looked up to. She has a lot to risk and lose by making these accusations.
I beg to differ; sexual assault and a cover-up are exactly things that should get you a lot of hate and scrutiny.
Takes like this don't make my blood boil, but I view them as harmful nonetheless. It's an immediate "us vs. them" mentality. If you're not with us, you're against us. It's black and white thinking and it comes across as threatening in the sense that you're basically trying to make an enemy out of someone who simply hasn't pulled their pitchforks out with you. Arguably, you're not helping sexual assault victims to the degree that you think you are when you're trying to leverage their situations into shaming people into taking an opinion they aren't yet ready to define and making them out to be as bad as the people who are actually either actively doing the harm of assaults or who are supporting it.
This mentality is what is eroding society, because there's no nuance anymore, it's 'your opinion must match mine or else I hate you and I'm justified in hating you because I'm on the right side' and people aren't allowed to be uneducated or uninformed on things you personally care about, because that means they're not picking a side, or they must take an uneducated or uninformed decision to comply with your unrealistic standards of always taking your side. There are things that I care about deeply that I believe are rooted in being an ethical or humane person that I bet you haven't explored much, or that you don't agree with me on, am I justified in hating you because of it? No, I can't possibly know the depth of your experiences or thoughts based on simplified explanations in discussions that are driven by particular motives at any given time. Sometimes the things I choose to talk about are driven because of what I'm currently feeling at the moment or just my overall life experiences recently, and had I approached them 6 months later while I might still have had a very similar opinion or thoughts they could easily come from a different perspective if other aspects of my feelings or life have changed sufficiently over that time.
I'd like to avoid a pointless flame war, so I'll try to keep my response to a minimum. I don't hate you or anyone else that is honestly engaging with this conversation in good faith. It makes me angry when people make wishy washy and deflecting statements about very serious claims, but I don't hate people over it. Please don't tell me what I feel.
In what way was I not nuanced? I fully acknowledge its early and more information is needed. I admit its possible that she is wrong. My argument is that she is credible and should be taken seriously, not that she is 100% correct and true and perfect. I am happy to change my opinion if concrete evidence appears. Until then I will continue my default position of siding with the victim/accuser.
As to the second paragraph, I don't know, okay? I'm talking about the alleged crimes against Linus and LMG, not SOCIETY. If you want to talk about SOCIETY, start a thread somewhere else.
On a more personal note, I have strong feelings about this issue because it is personal for me. I have been sexually harassed multiple times and groped before. I have known many, many people who were sexually assaulted. To my knowledge, none of the perpetrators were punished, in a big part because victims are afraid to come forward. So yes, I come in hard on this, and I am not going to apologize for that.
The level of evidence needed for in-person sexual harassment to be proven is nearly unattainable apart from rare circumstances where it's caught on film or something like that. Saying "wait and see" is functionally identical to dismissing it entirely. Not believing victims because the abuse they've received is by its very nature nearly impossible to prove scares victims into silence and lets this whole culture continue, which also takes lives. Taking each side can take lives, and so can taking no side, as that is again functionally the same as siding with the accused. There's no way OUT of that problem.
These things are almost always one person’s word against another’s and getting details proven is a rarity. Given that when I look at the world around me and live my life I see sexual harassment and violence ruining far more lives than accusations of them (even including all of the many more true cases where that life-ruining is earned!), I choose to believe the victims until shown otherwise. Our personal standards for judgement need not be as strict as those for legal action.
Of course, that doesn't mean I'm behind internet hate mobs and the like going after the accused (even if their feelings are understandable).
My comment was not to mischaracterize you as having stated you hated anyone or to concretely state that was your feelings, but I was partly including that language because of the parent comment, the one you replied to and what set the stage for the topic in this chain of comments.
That was what they ended their comment with, and that was seemingly what their whole comment was about as they described their experience prior to that and ended it with that summary. Then you responded saying that comment made your blood boil. While you didn't state that you were hating anyone, and I don't believe that I said you did, what I did do was carry the conversation that the parent comment had started and blended it with your remarks. Whether or not you hate anyone over it I don't know for certain, but you did also include this in your response
Where you also seemed to substantiate that you believed the accusations against Linus and LMG and thus seemed to imply it was fair for him to be hated.
So while I don't believe I ever said you hated anyone, I did take it that you supported hating people from your remark that I quoted above. Maybe I misunderstood what you were saying, in which case I'm open to being corrected.
They go hand-in-hand. It's just as relevant to point out a broad issue when it's happening in a particular situation, so it shouldn't be forced to only be mentioned in a separate venue. Being able to point out when a particular idea or behavior is problematic at the time it is happening is perhaps even more beneficial than just making a generic philosophical discussion about it. If a kid can't buy school lunch and the government isn't giving this kid the ability to get free school lunch, it's fair to mention it when the kid misses lunch, shouldn't have to address the issue at a separate time. Especially when the parent comment you replied to had sort of been talking about this topic broadly as well as weaving it into this particular situation. My comment was on topic if we consider what the parent comment had set the stage as.
I quoted the part of your comment that I found to be most problematic and lacking nuance and that I also felt represented the overall tone of your comment, and responded to that.
I agree that she should be viewed as credible and be taken seriously, but it's not really for internet strangers to decide much beyond that, we have no ability to get any closer to the truth of the story in a responsible way. I view it as, she should be taken seriously and not vilified online by random people who know nothing about her and in my view, that is siding with the victim/accuser, but I also don't think I need to pass judgement on the accused without knowing more. I think it's possible to support the victim/accuser while not rushing to judgement of the accused by giving the victim/accuser the support of authorities or labor departments to investigate the company or people who are accused of wrongdoing. If the authorities don't offer this support, then the public should be focusing their attention on them instead of performing mob "justice". I'm not claiming that you advocated for this, but it is often what happens when people are saying that people should take the side of the victim/accuser.
That isn't to say that I think every person is free to do what they want without consequence unless they've been proven guilty in a court of law. I don't prescribe to that particular hard-line ideology either. But it's a really fine line to walk between coming to your own conclusions and deciding when someone has done enough that you don't personally want anything to do with them anymore and being influenced by the mob to make decisions, and that was part of my original comment about not trying to force people to take a side on something they may not know enough to make a conclusion about. I don't think anyone needs a jury to tell them whether or not they can avoid walking next to someone on the sidewalk, but I also don't think we should be trying to unduly influence people into avoiding walking next to those people on the sidewalk if there isn't something a little more concrete than someone's personal judgement of the matter.
That is extremely thorough but to the extent that I struggle to keep your entire comment, let alone "the set stage" in mind when contemplating it. IMO the school lunch analogy goes nowhere and your 7th and 8th paragraphs could be distilled down.
I actually don't desire to be a comment length police, but I do think yours is a tough comment to respond to, and suspect that if this thread continues participants should keep in mind the increasing complexity.
Also I'm tired and very offtopic.
Yes it's a problem of mine to keep the comment short, but it often happens when people reply to me without understanding what I originally said. It makes me feel like I have to expand on everything in my reply because when I tried to condense it originally, they either mischaracterize what I say or misunderstand something that I could have provided more detail on but chose not to because I wanted to keep it short.
To the extent what I mean about "set the stage", read the top comment to this comment chain. It's not talking about Linus or LMG for the bulk of the comment. Out of the 10+ sentences in that original comment, only one is actually referencing Linus or this incident. Yet in my comment, I was told that I should have posted elsewhere because it wasn't on topic since it wasn't specifically about Linus/LTT. The context of the discussion was set by the parent comment.
Yeah it wasn't great, I didn't really put much thought into it other than I attempted to pick a less extreme topic that probably would have conveyed the point more, but then would have made it a target for criticism because I could have been accused for equating their remarks to something more serious. For example, if I had said something like, "Guns are relevant to talk about after a school shooting, we shouldn't be forced to talk about them another time", I could either be accused of equating that person to someone who deflects gun talk after school shootings (which is a political partisan issue these days) or comparing the seriousness of the two even though that wouldn't be the point. The point is that when something relevant occurs, it should be OK to talk about it when it happens rather than being told to take it somewhere else simply because we're talking about a more broad issue rather than the specific topic.
Again, the 7th and 8th paragraphs could be distilled down, and I can see 10 different ways I'd have someone criticizing them if I did. For example, just leaving the 8th paragraph out entirely (if the 8th is the last as you're counting it anyhow) opens it up to the interpretation that I'm effectively saying that no one is allowed to say anything unless someone is proven guilty in a court of law which isn't really my stance either. It is rather dismissive of the rights of each individual to make decisions for their own life without all of them having to be based on what a court has ruled on.
Largely I agree with your sentiment but I don't think it's so clear cut in this instance.
Grand statements require grand evidence - and so far all we have are several (believable, but unsubstantiated) claims of abuse. I don't think it's responsible to condemn anybody on the face of simple statements. I'm not saying I don't want to give her the benefit of the doubt, I'm just saying I feel wrong to immediately assume guilt without any sort of evidence or even just a chance for the other party to retort.
To my knowledge, she is the only confirmed former employee to make specific claims regarding sexual harassment, inappropriate conduct/contact, or specific verbal abuse. That doesn't mean she's lying, it just means that we don't even have multiple people (yet) to help corroborate her version of events.
She could be witch hunting, or she could be trying to finally get her voice out when she hasn't felt comfortable doing it before. Until someone can provide evidence one way or the other, it's incredibly not my place to make a judgement on it.
She could also be right and wrong at the same time. From her own statements, she was not doing well at LMG. She said she committed self harm because she was in such a bad place mentally. Now it's a horrible state to be in, but not everyone handles stress equally. She almost certainly experienced a hostile work environment and she did not like whatever handling was experienced. She describes it as "inappropriately grabbed multiple times". Was it an intentional ass grab or an incidental touch caused by a small working space? We really don't know what the context is, only that she did not like it and attempted to report it. Those reports didn't go anywhere and eventually it all lead to her resigning.
Anyway, all of that is to say that it's possible for someone to feel they've been assaulted while also being considered an innocent situation to observers. I've certainly felt my hand brush against random body parts squeezing along a train, and it's certainly possible for a person is a highly emotional state to react strongly to that same brushing. Not trying to excuse away the possibility of outright assault, just saying LMG not finding wrongdoing doesn't mean Maddison made up her experiences.
I mean Linus did a quick retort in the linked piece:
An "I don't recall" excuse is a cliche at this point and I personally think its telling that he isn't explicitly denying it, but I agree this isn't a settled and done thing. As long as you are taking it seriously, I have no beef with you.
No, the rational choice is to get evidence so that we can make sure that supposed 10% chance doesn't occur.
I get having an emotional response to these horrible allegations and you should absolutely give the victim the emotional support they need since that doesn't require attacking anyone else, but you're literally advocating for
innocent until proven guiltyguilty until proven innocent, that's ass-backwards and leads to situations like Slazo, Pyrocynical, etc.Innocent people do get accused unfortunately.
You do know the phrase "you can't be neutral in a moving train" right? I don't like that metaphor, but let's go with that train of thought, since it's similar to your turn of phrase.
I never liked twitter to begin with, so I choose not to go down the route of commenting on The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter.
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
Desmond Tutu
Its also been a common phrase in the Black Rights movement. I'm not saying that you have to stop the train, but if you are standing back in an unequal power struggle, you are letting the oppressor do what they want to the oppressed.
It's hard to always care enough about everything to weigh in. And thoughts and prayers or words on the internet rarely do much. But sometimes the people being oppressed are reading what we say. It's important to do what little we can.
I'm pretty new here and using a third party app so I don't know how to do quotations yet.
I used to agree with platitudes like this, and to some extent I still see some validity to the core idea, but there's clearly a line somewhere. I don't know if anyone knows where that line is, but it used to frustrate me a lot that people don't care about one issue or another, and anyone who doesn't care is a bad person. That's how I felt. You don't care that animals are being tortured daily to produce the meat you eat. You don't care that the environment is taking hit after hit. You don't care enough to fight the rich buying politicians and evading taxes or abusing the working class etc. You're not doing enough. Everyone is not doing enough and anyone who doesn't care is a piece of shit. That's how I felt at the time. Probably every single person in this thread would not live up to such standards. Not a single one, including myself, though of course at the time in my naivety I thought I was so much better than everyone else.
But I was wrong. You can't care about everything. You didn't even do it justice when you said it's "hard" to always care enough about everything to weigh-in. It's not hard, it's impossible. This idea that everyone has to weigh in on everything otherwise they're the neutral party that really is just representing all the evil in this world leads to the blind leading the blind because you have all these people who don't know shit and have no education on the matter weighing in on something they know very little about so they can win the morality wars. We're a specialist society, to live a good life you're tasked with spending much of your time and resources focusing on very specific subject material for a good portion of your time. So each person in their specialist role is raising the ceiling for what knowledge it requires to be able to competently discuss anything in that realm, and at the same time we're getting further and further away from the ceiling of every single other subject that we're not focusing on that is being raised by other specialists.
To me, there's different forms of "neutral" and one that people are most calling out is arguably not even neutral, but it's the ones who are motivated to maintain the status quo. They don't want change, they want to keep things as they are now by resisting all forms of change. In the quote of the mouse and the elephant, it'd be someone who doesn't want anyone to change the fact that the elephant is stepping on the mouse's tail. They're not saying they support the elephant, they're just saying they don't want you to step in. Of course preventing you from stepping in has the same result as supporting the elephant. A neutral party could maybe be more described as someone who may or may not see the elephant stepping on the mouses tail, but also may recognize they don't know the circumstances and they aren't going to stop you from trying to move the elephant off the mouse's tail but they also aren't going to jump in and help you move the elephant either. Of course this doesn't work that well with the elephant and mouse analogy because that analogy was chosen to be more obvious to make the original point the person who is quoted intended to make, the elephant shouldn't be stepping on the mouses tail or it's not reasonable, but in life there's many other situations where it's not as obvious what should or shouldn't be happening.
Just turning everything into one side or another side, and there's nothing in between or no possibility of being neutral, creates polarization. It gets even worse too, because the extremists on each "side" then take that same game and play it again, now if you aren't with the extremists you're effectively no better than the ones being neutral, who are already the enemy, and now you're the enemy too if you don't join the extremists. Of course, the other "side" is playing the same game, so you're still closer to the extremists on your side than you are to the extremists on the other side, it's the easier task to join the extremists on your side than to be cast as the opposition and to fight them.
It isn't to say there aren't some situations where even if you're more of a true neutral that isn't attempting to interfere that there aren't situations where the idea of being neutral can't land you on the wrong side of history or perhaps make you not upholding what is ethical. If a true neutral stands by and watches as children are married off in the middle ages, with any concept that there's possibly something wrong there, and simply doesn't want to make a choice for fear of consequence of being involved, well that person could certainly be seen as ethically compromised even if they didn't support those doing the marrying off. Having said that, I think there's still some value in not painting everyone the same in one stroke. Viewing someone as ethically compromised for being neutral shouldn't equate them to being literally Hitler.
I think you're missing a key aspect, which is that neutrality is different from not having the capacity/knowledge to care.
If you don't know enough about something to say whether you're for or against it (or so where inbetween), it's okay to say "I don't know" and request more information or stay out of it. People respect that approach more than someone who has an uninformed opinion on everything.
It's not different, not having the capacity or knowledge to care ends up being one of the forms of neutrality that I referenced before. The distinction you seem to be making is that somehow neutral means someone has knowledge of the matter, but is choosing not to take a side, as though neutral is always a chosen position rather than just an actual status. I don't think you have to choose to be neutral to be considered neutral, and much of the discussion here does not seem to be supporting that definition of neutral either.
For example, the quote that person used
Does not leave room for someone to feign ignorance or lack of capacity to care. It doesn't imply if you have (chosen) neutrality, it's if you ARE neutral.
In this case, people are arguing that they aren't respecting someone who is uninformed and neutral, the quote and the arguments surrounding neutrality people are discussing in here casts you as the oppressor if you are neutral. They would rather you be uninformed but on their side than to be uninformed and stay neutral. The problem is that the other sides of any particular argument are making the same arguments for their side, while you the uninformed, are being asked to just follow any particular side on faith. The whole point of this conversation is that people AREN'T being respected for "staying out of it", they're being told they're no better than the ones doing the wrongdoing if they don't join the "right" side now.
Sure there are some circumstances/situations/people that will respect someone who acknowledges that they're uninformed and doesn't want to throw their uninformed opinion in the ring, but then there are situations like here where people are posting quotes about neutrality makes you the oppressor and being neutral means you're backing Linus/LMG over a woman that has accused them of awful things.
I fully agree and that quote has been in my mind throughout this chain, but if, as raze2012 said
then I don't think we can say yet that this is fully a situation of injustice. A wrong may have been done, but it sounds like action is being taken to investigate and protect the wronged if necessary.
Is it, though? What if the company pulls the classic of investigates itself and finds no wrongdoing? This could be PR spin, potentially.
That said, I agree there's not much we can do right now besides wait and see if it pans out.
It definitely could be PR, but (keeping in mind that I know very little about the situation) they're not investigating themselves, are they? Sounds like a 3rd party. Still could end up going nowhere but it seems more likely to be productive than if they were literally investigating themselves.
You do quotations
>like this.
Given no evidence means innocent. Someone can be accused of a lot of things, but grabbing statistics and saying crime x has y% conviction rate so he/she is most likely guilty.
And then someone gives an exemplary tag as well. Disgusting!
A lack of evidence doesn't mean innocent -- that's why juries find people "not guilty". Regardless, this is a problematic framing because
That said, you don't have to pick a side. It's fine to say I think X's story lies closer to the truth, but I don't know for sure.
I, or anyone else can, at any time, make a false claim against you, or anyone else.
Like for instance, I claim you are sending me threatening emails and death threats. You aren't but I can claim you are and potentially report you.
Does that make it evidence against you without even showing the emails?
This is why innocent until proven guilty exists.
And there's a reason why it's called the "court of public opinion", many victims of false accusations have themselves branded for life and have their entire life ruined despite being vindicated in court. It is very much applicable to a court room framing, but with the burden of proof being subjective per person, so way worse and less just.
Well, that's why I said
As for this particular example (you falsely accuse me of sending threatening messages), I don't find it especially illustrative. Most allegations are truthful. Some allegations are misinformed. Other allegations are intended to harm someone's reputation. But rarely does someone falsely accuse some random passer-by for shits and giggles.
That's the issue with this example -- you're asking me to assume the least likely scenario and extrapolate from there. As they say, bad facts make for bad law. You wouldn't base your assumptions about murders off a biography of Ted Bundy.
I mean, yes. But obviously it would make you look less credible. Presumably if I sent you threatening emails, there exists a written record. Sure, you could argue that you somehow lost access to them, but that would sound rather suspicious, wouldn't it?
The problem I have with these court analogies is that people assume by default that the standard is "beyond a reasonable doubt", i.e. criminal standards. (To your credit, you didn't say this.) However, the actual allegations regarding LTT are civil in nature (at least in the US -- I realize this all occurred in Canada), so the burden wouldn't be to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" but simply a "preponderance of the evidence", i.e. 51% or more.
If the only evidence is testimonial -- that is, his word against mine -- that can, in fact, be enough. For a recent example, consider E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit against Donald Trump for rape, which she filed despite a lack of "hard evidence" (e.g., DNA). Indeed, her testimony was the linchpin of that case.
Ultimately the jury found Carroll more credible than Trump, and so she won.
You say yes, but you are really saying no, because you're asking for the written record of the emails, which IS actual evidence, my accusation is not in-itself evidence, because that's literally circular reasoning. The claim itself does not validate the claim.
That's my point. We need receipts before any retaliation is done.
Civil or criminal, 99% or 51% doesn't matter, because so far we have 0% to support the claims so far.
Regardless, the mob is willing to operate on that 0% to attack someone.
I disagree that it’s 0% — you can dismiss it as circular evidence, if you like, but the fact that an employee raised an issue at all (especially given the quite likely consequences from the LMG fanboys) already raises this well above zero. Things like this don’t exist in a vacuum, and pretending that they do will always give you a result of zero. Reality is much more messy, and there’s a lot more going on than you or I can possibly consider.
I said yes because I mean yes. I'm merely distinguishing between the facts in this situation where there isn't necessarily a written record (a hostile work environment) and one where there necessarily is (your hypothetical). As I said previously, I don't think your analogy is particularly germane.
Again, see the E Jean Carroll case. It's not
some hypothetical; it's a lawsuit that actually happened. Testimony is evidence, and often it's the most important evidence in a case.
But just because somebody says something doesn't mean you must believe them. You have to judge their testimony against the other's.
In my opinion, this is a separate issue, but I suspect it's the one you're actually concerned about. So yes, I agree with your sentiment -- people on the internet are generally way too eager to pull out their pitchforks and guillotines. I think there's a middle ground here, though. You can believe Madison without demanding the heads roll. At the very least, her allegations warrant an investigation, right?
At the same time, reactions like yours where there's lots of talk about how this might be made up and false, and we have to slow down and wait until a potentially unattainable level of proof is attained allows for the continued existing of problematic people. I can't comment on your personal experience, but sometimes when there's lots of smokes and people are willing to potentially ruin their reputation in order to make things change, it points to fire, not people telling lies.
We all remember the case of Reddit detectives and the Boston bombing and how well that went?
Sometimes it's best to just touch grass, take a deep breath and wait for actual results. Internet outrage moves at the speed of light, investigations involving actual people don't.
Cases like this give people an excuse to go comment sections just to say "I always thought XXX was creepy/suspicious!". And of course they don't go around saying "sorry" when the actual investigation proves otherwise...
Just go on any news story or video an check the comments, count how many people are specifically joining the conversation just to say how they stopped watching LTT many years ago because of <reason> or saying how they had a "feeling" that something was off at LTT.
Also don't forget the story of Uber founder Travis Kalanick, how the Internet was all abuzz with allegations of sexual misconducts against Uber cabbies and how those allegations vanished instantly when Travis was made to resign and replaced by some other CEO. As it turned out later, that whole thing was a ploy by the other board members to kick out Travis from management.
It sounds like this has been an issue for years, and honestly this shitshow couldn't have happened at a better time with the new CEO just having joined. Terren has no responsibility for what happened to Madison, or any of LMG's faults. Linus has wanted to retire for years. They have it all lined up to pivot to a more traditional company ran by old-school people with proper HR practices and a healthy work/life balance.
At this point they've ordered a 3rd party investigation and we will see if anything comes of that. Honestly it could go either way as technically Linus is still in control of everything. This all rests on him digging deep for the most humility he's every felt.
A fair point. In my (again, not 1:1) case, the accusations were indeed brought by people who were "willing to potentially ruin their reputation" and unfortunately ended up using THAT as the ultimate trump card. In other words, even though the accusations were false and/or wildly exaggerated, the fact that their "reputation" was at stake became their ammo. "I wouldn't say this if it weren't true, look at what I'm risking!" It ended up being disgusting.
These people (again, this is not 1:1) ended up rallying around each other, patting themselves on the back, and continuing to cause harm by moving on to new targets.
Not saying this is the case here. Just smells similar.
Whether this is true or not, and I very much disagree that it is, the alternative is literally just witch hunts over accusations.
Receipts are important before you go raking someone over the coals.
We should obviously take the accusations seriously, but that doesn't mean we should preemptively destroy someone with no evidence.
Even if I agreed with the internet mob, the issue is that the internet is fickle. For every story like rhis that "rises to r/all", you'll have a bunch of buried accounts, all because they didn't metaphorically yell loud enough or a big enough influencer didn't re-tweet the story. Maybe they simply posted at the wrong time. Its all so flimsy.
The authorities may be slow but they are consistent. I don't want victims to forget their resources if the Internet turns a blind eye.
I'm not sure why we are talking about Reddit, since this is not Reddit. We can talk about how we want this space to react, instead of how Reddit is reacting.
Also "The authorities may be slow but they are consistent.", I agree they are consistent. They consistently uphold the status quo against women and minorities. Consistency in the "authorities" is not a positive in my book when you talk about the majority of authorities in North America.
So the solution is to turn to the inconsistent internet mob for justice rather than continuing to push for reforms to the authorities?
Internet mobs have zero ability to actually fine-tune their punishment. It's often an all-or-nothing matter, which is what the parent comment you replied to had mentioned. Even when there's "justice" on the internet, it's rarely ever the case that the punishment fits the crime because there's no way to control individual persons within a mob this way. It's the reason why mobs are so capable of doing bad things, much as the phrase goes, no individual raindrop feels responsible for the flood. Furthermore, people are acting out of feeling rather than logic, there's no process or procedures to define what level of proof needs to exist or anything else, it's purely whatever meets the level where someone can emotionally engage with it to the point where they'll spend time and energy posting about it and going to whatever further lengths they go.
Also one particular thing about internet mobs versus the authorities, there's even less accountability when internet mobs go too far than there is accountability when authorities go too far. The police get away with an awful lot that they shouldn't, but out of however many internet mobs have come about, how many people have ever really been held accountable when things go too far?
I wasn't, it was simply a metaphor (As I mentioned). Use Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, any other large social media where things spread. The effect is the same. They make a few things go viral and a lot more than people expect goes ignored. we see a few huge victories and suddenly think it's a boon, without considering the overall population
We could. But I don't think this space is really doing much outside of talking about the issue. Anyone wanting to take action will probably go to the youtube channel, or Twitter.
That wasn't really my point here. I don't think we've had a situation where someone sought the tildes community for help against injustice. And to be honest, we lack the channels to properly help as a community if someone does. We would probably redirect such a person to those same influencers, social media, or even the proper authorities.
Yup, and the internet is a bastion of goodwill and justice. Totally doesn't have a history of suppressing minorites/women.
You think I wasn't implying that some of these victims pleaing to the internet aren't in fact suppressed prematurely by ne'er do wells? Another reason not to trust the internet. The only thing worse than being ignored is finding the wrong crowd to push you down further.
I don't like how we seem to be accepting the notion of "the representatives of our area aren't representation us" and that we should give up on it and work around them. Why not try to address the root issue instead of throwing our hands up and giving up, hoping the court of public opinion sorts things out?
Not sure what you're referring to.
So a lot of the accusations (the actions around Billet labs, the quality stuff) has been confirmed or is publicly confirmable at this stage. So I think that LMG has made some fuckups is clear.
The Madison stuff... look, LMG deserve their presumption of innocence and Madison deserves her right for the claim to be properly investigated and its unfortunate that it's in the public sphere at this stage where people feel a side needs to be picked.
My own impression at the time Madison joined and left was that it was a mistake for both sides, hiring a relatively inexperienced person for a role that's not really the skillset they're practicing for on the back of "people thought they were funny in a video". So at the time she joined and left I didn't think too much of it other than "Oh, guess it didn't work out, well that's not a surprise".
Yeah the GN video and Madison's accusations are two different things.
That said, the GN video was bad enough for me to decide to no longer consume LMG content. Although, I'm waiting to see where the chips lie with the rest of the team to see if I'll look to see more content from them on other channels, should they continue their careers in YouTube tech videos.
Glad to hear the CEO has made a statement especially after Linus's 'response'.
I'm curious why the GN video was that bad for you?
If it was around the sloppy QA, then you really weren't paying much attention during the videos. The awful slop has been steadily getting worse and worse.
If it was Billet Labs, then it's not that cut and dry.
The review of it sucked ass and should have been dropped, but that was completely obvious from the content of the video itself. The video should have just been scraped but Linus's aggressive schedule has him trying to turn turds into dog food. He's admitted to this multiple times on WAN as well, so GN didn't drop a bombshell there.
As to the prototype, in the apology letter you can see that Billet themselves said they gave LMG the prototype. They never expected it back. They're main hope was that he'd use it in other videos after the initial video but after the video they decided to ask for it back. Now at this point, LMG screwed the pooch on not properly documenting that and so it wasn't pulled from inventory and shipped back. So it was sold. But again, GN and Billet were making claims about how damaging their precious prototype was to their company when they themselves never expected to get it back. So the only real damage was the shoddy video that every viewer could see was scuffed to hell.
So again, I ask what GN actually said that made you change your mind when it was all plainly visible?
Well, I'd say I was a much more casual viewer, I certainly wasn't pausing the videos to ensure I read every benchmark's frame rates and I've never been huge on overclocking so I can say that when discussing the coolers I wasn't really paying that much attention, just interested in general. I had actually watched the cooler video and didn't even notice the thermal throttling.
I don't watch the WAN show outside of a few clips here and there and I hadn't seen the 'Big whoop, I could've done it right but I chose not to.' comments from him.
It was plainly visible if you cared enough to consume everything and I'm assuming most more casual viewers don't. So, the GN video plainly laid out what I was missing and how I was consuming misinformation.
I won't say I was a 'fan' of LTT but I enjoyed the content and although I'm not the 'most' technically minded it was usually understandable enough.
So, basically, what may be plainly visible to you is not so apparent to others.
Billet was not going to get this support if not for the GN video.
Billet are not faultless here. They made claims about how important getting the prototype back was to their company and it's loss would set back their company massively. Reality is though, they didn't want it back. They wanted it used in chaotic watercooling builds that LTT sometimes does. They wanted to get continued residual exposure.
The cost to manufacture this prototype was not a major investment. No it wasn't free but at £2000 it was not a significant investment for a company that wants to do boutique manufacturing. I'm sure they spent much more than that in man hours designing it, which they still have the CAD files for.
So yeah, LTT and Linus looked like idiots on camera. They put egg on their own faces there. But Billet is over stating the harm everything else than the shoddy review has caused.
to be clear, are you basing this on a statement from Billet? or is this a conclusion you're reaching on your own?
if I was an engineer for Billet, I'd be very interested in inspecting it up-close afterwards. it's a valuable torture test.
is the prototype block completely trashed by the testing LTT did? great! in what ways, exactly? are the failures mechanical, such as some part of the block getting chipped/bent/dented, or chemical, such as corrosion on some of the surfaces?
or, is it still in reasonably-good condition? (which would be the hope since it's a big ol' block of copper) OK, that's fine too. it means it could continue to be used for Billet's internal testing, as well as inspecting whatever minor defects it accumulated during LTT's testing.
any way you slice it, it's reasonable for Billet to want it back, not just because "it's ours" but because it's valuable engineering data. even in the case where it's trashed, you could still put it to good use by putting it into another "torture test" type rig and running it to complete failure. maybe you'd run it with saltwater to intentionally test for corrosion, for example. (the general term for this is destructive testing vs nondestructive testing)
also (this was mentioned in the original GamersNexus video) there is the risk that the prototype might be purchased in the auction (or sold afterwards) to a possible Billet competitor. prototypes like this are generally treated as trade secrets, for a very good reason.
I had only seen the value quoted as "$XXXX", do you have a source for this more-specific number?
I mean...£2000 is £2000, right? why should the size of the company matter?
if I steal a £2000 TV, does it matter if I steal it from Wal-Mart or from a mom & pop electronics store?
or, if it had been a £2000 prototype from a large, established company like Noctua, would it make a difference compared to a £2000 prototype from a brand-new company that was say funded on Kickstarter?
Both them not expecting it back and the price come from the apology video. They show a sample of the email exchange where Billet says they did intend on LMG to keep the prototype. They do clarify that hadn't intended LMG to sell it but we don't get to see the original agreement. So we know LMG was supposed to keep the prototype, we just don't know if there were any contractual stipulations. I doubt there were as LMG wouldn't want to deal with a finicky deal over a maybe product from a no name manufacturer.
As to price, it's also from the email snippet where Billet says they want £2000 as restitution. The price is now blurred as Billet requested it to be with GN but had not originally communicated that to LMG.
As to the price, £2000 was a fabricated number. I doubt they tracked how long it took them to manufacture. They could look up the raw stock costs, but all that together is unlikely to come out to an even number. Since Billet have the upper hand here, the price is more likely to be inflated than it is to be under.
Still, £2000 is nothing in a machine shop. Machinists regularly turn hundreds of dollars worth of stock into worthless chips on the floor. If that price was a significant investment, then they were unlikely to ever have been able to bring this product to market. It's just a simple fact that creating a consumer product takes a lot of up front investment in the form of research, prototypes, and tooling.
I'm assuming by "the apology video" you mean What do we do now? (which I haven't watched yet, I prefer text sources to these YouTube back-and-forths). but I fast-forwarded through it and it looks like the email you're referring to is at 13m18s (screenshot)
where Billet says:
so there may have been some original "you can keep it" communications, it's hard to say for sure without reading the rest of the email history. (which I would love to read, with appropriate redactions, if Billet and/or LTT decided to publish them) for example, were there any caveats or expectations discussed in those original conversations, with regards to LTT keeping the block?
something that doesn't seem to be in dispute is that after Linus said it was shit, Billet asked for it back and LTT agreed.
yeah, from the pinned comment on the video:
when a major thrust of the criticism was that they're rushing out videos too quickly and making sloppy mistakes...it's kind of a bad look if their "here's how we going to do better" video is also making those same mistakes.
"we were never asked to keep this information private" is a bit ironic. in another email screenshot, this one at 13m25s, you can see that this "head of business development" guy has one of those generic email footer messages saying the email may be privileged and/or confidential and if you're not the intended recipient you should delete all copies of the email and not disclose the contents to anyone.
so they care enough about confidentiality to put that copypasta on their own outgoing emails, but not enough that they stopped to consider whether other companies' confidential information might be in screenshots they posted to YouTube.
Billet's email, from that same screenshot, says:
just to be clear, it seems like you are directly accusing that Billet employee of lying. is that correct?
not that they guesstimated or fudged the number or pulled the valuation out of their ass - when the Billet employee says they planned their finances around the return of the prototype, it sounds like you think that's an outright lie?
Woah bud slow down. Just because they gave a rounded number doesn't mean I accused them of lying. I was simply clarifying that it very likely cost them less than that £2000 to manufacture as there's not much reason for them to shortchange themselves, but that number is not an exact figure.
As to the confidentiality notice, that's something LMG tacked on. They are free to break their own confidentiality notice at any time they want. Perhaps there's another one from Billet in the blurred area but we don't know. And yes they were accused of rushing videos, but it's ridiculous to say that LMG needs to scan the entirety of the interwebs for a scrap of anything possibly maybe related before posting. No that's a totally unreasonable expectation. As to the "proof" that Billet didn't want it public. Well they made a Reddit post a day ago and said £XXXX rather than the price. You can infer they don't want it public, but they never stated "this shall not be public" to anyone but GamersNexus personally. I don't think they ever said it to LMG either, just people yelling at LMG to cover it up, which they did.
you said "fabricated" before. now you're saying "rounded".
"for the purpose of deception" is, like, in the literal dictionary definition of the word.
I'm not sure if you meant to accuse them of lying...but the words you used definitely had those connotations. which is why I was asking if that's really what you were trying to say.
maybe you're in a hurry to make these comments, choosing your words poorly, and having to come back and clarify them? if so, you and LTT would have something in common.
Why is the asking price even a discussion point? They could have wanted a million dollars and it wouldn't change a thing about the current situation. LTT fucked up multiple times along the way, but this stuff happens unfortunately sometimes.
The problem here, which prompted GN critic, is that it reached a tipping point where they felt it is important to point out how LTT's reviews are consistently sloppy, and filled with errors which only get inadequately corrected, despite them now trying to market themselves as credible in that area. Their apparent focus for the reviews isn't the quality but instead the profitability, citing that Linus wasn't willing to spend a few extra hundred bucks to give a product a fair review, wasn't giving his staff enough production time, and subsequently his initial response where he basically didn't acknowledge any wrongdoing.
The asking price adds useful context. The GN video spent a long time talking about how damaging the missing prototype was to the company, as it was their only one. The facts that the company didn't want it back originally and that it did not cost them much to make are very relevant. GN was saying this missing prototype could kill their company when that's just not true based on these facts.
If the number had been much larger and had they only sent the prototype on loan like GN implied, then yes it would have been a more serious issue. I do hope GN issues a correction to that segment.
It was about IP theft, have you even watched the video?
No it wasn't. GN accused LMG of stealing the prototype then selling it. GN was wrong. Billet gave LMG the prototype. There was no theft involved. LMG was free to keep it and do as they wished. After the video, Billet decided they wanted it back instead. LMG said ok, but they were under no obligation to do as such. Then LMG messed up and sold it because they didn't properly update the status of the item in inventory. That's not theft. A screwup for sure, but not theft like GN accused them.
GN also hypothesized that a competitor may have purchased the prototype and that could maybe lead to IP theft from the competitor, but that doesn't appear to be the case. This potential is why most companies don't let prototypes out in the wild. Billet messed up when they told LMG they could keep it originally. If they wanted to secure their IP, they should have specified it as a loaner from the beginning. That is on Billet unless they specified that the device was to never be sold/gifted/lost, which it doesn't appear they did. They gave it away freely and LMG sold it as part of clearing out their warehouse.
I gotta be honest, your passionate defense of LTT on this thread seems heavily biased. There are certainly good defenses to be made, and I'm certain that you argue in good faith, but it feels like you are too emotionally invested, and in a way that is not conducive to sound reasoning.
If you want to call trying to be reasonable biased then sure. All I've done is clear up misinformation. LMGs list of issues is very real and I've not avoided it.
Their production schedule was way too aggressive. Their corporate structure and organization has been total crap. Their childish jokes need to learn some place and time (it's ok to joke but there are situations for dry information). Their managers act way too immaturely and create a hostile work environment. Their QA workflow was totally insufficient (even worse that their QA actually did catch errors but then they failed to fix the edit anyway). They fail to scrap bad shoots and scripts, opting instead to try salvaging garbage and releasing garbage. They likely do have a problem of sexism in the office from the earlier stated immature management. And Linus is a hot head that makes reaction responses rather than letting the company address issues as a unit.
All that said, it's not like they didn't know. They've been working on improvements without provocation from media. They hired a CEO months ago to address the corporate issues. They've hired dedicated HR to address the inter employee issues. No it's not perfect but nothing is. What's most important is effort at improvement and that's been happening. Yet Reddit and others would rather see LMG burn to the ground and a hundred plus people lose their jobs because they didn't perfectly execute the move from 12 employees to 100.
Why you feel we want LMG to "burn to the ground"? I certainly don't feel that way. When something or someone receives strong criticism, you shouldn't assume critics want them to cease to exist. I actually like that channel, and wish it to remain in existence. I also expect it to sufficiently address the criticisms. Isn't that reasonable?
That is reasonable. I wasn't trying to accuse you of anything, and generally the conversation on Tildes has been much better (I made the unfortunate choice to browse Reddit as they had the most up to date information even if they had the most braindead arguments over it). This conversation thread has grown quite long in the tooth. Probably best for me to let sleeping dogs lie at this point.
GN never said they stole it, the said they sold it. Which it true, just at an auction. It was theft of a product, why would they let them keep their only prototype?
Really? Fine, estimated. There's the most proper word to use. Does that satiate your desire? Or would you like to continue.
These are often collected and reused. You seem to be making many assumptions, are you sure they support your argument?
The value of chips is not the same as it's weight in billet. Recyclers have to try and verify the contents of the scrap which cuts into it's value quite a bit. And they can't just trust the customers claim of what the metal is. Machinists regularly leave cleaning out the chip tray until it's full/end of day and so it could have any number of mixed metals in there.
They shouldn't need support. The only thing that should matter was the contract they signed for the advertisement. All this talk about the prototype should have been in the contract. If it wasn't, which it probably wasn't because they would have sued otherwise, then why should anyone care.
I 100% agree. "Picking sides" is such an unhelpful thing with problems like this.
I'd like to pick the side of "I'm glad actual investigators outside of the internal HR are auditing this case".
The unfortunately thing for the internet is that this investigation will likely take a few months, and waiting is anathema to this medium. But I prefer a thorough one over one that satisfies Twitter's instant gratification.
Yeah, this is unfortunately normalised anger across social media. Because of, ironically, the lack of accountability when it comes to anonymous or pseudonymous accounts. While the distrust is very understandable and I share it, there's a reason why executives do what they do.
They're good at their job. Or competent enough to complete a goal no matter the cost, to an extent. That's why Linus stepped down as CEO into CVO (which is a real occupation), and why Terren is the new CEO. Business is business. That doesn't excuse Linus still being the/an owner of LMG, as well as his actions while he was CEO.
sigh
All of us are at fault, at this point.
I honestly feel really bad for Terren having to deal with all of this so early into his tenure at LMG. So far I think he's done a really good job. Overall, I thought his parts of the video, and now this response to the allegations (hiring a third party, publishing the results) are both great, and moving the company in the right direction.
I would agree, but I think the fake sponsor throw was a terrible idea and makes it a lot harder to accept that they are taking any of this seriously.
I get that the video was put together quickly and, crucially, before they were aware of Madison coming forward…but if they went through the trouble to put together a video responding to serious allegations about the quality of their work, it should be a serious video.
The fact that they still have it up in light of the new allegations and, in fact, had it replaced in place with a newer version to obscure some email details, is just awful.
I did think that the jokes were in poor taste, but as far as apology videos go, I thought it was good. Outside of some bad jokes, I'm not really sure what else I would've wanted out of the video. I don't know if I'd support them taking the video down necessarily. I think they should at least acknowledge the allegations somewhere on their YouTube channel. I guess I'm agnostic to them leaving the video up, I haven't really thought about it.
I think what we disagree on is whether or not it can be a good apology video with the jokes. I think the jokes being in there show that they don’t (or didn’t at the time) understand how serious the situation is, therefore it’s not a good apology video.
But I agree that if those weren’t in there, it would be acceptable as a response to Gamers Nexus.
Worst part for me was the product advertisement such as the announcement of their new screwdriver color way or their joke about LTTStore.com. Really comes off as poor taste to seem like you are trying to sell things in your apology video talking about pushing too hard for videos to keep profit up.
I think it was a bit in poor taste, but largely I think it's because they're kind of trying to demonstrate that they are still the same people.
They don't want to make it seem like they're erasing their identity, they're just trying to be better.
Personally I still think it was a bit off-putting, but largely not completely irresponsible. Though that's always going to be personal opinion. More importantly, I agree with the decisions made in trying to make the Maddison situation out to be a serious thing.
I think them being the same people is kind of the whole problem, right?
I don't think so, I think the problem was that they were trying to change their reputation and make themselves out to be a reputable media outlet for the tech industry, but fell short in terms of accuracy blamed (in many opinions) on an overly hectic film schedule that didn't allow for errors to be corrected properly.
People, for better or for worse, like the personalities of LMG.
The jokes are inappropriate and show a lack of appreciation for the gravity of the situation. But I am of the opinion that it is not really possible to do a good apology when something like that happens. It will never be enough. The apology is like a letter saying "we will do better", which is fine, but the important part is actually doing it.
So yeah, it is a flawed yet adequate apology, but apologies are cheap. A "good apology" only shows that you are good with words, it doesn't require genuine contrition. Anyone can apologize. Not everyone can change.
The gravity wasn't that large though. It was made in response to GN which was about shoddy quality and mishandling of a product. While Reddit and others are bringing up accusations of workplace abuse, that's not what the video was apologizing for. They were apologizing for soiling their own reputation as content creators.
I'd say it is serious for a tech channel. What happened was directly related to their bottom line, and contrary to the image they project.
Yes but people go to LTT for jokes and humor, not dry numbers. So it's really not hard to see why they kept some levity in the situation. Again, it's not a grave situation such as someone being seriously harmed or harassed. They didn't send the wolves after GN or Billet resulting in an apology for doing such. It was a "sorry we've been making bad videos" apology.
Sure. But "it could be worse" is not a great defense. Anything could be worse.
I'm not saying "it could be worse". I'm saying the situation they apologized for is not as heavy as you made it out to be. They paused production in the meantime to stop harming their own reputation with sloppy errors, not because the mistake made was too massive to work through.
The video was scripted. I do understand the scripts themselves are as sincere as they can get, and the humour does show the point that they are human. And I 110% agree that it will never be a perfect apology.
But all of them are reading a prompt. Most, if not all, of the jokes don't land for me bc they're so awkward. This was arguably Linus's biggest skill as a host — he was able to take a script, and apply personality to it. I really don't think these kinds of jokes were done well — we already have sponsor jokes, we already have LTTStore.com jokes. I do give all of them some slack because some of them aren't good on camera. I did like Colton's bit.
If they genuinely did write these jokes, I can completely understand. But I didn't like them. Even Linus said that LMG is not your friend, so we should respect them as a company. And as @lou said, apology videos are cheap. YouTuber apology videos are a meme. The better action is to just do what you say.
Which they wanna avoid as much as possible since Labs is gonna be open to third party and contractor work when it's done. So yes, it's not grave but I don't like the implication that this is an easy fix either.
I agree, that's probably the case. I certainly would have preferred there not be jokes in there, I guess I'm just ignoring the jokes for the sake of the actual content within. I totally get where you're coming from though, and I think that's a fair assessment.
The merchandise jokes were from Nick. Considering he's in charge of lttstore, I suppose I'm not too shocked. Unless they state otherwise, I'm assuming they each wrote their piece independently. Only mildly coordinating to link the sections together. I will admit Luke's 69 joke caught me off guard, he's not usually the one popping off cheap sex jokes on camera. Colin's getting fired joke was very relevant considering part of the Billet drama was his mess, though Linus probably should have followed it up with a "no one's getting fired".
Overall, you could tell they are all quite beat up in the video giving their piece. None of them are good enough actors to fake it. As to results, I suppose we'll see soon enough how good on their claims they'll be.
The Madison issue is completely separate from this GN/Billet/audience apology. They absolutely should not be making any comments about Madison.
For one, doing so only draws more attention to her directly and only makes things bigger. Yes that's bad for LMG but it's also bad for Madison. I doubt she wants to be accosted online anymore than she's already getting.
Additionally, what even could they say? "I hear you Madison and we'll look into it?" No viewer is going to accept that as the blood sacrifice they demand, nor does it make things any better for her. Though they have actually stated that they've heard her and they are looking into it, just they didn't blast it on Youtube.
If Madison wants to go deeper she certainly can but you'll notice she didn't name drop anyone. If she wanted heads to roll, that would be how to get them rolling. The only name drop was Linus but not as to anything that happened to her, only about broad company issues. I don't think she has any desire to go further than she already has.
So I don't know what you're expecting here.
I’m not expecting them to say anything about Madison’s statements.
I was saying that the joking attitude in the video plays very different with the addition of sexual harassment claims than it did when they shot it. So I was surprised they didn’t take it down.
There's one sexual innuendo that I can recall. And yes, it would have been smart to splice that joke out after they noticed Madison's posts.
Yeah...I don't personally feel bad for any executives. It seems like the CEO role was made to babysit/provide cover for Linus. As this incident shows, it's a role that is needed, but I can't see any meaningful change being made that isn't vetted by Linus and CFO Yvonne (his wife btw).
As for the response, it seems like pretty standard corporate playbook (no substantial reply to the allegations -> hire an "external" party -> wait until the controversy dies down -> release a "no wrongdoing was found" report or a quiet settlement otherwise).
I think the only thing that LTT (or Linus + Yvonne) can do right now to fix anything at all would be to go full hands off for a while and let Terren do his thing. Their claim is that he's the only person who can manage Linus, so I just hope they let him do that.
Also, maybe I just don't remember, I feel like there's almost never a third party investigation? Certainly never a publication. That feels like going beyond the standard set everywhere else. I could be wrong though.
That is uncomfortable. Some things on this video are inappropriate, there shouldn't be any jokes here.
I can feel the pain on this video. I watched a lot of Linus in the last 4 to 5 years. If that is just an issue of bad practices, I deem that an appropriate response. Not perfect, it's a first step. I'm not hard to please, I suppose. Everyone makes mistakes.
However, there are allegations of more serious abuse that may need to be addressed as well.