Linus Tech Tips halts production amid allegations of unethical behavior, inaccuracies,...

[midian182]

What just happened? Linus Media Group (LMG), the company behind the incredibly popular YouTube tech channel Linus Tech Tips and several others, has announced in an apology video that it is pausing production of all content for a week as it makes internal changes following claims of unethical behavior, errors in their testing, and sexual harassment.

Linus Tech Tips and its associated channels' fall began with a lab tour video in which an assistant said "the difference between us and somebody like Gamers Nexus or Hardware Unboxed is we test new components, new tests every time."

Our own Steve Walton from Hardware Unboxed responded with tweets noting that, based on his 20+ years of experience, telling everyone how good your testing is generally means your testing isn't very good. He said hearing an employee make the statement was "very disappointing."

If you have to tell everyone how good your testing is, in my 20+ years of experience that generally means your testing isn't very good. Your work speaks for itself guys, that's how you build credibility.

– Hardware Unboxed (@HardwareUnboxed) August 2, 2023

Gamers Nexus' Steve Burke, who previously seemed to have a good relationship with LMG founder Linus Sebastian, went a bit further, creating a 44-minute response video that highlighted problems with LMG focusing on quantity over quality and rushing out videos, hardware review errors, asterisked errors, and ethical concerns such as Sebastian's investment in laptop company Framework. But the biggest criticism was reserved for a review of a prototype watercooling block called the Monoblock from Billet Labs.

The Monoblock was meant to be tested with Nvidia RTX 3090 GPUs, but LTT tested it on an RTX 4090. Billet Labs said the block would work with the Lovelace flagship, but it "didn't know how well." The result was subpar performance.

"The best-case scenario for this thing is, the temps are slightly better [than other coolers]," Sebastian said. "But the experience of building with it is a nightmare, and the advantages over literally any other solution are negligible."

More was to come. Burke also called out LMG for auctioning off the prototype, which Billet Labs said was worth about $2,550, to raise money for charity – without the manufacturer's permission.

Taken from 2019's The Roast of Linus Sebastian. This has not aged well.

Sebastian wrote a lengthy response to the Gamers Nexus video that admitted LMG had some work to do on internal processes. As for the Billet Labs video, Sebastian said he "read the room wrong" by not retesting the cooler even though some members of his team advocated for it. As for auctioning off the Monoblock, Sebastian said it was a communications error between the team responsible for sending it back and the people choosing the items to be auctioned.

Burke addressed Linus' comments in a Gamers Nexus news segment, calling them "disappointing nonsense." It's also clear that most of the community has been on Gamers Nexus' side during all this.

LMG's full response is the 20-minute video (top) featuring the company's executives, including recently appointed CEO Terren Tong and Sebastian himself, who is now Chief Vision Officer. There are plenty of admissions that errors have been made, and that Sebastian's initial response was emotionally driven. He also claims that the company tried to correct the Billet Labs situation before everyone knew about it. The entire channel is now pausing production for an entire week to address the issues.

The apology video has received criticism for its occasional humorous tone, having an LTT Store plug, and the fact it was monetized, though the monetization has now been turned off following "feedback from the community and team."

Adding to the controversy is former employee Madison Reeve, who has accused LMG of fostering a toxic work environment, sexual harassment from employees, and ruining her mental health. Reeve also said the company barred her from videos after she reported being grabbed multiple times in the office.

Sebastian responded to the allegation in a statement to The Verge:

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.

We pride ourselves on maintaining a safe and inclusive environment. In addition to our existing report systems (both anonymous and otherwise) we've proactively reached out internally today to encourage members of our team to report any workplace bullying or harassment they might be experiencing so we can take quick and decisive action.

Our HR team will be conducting a more thorough assessment of the allegations, and when we are ready, we will release a more complete statement. For now I would ask that we allow our team the time they need to be as thorough as possible.

CEO Tong added that beyond an internal review, the company will be hiring a third-party investigator to look into the allegations.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/99818-linus-tech-tips-halts-production-amid-allegations-unethical.html

 

[Achaios]

I suspect that "Madison Reeve" thinks she has hit the gold mine. Settlement out of court and 2-3 mil USD from Linus maybe more.

Do I think that the charges of alleged sexual harassment are real? Hard to say however there's a ton of money to be made off Linus if she sues and he loses the case or goes for out of court settlement.

Wouldn't be the first time ppl lie to make $$ and Linus is an easy target.

 

[SantistaUSA]

Not surprised. LMG videos can be entertaining but I've noticed long ago that they aren't concerned with accuracy. So many videos are rushed and with misinformation, I guess greed took over, shame.

 

[toooooot]

In today's culture "sexual harassment" has such broad range of meanings that either side could easily be the offender.

 

[cristianm]

I found his videos to be superficial at best. But his content was probably fun and easy to digest for the masses, which brought a big audience.
What I appreciate here [@techspot] is that you write more in depth articles, create and follow a methodology, refine it over the years. We can call this old school already and seeing how places like this disappear saddens me.

 

[ilovetohateyou]

I suspect that "Madison Reeve" thinks she has hit the gold mine. Settlement out of court and 2-3 mil USD from Linus maybe more.

Do I think that the charges of alleged sexual harassment are real? Hard to say however there's a ton of money to be made off Linus if she sues and he loses the case or goes for out of court settlement.

Wouldn't be the first time ppl lie to make $$ and Linus is an easy target.

Madison's allegations have been backed up by other people who have worked there. It's not a cash grab. Interesting that your first response to the entirety of the article is to cast a woman making serious allegations of wrongdoing as a gold-digger.

 

[Nanochip]

The moral of the story is do not mess with gamer’s nexus because he is a hornet and will sting you. Also, no one company or channel is too big to fail.

 

[James Ryan]

The moral of the story is do not mess with gamer’s nexus because he is a hornet and will sting you. Also, no one company or channel is too big to fail.

GN are absolute weapons. I hope they keep slaying with facts and calling people out.
Someone needs to!

 

[ShadowDeath]

I suspect that "Madison Reeve" thinks she has hit the gold mine. Settlement out of court and 2-3 mil USD from Linus maybe more.

Do I think that the charges of alleged sexual harassment are real? Hard to say however there's a ton of money to be made off Linus if she sues and he loses the case or goes for out of court settlement.

Wouldn't be the first time ppl lie to make $$ and Linus is an easy target.

On one hand that is possible, on the other hand there have been some instances in videos where I remember saying "Wow... that's an HR case waiting to happen."

 

[RudyBob]

Few things are more pathetic than self flagellation.

 

[Puiu]

When you grow too big, you will 100% run into such problems at some point

I like their content, but when it comes to some of their reviews, I just take them as "opinions" instead of objective results of testing. They always rush to get things out the door.

As for the sexual harassment allegations, with so many employees, there is bound to be some friction. Hopefully it is a nothing burger or just some isolated incident. If not, then there will be A LOT of drama on youtube

I will still watch LTT content for now. If things degrade further I'll stop watching, like I did with JayzTwoCents, which I stopped watching completely.

 

[Dimitriid]

The thing is that this is never going to change on Linus Tech Tips unless they drop Linus completely from the company altogether and rebrand somehow and you only need to look at this timeline to know he's a sad little egomaniac that cannot handle being a serious corporate business:

1) After the allegations made by Gamers Nexus, this guy who said his business was big enough to warrant a 100 million dollar buyout offer and require a CEO, decided the best strategy was to attempt to first make it a personal beef with Steve from GN, then fast talk his way past some serious allegations and then try to gaslight everybody by relying on his rapidly decreasing list of sycophants that will support whatever he says

2) Because of this unplanned response, GN Steve predictably caught him in some very serious omissions about their response to Billet labs.

3) They made their ridiculous apology video where the first thing is his wife saying she's 'Putting her foot down' and basically taking away control from Linus, yet apparently her, Ed and Luke (which are share holders for the corporation iirc) and their CEO were not able to keep him from appearing on camera to basically declare once more, that he is not a liar when it is pretty damn clear he intentionally and maliciously tried to mislead people into believing they were taking care of Billet Labs when he just did so after GN broke the news, which is a pretty strong justification for anybody who wants to call him a liar to do so.

4) This video was not held back and still hasn't been taken down even after they have had at this point enough opportunity to address the far more serious allegation of sexual assault and sexual harassment that went right under their noses, condoned and probably perpetrated by some of the very people appearing in that I'm sorry video, which again, includes a not-so-subtle attempt at victim blaming because he's learned nothing and even when caught lying he still turns around and would attempt to lie about another thing.

5) This is the same guy and the same company that illegally tried to kill any suggestion of his workers unionizing since he cannot interfere according to Canadian law as it has been well documented.

There's no way to stop somebody who owns the majority of the company from running it into the ground when even in the worst possible crisis and facing not only major backlash but potentially very serious legal problems, still can't help himself and decides he needs to appear to basically needlessly try again to claim 'I'm not a liar!' and that he 'demoted himself' when the fact he was even allowed on that video is evidence of well, just more lies.

Somebody like that is utterly incapable of change, his ego is so fragile he cannot bring himself to meaningfully take accountability and stop damaging his own reputation he will keep going until eventually there's nothing there to salvage. Sadly none of the allegations here are serious enough to actually damage their company (Goes to show you exactly why women never report sexual harassment and sexual assault in the work place, even looking at this very thread you'll find plenty of victim blaming I'm sure) But the only silver lining here is that he's shown he will never stop and will keep running into this kind of serious trouble time and time again in the future.

 

[Haaky]

Its about time
This guy needs an ethics check for sure.
$60 scew driver that is worth 35 cents
$600 back pack I wouldn't let my daughter use.

Thanks to Steve from GNX for calling this %^^(*)% out.
Its about time
See you Linus, good luck on your cooking channel

 

[m4a4]

There is one main issue I have with all of this drama for how it was initially reported on by GN that his audience didn't seem to care about (as it fit their bias against LTT), and people don't seem to want to keep updated on (people are still ignorantly quoting the wrong things about the situation): The Billet labs prototype auction situation.

All GN needed to do for that one was get a comment on what was going on. It wasn't an old enough story to assume malice or neglect, and considering the follow up to that story, they obviously should've done more due diligence as a self proclaimed journalist. For me, it just sours what was covered by GN, as it just makes it look like there was another reason to make such a video and include a half-baked story like that. Yes it was incompetent of LTT to accidentally auction off the block, but people rushed to assume malice or otherwise and just created unnecessary drama.
That said, the rest of the callouts on their own were fine (it's been fairly obvious for a while they needed to slow down), but that auction story in particular clearly was one sided and no attempt was made to get the other side before pushing it out.

And man, people can't take a joke. You've got people whining that their responses sounded too corporate, and you also have people whining that the levity in their latest video was too much. You'd think the "we're halting video production for at least a week" was serious enough.

As for the conveniently timed Madison tweetstorm after the drama started, I haven't seen her produce anything to back it up yet. Too many people assuming guilt before innocence (yet again) just because it's "easier". They should do their investigations, but man, people on the internet love coming to conclusions early with nothing to go on besides allegations...

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Madison's allegations have been backed up by other people who have worked there. It's not a cash grab. Interesting that your first response to the entirety of the article is to cast a woman making serious allegations of wrongdoing as a gold-digger.

Funny how these allegations only come up when a company suffers unrelated PR issues, despite all the "suffering" that occurs. You'd think that women who suffer such serious offenses would want to hold these people accountable, they'd want to file police reports when proof is still fresh and security camera footage can be obtained; especially since these reports are taken seriously and we always assume guilty before proven innocent when these claims are made, but they only do it when there is social media attention to be had.

Hmmmm......That darned pattern recognition!

 

[GreyOmega]

All GN needed to do for that one was get a comment on what was going on. It wasn't an old enough story to assume malice or neglect, and considering the follow up to that story, they obviously should've done more due diligence as a self proclaimed journalist. For me, it just sours what was covered by GN, as it just makes it look like there was another reason to make such a video and include a half-baked story like that. Yes it was incompetent of LTT to accidentally auction off the block, but people rushed to assume malice or otherwise and just created unnecessary drama.
That said, the rest of the callouts on their own were fine (it's been fairly obvious for a while they needed to slow down), but that auction story in particular clearly was one sided and no attempt was made to get the other side before pushing it out.

Well going by GN's follow-up, LMG did not respond to Billet Labs or even talk about reimbursement until GN released the video. Linus' own forum comment stating they had already worked out and finalized reimbursing Billet was posted at around the same time Billet Labs finally received a response from LMG on the issue, suggesting they would still be waiting had the video not gone out.

 

[m4a4]

Well going by GN's follow-up, LMG did not respond to Billet Labs or even talk about reimbursement until GN released the video. Linus' own forum comment stating they had already worked out and finalized reimbursing Billet was posted at around the same time Billet Labs finally received a response from LMG on the issue, suggesting they would still be waiting had the video not gone out.

Considering LTT in their apology showed that they thought they responded (but forgot to include them in the email), shows that asking for comment probably would've achieved the same thing without the drama. And it doesn't sound like there was any follow up by Billet Labs wondering about the delay (and yes, they shouldn't have needed to).

Again, the story wasn't old enough to rush it out without trying to get the other side. LTX only ended 2 weeks prior.

 

[kira setsu]

Youtubes whole ecosystem seems to thrive off of drama.

LTT will bounce back in time, bruised but it'll work out probably, I see what gamers nexus did in 2 ways, call out linus and his company for how they handle things and hope they get better in the end and also as a very smooth way to attack a competitor.

Steve and GN are the best at what they do but they know ltt has alot of clout and money, very smart to notice the holes and jab them in such a way, they'll either survive and get better or disappear and not be a threat, that sorta relies on linus, and he's known to make iffy decisions.

it's all just drama in the end like always.

 

[masaaya4]

Its about time
This guy needs an ethics check for sure.
$60 scew driver that is worth 35 cents
$600 back pack I wouldn't let my daughter use.

there's videos where people praise the LTT screwdriver for being one of the best in the market, are they paid actors or do you mean that all other, worse, screwdrivers are worth 34 cents or less?

LTT has gone off the rails for months, dripping quality at an alarming rate.

the problem imo is the Labs project.

LTT is, and has been, known for entertaining videos with minimal professionalism, including lacklustre testing and product review quality.

Linus, for reasons he knows best himself, feels he should be the "savior" of the tech industry by calling out manufacturers for bad products, spending money left and right on Labs.

the problem is, that kind of professional content is not the LTT style, and not the LTT audience. so they don't know how to integrate the Labs content into their video flow.

but the bills from Labs has to be paid, so everyone runs faster to throw out videos, trying to use Labs to move videos that are made for no other purpose than moving Amazon affiliate links for products.

why didn't Linus contact Gamers Nexus and say, "hey, I was going to spend $20M on testing equipmemt and testing staff, but you are clearly the expert. can we reach an agreement if I fund you instead? $20M to you and 20% of future revenue of your channel?"

 

[takaozo]

This Linus guy is a clown and should be treathed as one. His content it's fun to watch but not taken seriously. I remember when he "borrowed" stuff from his workplace to make videos in the park on a bench.
This drama shoud be converted into a soap opera.

Even his house tech it's executed as his videos.

At this level of money he makes all tech arround him should look like inside Intel fab not like assembled by todlers.

Go watch his videos with his basement.

 

[wiyosaya]

IMO, the problem with YouTube, in general, is that any dolt capable of operating a video camera can post a video on YouTube and proclaim that they are experts. There's crap on YouTube just like there is elsewhere on the internet. The trouble, for some, is figuring out what is crap and what is not.

 

[ZedRM]

in a statement to The Verge:

The Verge has no place or business talking to ANYONE about about integrity. They desperately need shut the *#$% up and quit embarrassing their silly selves. While I'm not saying LTT is without fault, because clearly they have issues(which is a surprise to no-one), LTT is FAR more creditble than The Verge all day, everyday!

 

[Darth Zurath]

Madison's allegations have been backed up by other people who have worked there. It's not a cash grab. Interesting that your first response to the entirety of the article is to cast a woman making serious allegations of wrongdoing as a gold-digger.

So it's not a cash grab because "other people" backed it up. I sense flawless leftoid logic here. Let me ask you. Where was she and all those "other people" before LTT got themselves into precarious position thanks to GN video? Surely she could press the charges if what she claims was real. Ah I know. It's patriarchy again. White supremacy no less. Toxic masculinity. There's only one minor detail. There's a transgender in LMG and he/she (not sure) said they LTT team was very understanding and supportive. I suppose it was said out of fear.

 

[wizardB]

Linus was at his best as NCIX unboxer, since then his stuff is pure fluff.

 

[Jimster480]

In today's culture "sexual harassment" has such broad range of meanings that either side could easily be the offender.

Yep I agree. I don't think that the claims from Madison are necessarily Legitimate.
Not to judge a book by its cover but she LOOKS the part to cause a problem over something that isn't a big problem and then try to think she can come out on top with a settlement.
The reality is that as you mentioned; the term itself is so broad today that it could mean literally anything.

This Linus guy is a clown and should be treathed as one. His content it's fun to watch but not taken seriously. I remember when he "borrowed" stuff from his workplace to make videos in the park on a bench.
This drama shoud be converted into a soap opera.

Even his house tech it's executed as his videos.

At this level of money he makes all tech arround him should look like inside Intel fab not like assembled by todlers.

Go watch his videos with his basement.

He clearly re-invests most of his money in the company. He didn't even drive a fancy vehicle until recently.

There is one main issue I have with all of this drama for how it was initially reported on by GN that his audience didn't seem to care about (as it fit their bias against LTT), and people don't seem to want to keep updated on (people are still ignorantly quoting the wrong things about the situation): The Billet labs prototype auction situation.

All GN needed to do for that one was get a comment on what was going on. It wasn't an old enough story to assume malice or neglect, and considering the follow up to that story, they obviously should've done more due diligence as a self proclaimed journalist. For me, it just sours what was covered by GN, as it just makes it look like there was another reason to make such a video and include a half-baked story like that. Yes it was incompetent of LTT to accidentally auction off the block, but people rushed to assume malice or otherwise and just created unnecessary drama.
That said, the rest of the callouts on their own were fine (it's been fairly obvious for a while they needed to slow down), but that auction story in particular clearly was one sided and no attempt was made to get the other side before pushing it out.

And man, people can't take a joke. You've got people whining that their responses sounded too corporate, and you also have people whining that the levity in their latest video was too much. You'd think the "we're halting video production for at least a week" was serious enough.

As for the conveniently timed Madison tweetstorm after the drama started, I haven't seen her produce anything to back it up yet. Too many people assuming guilt before innocence (yet again) just because it's "easier". They should do their investigations, but man, people on the internet love coming to conclusions early with nothing to go on besides allegations...

Sorry but as a person who watches tons of LTT content all the time; it is definitely the REQUIREMENT to have accuracy in your videos. LTT has been known recently to not have any accuracy in their videos or have things done "quick and dirty". I think the company itself has gotten out of hand with so many different channels and directions; they end up with quantity over quality.
Saying that GN wanted to start something is just nuts; they have the most focused and methodological testing process of ANY company.