Im curious, as mentioned in another comment mentioned here, what other/better courses of action would they have to take in order to “make better” with the communuty? They have taken lots of measures and changes to address all these concerns, but sounds like this is irredeemable from your point of view. Are there any points in this comment linked that you disagree with and why?
Im not trying to take a side, but rather see your comment as one sided of only accusations and not mentioning what they’ve done to make ammends.
Like almost all situations: Demonstrate growth. No, not “subscribers go up” but actually show that you are better.
I’ll skip the anti-consumer stuff regarding merch because that has always been the brand and they at least learned to not tell people to argue against their own rights.
Antagonistic behavior toward competitors: They are still doing the “we are the best because we are the best” bullshit in their marketing. They’ve at least started collaborating with Wendell from Level1Techs again which is nice. But just reaching out to the other channels would go a long way. Gamers Nexus and Hardware Unboxed are basically the kings of technical reviewing and would actually benefit Lab for a collab. And GN and HUB are very open about having group discords where all the tech youtubers talk to corroborate strange behavior or let people know that AMD fucked everyone over and they need to re-do all their work for the past week.
Gross incompetence in their own tech reviews: They apparently have made it a subscriber benefit for Floatplane that people can pay to error check videos which… okay. And they’ve taken down a few videos where they REALLY removeded up basic facts and conclusions. But it is still the same mess they have always been.
Fucking over small businesses: They eventually gave the cooler company money which I guess was nice? But it looks like they still do a “Linus is made and hates this horrible product” every few months when they want a viewership bonus and it isn’t like they are going to do that to the companies that sponsor the LMG convention…
As for the really big ones? Sexual harassment and assault allegations?
A BIG first step would have been to get rid of james streib. Fucknuts was caught, on (audio part of a ) camera engaging in sexual harassment to the entire company during the fucking sexual harassment seminar the day after his report left the company because of sexual harassment from him and others. Whine about “people out for blood” all you want but that is the kind of removed up where you lose your job. Period. And the fact that people thought to record that meeting AND that linus and yvonne didn’t do a “What the fuck is wrong with you?” to him for that says a lot about what kind of a culture the company has. And putting him front and ecenter on thumbnails shows how little LMG cares.
But also? Their response to multiple allegations of harassment and assault has been to attack and discredit the victim, sometimes through blatant threats toward other employees? Fuck 'em. The brand is tainted and this is the point where you pivot to right wing grifting.
Speaking of which. I forgot to mention the time D-Brand made really racist jokes about a customer’s name and Linus Sebastient went to bat REAL hard with lots of “this wouldn’t be a problem if he were a white man” level responses. So… I guess they already got the memo.
Could you link to the James Streib audio clips, blatant threats towards employees and Linus going to bat for D-Brand’s racist jokes? I haven’t heard those allegations before.
Here is the verbose “We investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing” post https://x.com/LinusTech/status/1793428629378208057 with a real nice bit threatening anyone who ever dares to be a whistleblower again
At this time, we feel our case for a defamation suit would be very strong; however, our deepest wish is to simply put all of this behind us. We hope that will be the case, given the investigator’s clear findings that the allegations made online were misrepresentations of what actually occurred. We will continue to assess if there is persistent reputational damage or further defamation.
People bring it up because they are smart enough to understand “we investigated ourselves and found no signs of wrongdoing” is not a defense.
Already explained it elsewhere but, the super short version is: Law firms are nor mandatory reporters outside of the most extreme cases. They are not investigating wrongdoing. They are investigating liability. They are looking for what was done in writing and what can be explained in the event of a lawsuit (and discovery).
What? I mentioned a third party investigation and you’re saying they “investigated themselves” and brought up law firms for some reason. While completely ignoring the fact there is no evidence outside of the claims made by the ex employee
What else can you do in that situation? Fire other employees based on hearsay? Unfortunately, you have no idea what you’re talking about about. It’s perfectly fine to dislike a companies actions but let’s not perpetuate falsehoods and look like clowns.
Im curious, as mentioned in another comment mentioned here, what other/better courses of action would they have to take in order to “make better” with the communuty? They have taken lots of measures and changes to address all these concerns, but sounds like this is irredeemable from your point of view. Are there any points in this comment linked that you disagree with and why?
Im not trying to take a side, but rather see your comment as one sided of only accusations and not mentioning what they’ve done to make ammends.
Like almost all situations: Demonstrate growth. No, not “subscribers go up” but actually show that you are better.
As for the really big ones? Sexual harassment and assault allegations?
A BIG first step would have been to get rid of james streib. Fucknuts was caught, on (audio part of a ) camera engaging in sexual harassment to the entire company during the fucking sexual harassment seminar the day after his report left the company because of sexual harassment from him and others. Whine about “people out for blood” all you want but that is the kind of removed up where you lose your job. Period. And the fact that people thought to record that meeting AND that linus and yvonne didn’t do a “What the fuck is wrong with you?” to him for that says a lot about what kind of a culture the company has. And putting him front and ecenter on thumbnails shows how little LMG cares.
But also? Their response to multiple allegations of harassment and assault has been to attack and discredit the victim, sometimes through blatant threats toward other employees? Fuck 'em. The brand is tainted and this is the point where you pivot to right wing grifting.
Speaking of which. I forgot to mention the time D-Brand made really racist jokes about a customer’s name and Linus Sebastient went to bat REAL hard with lots of “this wouldn’t be a problem if he were a white man” level responses. So… I guess they already got the memo.
Could you link to the James Streib audio clips, blatant threats towards employees and Linus going to bat for D-Brand’s racist jokes? I haven’t heard those allegations before.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15t1mzn/mandatory_meeting_the_after_madisons_departure/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 is james sexually harassing people during the seminar
Here is the verbose “We investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing” post https://x.com/LinusTech/status/1793428629378208057 with a real nice bit threatening anyone who ever dares to be a whistleblower again
And here is Linus playing the “what about the white man” card https://x.com/linusgsebastian/status/1778165221414347053
I don’t why people bring up the allegations like they had any backing whatsoever. They were debunked by a 3rd party investigation.
People bring it up because they are smart enough to understand “we investigated ourselves and found no signs of wrongdoing” is not a defense.
Already explained it elsewhere but, the super short version is: Law firms are nor mandatory reporters outside of the most extreme cases. They are not investigating wrongdoing. They are investigating liability. They are looking for what was done in writing and what can be explained in the event of a lawsuit (and discovery).
What? I mentioned a third party investigation and you’re saying they “investigated themselves” and brought up law firms for some reason. While completely ignoring the fact there is no evidence outside of the claims made by the ex employee
What else can you do in that situation? Fire other employees based on hearsay? Unfortunately, you have no idea what you’re talking about about. It’s perfectly fine to dislike a companies actions but let’s not perpetuate falsehoods and look like clowns.