• flustered
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    532 years ago

    Things are not looking good for linus, especially now that an ex-employee is making accusations about terrible working conditions, sexisim, and harassment of all types…

  • @dunning_cougar@waveform.social
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    -2052 years ago

    All the whiny complainers are responsible for this sad state of affairs. This is what happens when communist ideology subverts a culture.

  • @Zetaphor@zemmy.cc
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    1192 years ago

    This situation sucks and was something I would have been willing to see through. But after reading the thread from Madison this morning I’ve decided to cancel my Floatplane subscription. While the accusations she makes are currently accusations, they’re pretty damning and worth taking seriously in case they are more than allegations. I await LMG’s response to her thread, as I feel that will be the deciding factor in whether or not I continue to consume and support anything LMG does going forward.

    Her thread: https://twitter.com/suuuoppp/status/1691693740254228741

    • @Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi
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      952 years ago

      Gonna pop the ThreadReader link here for those who don’t want to log into Twitter: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1691693740254228741.html

      On the Floatplane thing, I am a bit worried for DankPods, who put a lot of backing into Floatplane after he got screwed over by Twitch. This whole thing might have some collateral damage towards the other creators on there, including him. Was considering subscribing to Floatplane for him and his drum streams before this.

      • exu
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        22 years ago

        Maybe Dankpods can get into the Nebula sphere instead.

        • P03 Locke
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          62 years ago

          Ha, Nebula is not the answer, either. It’s a gated community that doesn’t even have a way to sign up as an uploader. They expect you to make it on YouTube first before they consider moving to their network, and then you’re doomed to constantly advertise for Nebula for the rest of your career.

      • @Zetaphor@zemmy.cc
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        52 years ago

        Thank you for this, I don’t normally use twitter but I read some people saying the Threadreader app wasn’t up to date with all the comments.

      • dinckel
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        272 years ago

        I may not agree with a lot of things Madison does as a content creator, but what she’s described in that thread is absolutely egregious. This goes so far beyond “trust me bro”, and is already bathing in the gas that the company is actively lighting under them. Makes me wonder what kind of NDA and contract all of them have, to keep it hush-hush. I’m worried for the people there

        • Dran
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          -222 years ago

          what she’s described in that thread is absolutely egregious

          *If true and complete.

          None of us were there, none of us know what happened, none of us knows the context of anything discussed. There’s a universe where everything she described is misinterpreted banter and she’s just an overly sensitive whiny zoomer. There’s also a universe where everything she described is an understatement to the unfathomable conditions she may have been subjected to, and Linus is a prototypical millennial edgelord piece of shit who can’t read a room, and gets off on belittling those under his domain.

          It’s important, I think, to not be impulsively reactionary towards individual accusations. Doing so disincentives discourse and transparency. I’m going to let this play out for a bit before I make any decisions with my wallet. If Madison deserves the benefit of the doubt, so does LMG.

      • BigDaddySlim
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        2 years ago

        DankPods is the only reason why I’d consider using Floatplane, but I’ve already been a Patron of his for a long time and could just up my tier sub if I wanted to support him more, which I may do if this effects his streams.

    • @Waldemar_Firehammer@sh.itjust.works
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      -572 years ago

      A former employee shitting on their employer during a scandal to draw media attention has been the oldest trick in the book. If more stories come forward or others corroborate the individual claims, it’s worth notice. Until then, all I see is someone who took a high pressure job, couldn’t hack it, and now they’re trying to cash in on the negative experience for media attention.

      • @Anonymousllama@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Exactly this ^

        Until there’s actual evidence put forward (and not just her word), I’ll happily defer pulling out the guillotine and grabbing my pitch fork.

        I get the community as a whole is rightfully shitty with how LMG has handled themselves over the last week, but I’m certainly not taking her accusations alone at face value, regardless of how abhorrent they are

        • @Waldemar_Firehammer@sh.itjust.works
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          12 years ago

          Absolutely, the criticism from gamers Nexus was fair and earned by LMG, but these allegations are not only completely separate from the issue with quality, they’re completely unsubstantiated. Should she start corroborating her story with things like the ER report from her reported incident of self-harm, or other employees confirm her story and are willing to state that they actually witness these accusations, that would be another story.

      • Nucelar
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        112 years ago

        One party versions are always … tricky. If this was the case then people that support her need to step up and talk. It is hard to belive a company with such ethics also had good enough enviroment for a colleague to transition and publicly anounce it to the world. Something is off…

        • @Waldemar_Firehammer@sh.itjust.works
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          02 years ago

          Exactly. Something doesn’t smell right. If she wants to corroborate her story, she can start by showing her ER report for the supposed incident where she self-harmed to get out of work. That would be an easy paper trail to share and since she’s already disclosed that information, she wouldn’t be giving anything else up.

          Words themselves have no value in these instances.

  • @Anonymousllama@lemmy.world
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    202 years ago

    They are least released a video outlining their plan going forward, that’s immensely better than other times where they’ve stuck their head in the sand. Be keen to see how this one pans out

    • @silver_Motoko@lemmy.world
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      92 years ago

      But this video was after a long nasty, emotional rant on the LTT forums. Also after trying to claim compensation had been agreed between Billet labs, all while doubling down in reasons why it’d not changed the outcome of the result of the video.

      • @HRDS_654@lemmy.world
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        52 years ago

        Yeah, and the video made it clear that Linus needs to get out of the way of the business growing, which is what everyone was trying to address. How well that actually worked is up to you. Personally I’m one for actions backing up words. Admitting there needs to be a change is a good start.

        I think the Madison thing that has come up since the video has seen enough speculation. At this point it is up to LMG to do what is right provided any further action is required.

  • dandi8
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    2 years ago

    The “haha, we’ve made an oopsie” tone of the video (sponsorship jokes, plugging their store link, possible sex joke, deflecting to “I’m just a human” instead of fully taking the blame) don’t sit right with me. I was also hoping they would address Madison’s comments on why she quit.

    • @snor10@lemm.ee
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      232 years ago

      To quote poetry:

      Uwu We made a fucky wucky!!

      A wittle fucko boingo!

      The code monkeys at our headquarters are working VEWY HAWD to fix this!

          • @chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org
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            142 years ago

            🙄 I want you to tell me with a straight face that you honestly believe someone could say something like “six nines…” whilst simultaneously quirking their eyebrow and striking a dual fingerguns pose without an implied double meaning…

            A screenshot of Luke from the Linus Tech Tips "What do we do now?" video as he strikes a dual fingerguns pose as he quirks his eyebrow and wears a grimace-like smile

            For Pete’s sake, the editor even inserted a zoom cut and delayed the next shot transition for comedic effect!

            • @QHC@lemmy.world
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              42 years ago

              Worth noting that the “69… Nice” joke is not just a universal meme, but also specially part of LTT in-jokes. So it’s very much in character for Linus or others at LMG to say something like that, but I am honestly disappointed that it came from Luke.

      • @Anonymousllama@lemmy.world
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        22 years ago

        Yeah I get the various other critiques others have for this video but complaining about the “potential sex jokes” is a stretch.

    • @Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyi
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      2 years ago

      I think Madison’s post happened after the video itself was planned, recorded, etc, so it’s understandable why that’s not addressed. But Linus really has to address what she’s said on the forums ASAP at least, because there’s a lot of damning claims towards his company from her. Like seriously, wtf Linus?

      • @mr_tyler_durden@lemmy.world
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        72 years ago

        I really want to make a joke about how they could have added an annotation on the video to address it and how it would have taken “$500 of people’s time” but her post was super gross (about the company, not her) and that’s more of a poison pill for a company than the sloppiness IMHO.

        I don’t watch LMG content and I have intention of starting to so I don’t have a dog in this fight but I always thought of LMG as “decent content but too over the top and silly for me”, the “decent content” part is in question now and the workplace allegations leave a bad taste in my mouth for sure.

        I thought this video was very well done aside from:

        • “I don’t agree with ALL the criticisms” - ok, then expand on that

        • Store plug - read the room, I thought the sponsor joke was ok but then they did it twice and plugged the store.

        • “6 9’s” - didn’t we just talk about filtering for sexual innuendos? Look I don’t give a fuck but, again, read the room

        • Linus’ whole section - it really felt genuine then he came on and came off as a petulant child

      • @Bumblefumble@lemm.ee
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        302 years ago

        Also, they should stop deleting all mentionings of the Madison thing on the apology video as they doing are now, makes it all seem very disingenuous and fake.

        • @radix@lemmy.world
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          182 years ago

          Can confirm. They appear to be doing it manually, so lots are still up (for now), but entire threads are being disappeared.

        • @Anonymousllama@lemmy.world
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          -12 years ago

          It should be it’s own topic of discussion. It makes sense why they’re trying to control the comments on that video specifically.

    • sebinspace
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      112 years ago

      I never saw Madison’s tweets, what happened there?

    • @Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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      -1662 years ago

      …the company dies.

      Oh for fucks sakes we have an edgel0rd over here. You can just stop watching the channel if you don’t like them.

      • dtc
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        2 years ago

        I can’t hear what you’re saying with linus’ stringy cock in your mouth, mate.

        • @trachemys@lemmy.world
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          -582 years ago

          They seem to have an excess of testosterone and are too sloppy, but unethical and worthy of cancellation is typical internet outrage over reaction.

          • @ShunkW@lemmy.world
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            152 years ago

            Being invested in a company and giving glowing reviews to their products and only offering critiques of their competitors is pretty fucking unethical

          • Lexi Sneptaur
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            182 years ago

            They worked at LMG, a highly visible company. They’ll get other jobs no problem.

            • @Jackthelad@lemmy.world
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              -192 years ago

              Again, that may be the case, but it’s still not good for people to lose their jobs in the first place.

              Especially not in this economy.

              • Lexi Sneptaur
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                52 years ago

                I hope every unethical company goes over and everyone who works at all of them remains unemployed for at least 3 months actually. Unethical companies = employees often complacent and part of the problem.

                I don’t see why you want to defend this

                • @Jackthelad@lemmy.world
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                  12 years ago

                  I’m not defending the company or the actions of whoever is involved in misconduct. But I also don’t believe in guilt by association.

                  Sorry for caring about people’s livelihoods.

          • @tabular@lemmy.world
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            12 years ago

            My thoughts go to the dependency on jobs for survival but that leads into a conversation about AI, the end of enough jobs for humans and the need for universal basic income. Job loss doesn’t much affect my choice to interact with a corporation or wish for it to change (which may affect jobs).

        • @joel@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          212 years ago

          I don’t think they’re beyond redemption. My hope is that Linus can take a step back and let the CEO work on improving the workplace culture. No idea if he’s up to the challenge but time will tell

          • @FMT99@lemmy.world
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            142 years ago

            Beyond redemption, no, but refusing to acknowledge any wrongdoing doesn’t paint a pretty picture for the future. In the days since I’ve heard “we couldn’t have done any better”, “yes we messed up but it wouldn’t have made any difference if the numbers were right”, “no one could expect us to spend 500 dollars to redo a messed up review”

            Not once did I hear a mea culpa or we’ll try harder to do better in the future. Not a good look.

            • @snor10@lemm.ee
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              2 years ago

              Linus:

              That didn’t happen.

              And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.

              And if it was, that’s not a big deal.

              And if it is, that’s not my fault.

              And if it was, I didn’t mean it.

              And if I did, you deserved it.

          • @gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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            22 years ago

            After digging into this whole fiasco and it’s various aspects, I’m coming to think that this is a leadership problem, pure and simple, and that the leader that allowed these pretty egregious situations to exist and metastasize is Linus. So sure, good for him for basically bootstrapping a company up to a ~$100M valuation… but that is absolutely not an excuse for, and in no way justifies the internal and external ethical lapses.

            The best case here is if the new LMG CEO forces a sharp, top-down culture shift that enables more sustainable working practices, better employee treatment and culture, increased rigor in the data they present, and an explicit public acknowledgement that their previous high-handed interactions with some creators and brands - and ethical conflicts of interest with others - did, in fact, occur, and will be seriously investigated in the interest of not repeating those failures in the future. But given Linus’s continued “woe is me”/borderline gaslighting, I’ll believe change is coming when I actually see it. For now, I’ve unsubscribed.

  • Schwim Dandy
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    382 years ago

    Isn’t there a /c/drama this shit could be dropped in? Least technical article ever.

    • @SiegeRhino@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I like seeing articles about cool gadgets and science pop up in my all feed, but this instance just keeps belaboring some youtube channel I dont care about. any ideas for some replacements because this place is getting kinda lame

      • @AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world
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        22 years ago

        they’re one of the biggest tech channels on youtube, and the biggest gaming focused tech channel. A lot of people looked up to them, including myself. In a few days I’m sure the discussion will die down.

    • Neato
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      82 years ago

      Didn’t the original Drama create drama instead of reporting on it?

    • @QHC@lemmy.world
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      62 years ago

      Drama is like “woke”, it means whatever you want it to mean!

      This is a legitimate story about the technology industry.

  • @Fubar91@lemmy.world
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    782 years ago

    Linus always came off to me as one of those people who shouldn’t be mangement. Idk, just watching him in videos feels frustrating, and he seemed to belittle his employees in a joking/non-joking manner.

    Some of the other “techs” do seem to be very knowledgeable, and i feel bad for them to have to work under a man child.

    • @CoderKat@lemm.ee
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      112 years ago

      Yeah, I saw that in several videos and it made me uncomfortable. He’d say rude things in a way that didn’t actually come across like he was joking. If it was just a friend thing, I could maybe understand it, but there was a big power imbalance. Can’t imagine what it’d be like to be on the receiving end of how he can act.

    • @RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      202 years ago

      He seems like a kid making videos with his friends. Not realizing he is an adult making videos with professionals whose likelihood depends on his company.

    • paraphrand
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      282 years ago

      The behavior sets an example among the rest of the staff too, it appears.

  • @Twashe@lemmy.ml
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    612 years ago

    Did any one see the pinned comment where they say turned off monetization after community feedback? as if this video should be monitized in the first place lol man this does not feel right

    • @histy@lemmy.world
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      -42 years ago

      ok, at the risk of being branded a fanboy and a bootlicker I’m going to play devil’s advocate and say that this option is probably checked by default and whoever posted it didn’t think about it because they were probably one of the employees taking orders

      • @Twashe@lemmy.ml
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        12 years ago

        Fair point, I thought about that too but if it were me and my reputation on the line, I’d make a main point of the video. Just as gamer nexus did.

        Making a vid about being less careless and then being careless.

        All that said, when I was posting vids, there was a full screen YouTube made me go through to set monitization and ad placement before proceeding to a separate screen for posting

  • @AdamEatsAss@lemmy.world
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    672 years ago

    LMG and Linus in particular have not been reliable to me for a while. It all started with the screwdriver. First it was the full of year of videos teasing the product, it was just absurd how long it took to come out. Then when I watched Linus react to the project farm review is where things really turned for me. Project farm fairly rated the screwdriver and as he always does called out pros and cons of each product. Linus seemed to not be able to take the criticisms and seemed to almost get mad at project farm about it. The main criticism I remember is that in the ratcheting screwdriver market there are several companies that offer lifetime warranty and same day delivery/replacement. Project farm noted that LMG does not offer this level of customer service and they are being new to marketplace may not be equipped to handle common problems other supplies easily fix. Instead of admitting that LMG isn’t trying to compete with companies like Mac tools or Snapon Linus immediately gets defensive and tries to discredit the need for 24/7 support.

    I have also noticed the high amount of corrections in recent videos. I could see not wanting to reshoot a portion of video where Linus is speaking on camera. But why not show some B role and have Linus record a corrected voice over? Edited well viewers wouldn’t even notice.

    • @TurboDiesel@lemmy.world
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      302 years ago

      Linus adamantly refuses to offer any kind of long-term guarantee. He got flak for the warranty on the backpack for that reason; there are plenty of competitors selling bags at the $250 price point that back up their offerings with long or even lifetime warranties. When pressed, Linus put out a mealy-mouthed “oh I don’t want to open up my family to liability” statement which both managed to say absolutely nothing (why would his family be personally liable? LMG is a separate entity) and shame critics. It seems to me Linus personally can’t handle criticism, like at all.

      • @Chadus_Maximus@lemm.ee
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        2 years ago

        Wait, backpacks cost that much? I got one for 25 bucks 8 years ago and it only needed some sewing to be perfectly usable. The brand is Polo Power.

        • @SinningStromgald@lemmy.world
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          112 years ago

          Brand name bags like Samsonite can cost quite a lot. Why anyone would buy a bag from LTT for $250 in lieu of buying one from a reputable company with a warranty is beyond me.