Sounds convincing, however businesses don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. For me to trust and support this content again, the investigation of the allegations needs to produce conclusive evidence. The whole quality drama passed to the background after Madison showed up what really went inside LMG
Either LMG admits wrongdoing and dishes out consequences to those involved, or they present verifiable and damning evidence showing no abuse occurred. Unlike bootlickers at reddit and ltt forums, I don’t side with businesses against people. If you live in this world and not in your mom’s basement you’d understand why.
If LMG comes out with “we found nothing,” “no conclusions could be made,” or something along those lines without evidence, then fuck them. Not good enough.
I vote with my wallet (and time), and I won’t deal with more corpo BS while abusing emplpyees. Before any smartasses come here with the usual “you live in society” crap. Yeah I can’t go live in the woods like a hermit to be morally right, but I can sure as hell drop a shit tech yt channel.
EDIT: taking another look, the second half of the video was more defensive nonsense. Basically claiming they aren’t a twitter sweatshop, they are the victims, and some heavily edited parking loot footage as “proof”
And the turnover rate is at best a shaky argument, One can argue since it’s mostly guys, they’re not gonna be at the same situation to be bullied, insulted and sexually harassed until leaving. It doesn’t seem the culture will be fixed anytime soon, so I’m just gonna stop wasting more time with it.
The burden of proof works the exact opposite way. You make a claim, then you need to support verifiable and damnable evidence. Not the other way around.
This isn’t a court trial tbh, and what has come forth from Madison’s side (testimonies, recording, consistency) is more than enough for me to put the ball entirely on LMG’s side.
No reason to keep giving businesses the benefit of the doubt when in many cases they have every advantage over the situation.
This isn’t a court trial tbh
So just because it’s not a court trial means we should throw out innocent until proven guilty? The burden of proof is non-negotiable. These ideas have existed for centuries, they aren’t a purely legal framework.
what has come forth from Madison’s side
Which is, to be perfectly fair, limited to he-said-she-said which isn’t evidence. It’s just an allegation and very little can be decided from that alone.
At this point there is exactly zero useful information to actually derive any real decision from.
So just because it’s not a court trial means we should throw out innocent until proven guilty? The burden of proof is non-negotiable. These ideas have existed for centuries, they aren’t a purely legal framework.
I’m under no obligation to give LMG the benefit of the doubt, if I choose to abstain from watching their content due to the allegations, then that is my prerogative. My choosing to make a decision without proof either way doesn’t harm LMG further than the loss of ad revenue, etc.
That’s the difference.
Oh, sure, I mean, you are definitely free to do and think as you wish. Just pointing out how the burden of proof works, since a lot of people (not necessarily you) do not get how it works. Bertrand Russel, everyone!
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Good thing that person’s personal “court system” has no bearing on LMG’s ability to do or not do anything.
What’s the point then? And what should satisfy the op? What would be enough?
How do you present evidence that it didn’t happen without uploading months of continuous security camera footage?
I think we should first wait for Madison to provide evidence that it did happen
At least there was other ex-employees who did show support to some of the stuff Madison said
ehhh, no; Colin and Taran repeatedly stated they never witnessed sexual abuse or harassment, and they can only confirm current claims are consistent with what she told them before.
I said “show support to some stuff”, not that they confirmed any of it as witnesses.
I think we’re saying the same thing but I don’t like the way you phrased it. They didn’t support any part of her story, except that it didn’t change.
Yeah I guess the wording in internet is difficult. What I meant is that they stood up for her, even if they can’t confirm the things happened.
If, hypothetically, Madison made this whole thing up due to some ulterior motive, don’t you think there would be other ex-exployees with mutual interests?
Just out of spite? Nah that’s not normal. If we were talking about some megacorp like amazon or blizzard I’m sure there were ex employees piling in with some lies too but it’s way less likely in a smaller company when we’re talking about just 2 other people known by the community chipping in.
This comment is a breathe of fresh air
They did an okay job of addressing the accuracy issue, but failed to even mention the issues of workplace culture and absurd quotas.
It does not matter if workers start and stop their shifts at particular time - as strictly required by law - when the amount of work they are expected to do within that time frame is unrealistic.
Upping the expections for quality, without lowering those for quality, will only make things worse for everyone working there.
Not to mention it didn’t even touch on the note serious allegations of sexual harassment.
I wouldn’t expect any company would address a potential ongoing sexual harassment case via a YouTube video. Especially one that Linus is in.
“First of all, we didn’t harass female employees, we pestered them.”
Yeah this, unless you have proof it’s better to just shut up. It never goes well otherwise
SA wasn’t mentioned because that is a sensitive investigation. It is messy, and sadly boils down to, he said she said, most of the time. I don’t expect that to be resolved for a while.
Don’t worry, they lowered the quotas (while adding a shitton of process).
Linus just can’t seem to get over the fact that employees should have some free time at work, especially in creative or highly technical fields. It’s all about time being money.
If someone wants to take longer on a project just because they want to, there should be time for that. Salaried employees shouldn’t have to account for their time down to 15 minutes increments outside of contracting work. The fee for that kind of time accountability is about 4x what a salaried employee generally makes.
while adding a shitton of process
If you do it right, having processes that are well reasoned and adhered to is a net time saver. I’ve been on teams with many different levels of processes. I can say from 20+ years of experience that there is nothing worse than a pipeline with too few processes. When every writer has a different way of delivering information to the editors, that’s a time waster. When every tester has a different way of putting together a spreadsheet to hand off to the graphics department, that’s a time waster.
Also, processes are supposed to serve the needs of the staff. Not the other way around. If a process adds too much effort for little reward, you can always change it or scrap it. Ideally, you’d have someone on staff whose job it is to manage your process flow, facilitate handoffs, and make periodic changes to the processes to close up inefficiencies and pain points for the staff.
Absolutely agreed. Work gets done faster with the correct processes. If I don’t know what to do when I have issues, I have to pester multiple people until I get to the right person that can handle it. If I knew exactly where to go and what to do, I might not even need that person in the first place.
but failed to even mention the issues of workplace culture and absurd quotas.
For my own understanding, was there something that was missing in their content reforms/error handling and workplace culture segments? I think they had mentioned a commitment to reducing frequency, which I understand is a solution to those, no?
I was mistaken - they did say they would “reduce output.” However, they said nothing about how, how much, or what that would mean.
They also heavily implied that they were not overworking people, despite that clearly and evidently being a real issue.
It’s exceptionally difficult to address this sort of deep-seated issue, but they needed to acknowledge specific wrongdoing, and take concrete action to improve, as they did with the accuracy issue.
Yes that’s true, but I do empathize with the difficulty of the situation, as a manager. A week is practically equivalent to a flash of time in normal business circumstances… Under normal circumstances, that is barely enough time to begin talking about issues, nevermind rolling out plans… I’m even shocked Linus announced a plan to begin with. I was fully expecting a vid to simply call out observations. And this to me demonstrates his commitment and dedication to the community.
So, as much as I’ve been critical of LMG in the past, I would probably give them the time to allow those details (how, how much, what it means) to organically surface over time. Otherwise, that demand is probably what unintentionally pressures LMG to have the output speed they have, because they want to satisfy the community.
Regarding the sexual allegations, I doubt the independent review is concluded yet. I’m guessing we’ll hear more when that shares it’s findings.
Agreed - this announcement started well in detailing the positive changes to workflows and quality assurance, but quickly turned south once the finger wagging and defensiveness raised its ugly head again.
FFS, this is the time to accept responsibility, take the criticisms on the chin, and show how you’re going to make things better - not fall back on the “some people are being really mean to us and we’re really the victims here” BS.
Am I the naive one in missing where they were finger wagging? I thought it was a good video throughout. It anything, I saw that they committed to even more process transparency of their business operations (which, to be fair, no company does unless they are an open source company).
Only time will tell, but if those changes had already been in the works even before the blowout, then I’m not sure if there actually is any other way of communicating that without simply unproductively crucifying oneself
No one is asking for public self-crucifixion - this the point in public relations where you want to make a fresh, positive start and be the bigger person. It’s not the time to throw any more fuel on the fires of animosity by shifting the spotlight and directly attack those critics that you feel did you wrong.
Linus, who obviously can’t let it go, does this a few times during this announcement. Firstly in addressing the “people who wanted us to fail”, but more noticeably when admonishing the people who allegedly harassed his team on social media and denounced them as “not members of our community”.
While the toxic members of the community doing so don’t deserve to be defended by anyone, this is simply not the time and place to call them out. Perpetuating this petty bickering when you should be moving forward and building bridges with the community is not a good look.
Toxic behaviour should be called out when it happens. That is the time.
ffs half of the video/issue is about the workplace culture at LMG. What kind of boss would he be if he didn’t call out assholes issuing death threats to his team? That was the singular part of the video where he got emotional. Note that he didn’t mention himself, who I’m sure could open up his phone and find a hellstorm of comments ranging from shitty to deranged.
Perpetuating this petty bickering
“Petty bickering” is not constant harassment and threats to kill you. The time to call that shit out is immediately.
edit: and plenty of people are asking for a public self-crucifixion.
I guess it’s a matter of perspective and opinion. Not that Reddit is anything to trust, but this thread clearly demonstrates that there are people who appreciate the approach Linus took: https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/161lh3f/heres_the_plan/jxslkvs/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Damn if you do, damn if you don’t. What is a company to do? They have no choice but to take a position, even if that means a small number of folks be upset with them.
As someone in management, I personally feel Linus’ response was pretty appropriate.
Significantly less cringy than the last one. I’ll give em that. (Although that bar was low)
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negative height
Unfortunately structural integrity of the bar was compromised due to proximity to the earth’s molten core.
Bar so low, the devil drinks there.
Even James Cameron couldn’t find it. https://media0.giphy.com/media/3o6ZtfJ5VcIvM31NKM/giphy.gif
His name is James, James Cameron The bravest pioneer No budget too steep, no sea too deep Who’s that? It’s him, James Cameron James, James Cameron explorer of the sea With a dying thirst to be the first Could it be? Yeah that’s him! James Cameron
Maybe a petty gripe, but they still couldn’t resist flashing their new screwdriver onscreen
A simple “we can’t talk about the Madison situation right now, but we will later.” would have made this video 10x better.
Ever thought that maybe Madison doesn’t want her drama forever a part of a video update? Or do you guys just think about yourself and what you want?
I agree that respecting Madison is important, but it’s not about what anyone of us wants. It’s about the right of LMG to defend their image. LMG, and the associated LTT brand, are publicly famous. When Madison wrote those allegations, she changed the perception of said public with regard to the LMG company and the LTT brand (and by extension, public figures working there, such as Linus, but also other managers). LMG has an absolute right to responding to those allegations, as many times as necessary, so that the public perception isn’t only influenced by a twitter thread. And they have, via an FAQ they sent to the subreddit moderation team. So, why not adding a few seconds featuring an exact quote from that statement to the video, to put everyone at ease?
“Mr. Sebastien, in your video from August 26, 2023 marked as exhibit 23B you referred to “the Madison situation”. Can you explain what you meant by ‘situation’?”
You may not like it but when there’s credible accusations of harassment, constructive dismissal, and possibly up to battery you do not make public statements of any kind beyond, “We are investigating and taking the accusations seriously”, which in case you missed it the CEO of LMG already did a week ago.
That bit at the start about addressing the people who want to see them fail… ehhh
I mean, people who actively want to see you fail just because shouldn’t really be engaged with at all tbfh, and if he’s referrring to who I think he’s referring to, then bleah
Otherwise at least they’re back, let’s see how they improve
That’s this community though. This place is still just actively hating. If you are unhappy with LMG and aren’t willing to see how they improve moving forward, then just… move on to another channel.
I guess unsubing from this community wasn’t enough, gotta actually block it.
Who’s he referring to? What the hell did I miss?
Apparently the guy from Gamers Network is just a hater, and him bringing up all this stuff that they have to “introspect” over was just him being a dick. I mean, the fans figured he was right enough to throw a shitfit, but he should know better than to criticize Linus. After all, Linux is infallible except when he’s not.
That’s a really big stretch.
And also, A lot of people want to see him fail because he’s simply refusing to fix the years of misogynistic and hustle culture to the point of sexual harassment and a lack of journalistic integrity
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Most people “only” worked 9-10 hour days and that’s not including commute
That’s not what was shown at all. They showed that the working hours are flexible with people allowed to arrive when they want within reason.
At my office, some people arrive at 7:30am and leave at 4:30pm. Some people, like me, arrive at 9am and leave at 5:30 (I only do 30 minute lunches usually). Some people at the office come in a 8am and work till after 6pm regularly but they are absolutely not required to. They prefer to work at a slower pace for longer and that’s their call.
“Wfh will be even rarer since people will be required to be at more in person”
That’s unfortunate
Work from home wasn’t mentioned at all in the video. They just said they would have more face to face meetings. You can have a face to face over Zoom. That’s in contrast to just sending an email or slack message with instructions that may or may not be complete or understandable.
I don’t think you know what face to face means lol.
Face to face means something completely different in 2023 than it did in 2019.
What does “face to face” mean in 2023?
… Lol nah it doesn’t but keep doing your thing I guess.
Reading the Reddit thread on this, I find it fascinating that, at the beginning of the incident, Lemmy had more balanced conversations vs the crazies on Reddit calling for LTT disbandment. Now after the latest video, it seems like Reddit seems more reasonable and recruiting with Linus’ plans vs Lemmy being the LTT doomsayers.
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Addressed in the latest video? They literally and legally can’t.
What we want, and what is legally required, do not coincide.
Refer to: https://lemmy.world/comment/2825024
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Are you kidding me? Have we not watched the same video? The man put out numbers detailing the employee turnover rate, benefits package, and even security footage detailing that his employees are not being overworked. Did you not watch the video?
His turnover rate is BELOW Canadian average, meaning his employees haven’t quit at the rate Canadian employees have on average. His benefits packages for his employees are ABOVE MANY Fortune 500 companies. His employees are not being forced to work overtime.
Your premise has no weight, with the currently available evidence (the investigations may change that, but we don’t know for a fact currently). Refute the evidence put forth with actual evidence, not more guesses and claims.
Can you explain why you think his staff’s well-being is in jeopardy or in which ways his employees’ working conditions need to be improved?
Lemmy somehow went into a deranged rambeling mode after some time. I do not understand why, but I mostly switched over to Reddit after that.
You are a stronger person than I. I still refuse to go back to Reddit after the bs they tried to pull lol. I’ve been looking at other ltt communities, but this is still the biggest community…
Yeah, this is the only big LTT sub. I also frequent reddit for /r/rabbits.Not everything can be replaced with lemmy and that is to be expected. Tho, I am normally not logged into my reddit account.
You mean literally only calling out Linus repeatedly dodging the waterblock issue and stating that Unionisation would resolve most of the other employee dissatisfaction issues?
How deranged. Much Ramble.
Open source people are also open bar people
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Listening to it, there is a lot of focus on saying things alluding to “we were already in the process of fixing this” rather than “we fucked up and this will be fixed”.
I’m also a little concerned to see that gender affirming healthcare isn’t listed on their health plan when they have trans members of staff. I completely understand why Emily doesn’t want to be in the public eye but she is by far my favourite host and I’d love to see her back and producing high quality, well thought out videos where she is given the creative time she needs. The people pressuring her (as well as others) to comment on everything were completely out of order though.
I think the culture of misogyny is demonstrated by the number of male hosts compared to women. Part of the reason people wanted Madison on board was because she would have fit the role perfectly and they just dumped her in the corner on socials. YouTube is a new industry and its disappointing that it is still as male dominated as the tech journo industry that came before it.
What I think is needed is for the staff to unionize and for the company to stop micromanaging and pushing performance because the “fun” doesn’t feel like real fun, it feels like corporate forced fun. McDonalds does a christmas party for their staff and you don’t hear people praise them for their workplace culture.
I am so pissed about what they did to Madison, she was my favorite host hefore she even was an employee. To see that get dumpstered and spat on really hurt their reputation permanently for me
We’re a fun company! See the ping pong table? That’s how you know you’re going to love it here. Now get back to work, slut.
Brilliantly said.
I am still not very impressed with the response from Linus and company. It is quite clear that they decided to slave themselves to the YouTube algorithm without regard for the humans involved. So many of their videos devolve into an unintentional Abbott and Costello comedy routine because they clearly did not decide to spend the time preparing properly or realizing they missed something and starting again. They just plow through without regard for the quality of people involved.
Sometimes this is entertaining, but more often than not, it is just low quality and a waste of their time.
I want entertaining tech content, but not at the expense of the people involved. Honestly, it is fascinating to see the sausage being made. I would love for them to show the difficult process of making a high quality video and getting the process corrected. Then have the final produced video. Full transparency, warts and all.
Alternative take - playing up to the YouTube algorithm is what has allowed LMG to expand to the point where it provides jobs for over 100 (is it near 200 now?) people. Those people work hard, yet the majority seem to stay with the company which suggests any alternative employment isn’t attractive enough to motivate them to leave their current work conditions.
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Work conditions suck just about everywhere these days. I wouldn’t consider what I have seen from employee interviews to be ringing endorsements nor total loathing. It is probably worse than you think and better than I expect. I still think they are chasing the wrong metrics regardless of whether it is a good place to work. The fact that Linus burned himself out gives you more than a hint of what it is like for others working there.
The plan is solid, but forgive me if I give it a few years of “wait and see” how well they keep their word and more importantly handle work place allegations and changes before I re-subscribe to the channel. Still a good plan and I hope it’s a sincere one.
Why would we forgive you, that’s a perfectly acceptable decision? /J
Tek Syndicate surprisingly came out with one of the best takes I’ve seen on this situation. This could be a real damaging moment for LTT, but getting an employee union could address the criticism perfectly.
huh, I’ve never run across this channel. Seems cool.
They’re good, old techtuber. Used to be a really big company until one of the guys they hired to help expand just fucked up everything. Very well informed but he’s still an entertainer
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I am glad that they plan to improve and made steps towards it, but i still have a sour taste in my mouth:
- I was expecting a formal apology for the monoblock and mouse skates film issue. Both of these were instances where LTT threw another smaller company under the bus. Them not addressing it further gives the assumption that they can, and will keep getting away with stuff like this.
- Their new guidelines for correction policy are flawed; even the low-severity ones are thing that really shouldn’t be tolerated with no corrective action, and all factual mistakes should be re-shot or voiced over instead of on-screen corrections.
- They hardly touched upon the whole Madison situation, except for some boasting about employee benefits.
- In the whole situation, I felt like they failed to really admit that they were sorry for what hapened, and were taking the role of the victims.
- “We are people too” and a whole segment in this video of emails from fans hoping they will get better soon and “survive this difficult shitstorm”. LMG was merely getting away with this stuff for a long time and just now have been called out. They don’t deserve any harassment, however, they also don’t deserve any “Get better soon” emails from fans.
TL;DR: I will most likely continue to watch Linus tech tips for entertainment purposes, but will no longer trust them on any technical details, and would go to other channels for tutorials on how to build a pc and such.
They hardly touched upon the whole Madison situation, except for some boasting about employee benefits.
My impression was that they were trying to keep that and the testing and workload issues mostly separate. They hired an independent firm to investigate them, and I doubt the results are in yet. So I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a separate update later on.
But they did mention their turn over rate might increase in the short term. I took that as meaning they would fire the people guilty in the allegations, but we don’t know for sure yet.
Sad some else mentioned, the issue with the Madison situation is that it’s become an hr/legal issue and they can’t openly discuss stuff like that.
Also new CEO isn’t working…
“As happy as I am that Terren is here, he can’t make these changes alone [… many paragraphs later …] That’s also why we brought in an experienced manager, Terren who is offsite this week or I would have brought him in to chat with you guys as well”
So “all hands” in “crisis time”… And the CEO isn’t there and hasn’t been for the whole week? This is literally where a good CEO should be in house looking at EVERYTHING. Not away on a golf trip or whatever the fuck he’s doing.
I think I’m on the same TL;DR… I might find a video interesting enough to watch for entertainment here and there… But at this point I will no longer treat anything I hear from them as actually data. And if the Madison thing turns out to be true, will simply hard block their channel.
I don’t think anyone’s dumb enough to go on a golf trip during a crisis. Linus wouldn’t have defended that and would have fired anyone who would’ve gone on a golf trip while the rest of the company works their asses off to get LMG back in shape.
I would prefer to assume good faith. Maybe a family member is in critical care? Maybe collaboration with investigators? Maybe legal consultation? All of those are pretty good reasons not to be in the video.
All of those are pretty good reasons not to be in the video.
That’s not what I said… Nor what was communicated in the video. I quoted specifically what was stated.
Terren who is offsite this weekThis week != this video. Nor did I pass judgement on him not being in the video (he’s a CEO after all… not talent.). I made my judgement based on what was communicated. Not on some wild ass assumption.You can assume good faith all you want. You certainly didn’t bother to read what I wrote in good faith.
When do you think they made the video if not this week?
If you think that video took them a week to produce then you’re delusional. That likely took them literally a couple hours total that morning.
Right? So the CEO is offsite this week. A week runs Mon-Sun. They shot the video probably on Friday.
Right… What’s your point? Why is the CEO offsite for a crisis event for his company? His lack of presence in the the video is irrelevant, I’m not sure why you keep bringing it up.
They had 9 days outage… 9 days of effectively no income or work. CEO is not present.
Quid pro quo it would appear.
Haven’t watched it yet, but it’ll be a while before I’ll be willing to give LTT my views again
I didn’t understand what the last point about letting go of people was about
I mean if you are talking about the last timestamp I think its implying if the findings of the investigation find out some pretty heavy misdeed by some staff members probably in relation to Madison comments and possibly or other things they found while going through fact finding may mean some people (maybe even very notable personalities) may get fired.
That’s the impression I was getting too. A way of saying that they’re not afraid to dismiss anyone the investigation finds to be at fault.
What happens if the investigation finds linus to be the problem?
Lmao he’s the owner, so he ain’t going anywhere. They would water down whatever negative impact he had in order to keep him clean. He’s not been implicated directly by the victim anyway, if that matters. In a way all of this is his fault because he pushed his workers to burnout because of the ridiculous release schedule.
The more I hear and see about and of Linus’ off-camera persona, the more it’s becoming clear to me that he is the problem. I’m not saying he personally said all the horrible things to Madison, but I would not be surprised if he said some of them. I think it’s the same personality flaw that’s behind all the shit at LMG.
It’s a culture issue. If Linus is on camera and makes a sex joke about his wife, Yvonne, the 49% company stake-holder, CFO, and head of HR, it sets a standard of the kinds of things that can be said in the workplace, even if it was unintentional. It may be all for show, scripted, and Yvonne may have even approved the joke, but someone new, or not party to it, may come to the conclusion that that kind of behavior is acceptable at LTT, because it is acceptable and done frequently on camera.
There are so many examples of this in LTT videos. Tee-hee sex number, dick joke, that’s what she said, and more run rampant. I get they’re catering to a fairly juvenile audience with that content, but the environment of a ligma joke is much different coming from a situationally and emotionally unaware teenager instead of your 37 year old boss. One has mush and hormones for brains, and the other determines if you get a raise this year.
The thing is, it’s a small company. Drama and gossip runs hot and heavy all the time. While drama and gossip is not always true, it doesn’t take long to find out where it comes from.
If it took an outside investigator to identify and get people fired, their culture is fundamentally broken.
They aren’t having issues identifying the origin of “drama and gossip”. Dealing with sexual assault allegations internally is NOT the way to deal with such issues. Having a third party come in and act as human resources is standard and unquestionably the correct choice.
Hire someone to fire someone else, basically.
No. It’s always easier for an outsider to see and bring up problems especially in a small group of people.
Everyone in that group is biased to one way or another
I mean, they should (and are) probably be scared of NOT letting people go if the investigation found something nasty.
The idea is that he must be treating people well or they’d leave.
He doesn’t seem to consider that there might be other factors that keep people at LMG compared to industry as a whole.
That is their choice at that point.
