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What's the deal with Linus tech tips? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 year ago by soullioness@lemmy.ca to c/explainlikeimfive@lemmy.world

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I'm completely out of the loop.

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[-] vis4valentine@lemmy.ml 100 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

A YouTube channel named "Gamers Nexus" made a video criticisms about LTT hardware Review process.
Due to having the pressure to make videos as quickly as possible, the quality control of hardware reviews has suffered, even with the Lab they assembled for testing hardware and presenting detailed benchmarks.
A startup sent Linux a watercooling prototype to review, but they tried it on a video card it was not designed for, giving bad results.
Then the "sold" the prototype apparently without the full approval of the creators.
Linus was dismissive at first, but now the company has responded and said will take quality control more seriously.
Now an ex employee named Madison came out telling basically that there is a Guy Bros type culture on LTT, where they made inappropriate comments to her, affecting her mental health, overloading her with work because she had the "funny job" of social media managment, and even verbally abused her. Some instances can be considered sexual harassment.
The new CEO of LTT said he was "shocked" by these revelations and will hire an external investigator.

[-] red@feddit.de 37 points 1 year ago

They actually sent the matching card together with the prototype but apparently LTT lost the card and just decided to use another, incompatible one.

[-] MossyFeathers@pawb.social 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"""shocked!"""

Also, she claims she had to slash open her leg in order to take a day off without being harassed for it.

[-] vis4valentine@lemmy.ml 33 points 1 year ago

I can believe the new CEO is surprised since he just stepped in (including the previous months of negotiations) but obviously there are things that Linus hasn't told him. And since most of the important people at the company are Linus year long friends, they had covered each other up.

And yeah, self harming to take a sick leave is fucked up, pretty sure denying sick leave to an employee in Canada is ilegal since there they actually give a shit about labour laws.

[-] joe@lemmy.world 40 points 1 year ago

As I understand it, she wasn't "denied" it, technically, she was harassed and belittled and made to feel like a bad person for taking it.

Maybe the law in Canada can still be used? I hope so.

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago

Canadian labour laws are trash. Better than America's sure, but still trash compared to many other countries.

[-] CodeGameEat@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

It depends on the province. Usually labor laws should be a provincial power, although there is some federal laws too. Like here in Quebec our labor laws are generally quite good. No idea what it's like in BC tho, it's generally a more economic-right leaning province so I wouldn't be surprised if it's bad.

[-] vis4valentine@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 year ago

Also, lets remember that when activison Blizzard got shit about the gigantic amounts of sexual harassment allegations, they pulled a "we investigates ourselves and found we did nothing wrong" and is still avoiding being investigates by independents.

Immediatly jumping to hire an external investigator is a good move from the CEO, given how low the bar is.

[-] MajorHavoc@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I do remember. I would be playing Diablo IV right now if not for their bro culture crap. Oh well.

[-] Arbiter@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah, it really is the best thing he could do in this scenario.

[+] zacher_glachl@lemmy.world -20 points 1 year ago

Sorry but that sounds like bullshit. There is no logical sequence of actions leading from "your employer being an asshole" into "you having to slash your leg open" which wouldn't first pass through "handing in your notice". Unless you are a literal slave.

[-] Lakija@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

If you are in enough mental distress self harm starts looking like a real good idea as an excuse to not go to work. Of course it’s not logical or reasonable. It’s a reaction to stress. It’s an irrational intrusive thought.

If I hadn’t experienced something similar I would feel a little skeptical. :(

[-] magnusrufus@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

Right, no one has ever hurt or even killed themselves because they couldn't handle the stress of their job...

[-] Government_Worker666@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Humans are emotional beings. Working for LTT is a dream job for lots of people in the industry including Madison. She was told to tough it out by numerous people (managers/coworkers) and that's what she was trying to do until she broke and had to come up with an excuse that they would have to accept.

[+] zacher_glachl@lemmy.world -12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Right, but still nobody is forcing you to continue in a job which it turns out is not a good fit for you. I for my part would consider working on SpaceX rockets a dream job but I know I need at least 16h of downtime every day and a weekend, so that is just not gonna happen.

And even if other company cultures are not as mercifully transparent, IMHO complaining about having to mutilate yourself when you could have just as well simply quit and not mutilate yourself is a bit much.

edit: And I'm not saying a company with this sigma grindset bullshit work culture is perfectly fine. It's not! That's why it makes even less sense to me to pour your lifeblood into it when this crap doesn't suit you.

[-] Government_Worker666@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

She didn't "complain" about harming herself. Nobody is asking what you would do in this situation. Somebody reiterated what she said and you called it bullshit. I was simply giving you the context of the situation. You're going to have a bad time in life if you expect everyone to act logically. Hell even your responses are emotional. I would suggest you read her messages

[-] Aceticon@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago

"Hell even your responses are emotional."

It's the greatest irony of all: pure logic would dictate there is no point in keeping on disputing this in the face on negative feedback and with nothing to gain from it.

In fact pure logic would dictate there is no point in commenting in social media if it's not going to lead to some concrete upside for the one commenting.

[-] Doug@midwest.social 7 points 1 year ago

I don't know what country you live in but are they accepting immigration?

[-] Im_old@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Had a shit boss and company owner years ago (and they were two different people, just to be clear). I was mid-senior in my field. At last straw of incompetence and greed I looked for a new job. Handed over my resignation two weeks later. Work in IT, live in Europe. Don't take shit.

[-] Aceticon@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In my experience, in Europe also, it really depends on the country, how senior you are and whether what you do inside IT is in high demand or not.

A junior/mid-level level social media marketing person in, for example, the UK, isn't going to have the same de facto possibility to tell them "screw you" and quit, as a senior systems designer-developer in, say, Germany.

Mind you, even in the UK, if said junior/mid-level social media marketing person is a permanent employee, he or she will have way, WAY, WAY more legal rights than in the US.

[-] Doug@midwest.social 1 points 1 year ago

Would love to emigrate to Europe myself. Familial and social reasons make that difficult. A lack of funds make it unfeasible. So for the foreseeable future I've gotta deal with the crap I've got.

[-] Vlhacs@reddthat.com 11 points 1 year ago

Want to quickly point out that this whole thing was probably prompted by LTT's Lab folks (who's responsible for testing I guess), publicly name-dropping Gamers Nexus when comparing how their own testing methodology was seemingly better.

[-] BlinkAndItsGone@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

Yeah, most of the answers here seem to miss that part. The LMG lab tech also called out Hardware Unboxed, who responded via Twitter, got flamed by Linus's fans, and that was the end of it. But it sounds like Gamers Nexus was already sick of LMG's shit and that clip was the last straw.

[-] Decoy321@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

This article explains it pretty well.

There's just a ton of stuff and it all came out of the woodwork once the chips started falling. I first became aware they existed over the Billet Labs nonsense.

From the article:

The controversy started earlier this week, when Gamers Nexus posted a video outlining a number of factual errors and ethics concerns in recent Linus Tech Tips videos. “We’ve been seeing an alarming amount of conflicts from Linus Tech Tips as it relates to their corporate connections, their flow of money, and the potential bias as a result of those things,” said Gamers Nexus host Steve Burke.

Burke’s biggest concern was around a GPU cooling block made by Billet Labs. According to Gamers Nexus, Linus Tech Tips reviewed a copper cooling block from Billet Labs on the wrong GPU, then auctioned it off at a recent fan event without the company’s permission.

this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2023

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