deceptive reviews and shoddy advertisement practices being cracked down on in youtube re Machinima/xbox 1

[shymi]

Not to take this OT, but I watch a lot of woodworking video's as well and I found it odd a few weeks ago that some of the top youtube woodworkers were all reviewing/giving praise to a certain company an all on the same products with video's dropping within hours of each other, but not disclosing that it was given to them for free or how they got it. 

 

I think this goes beyond just simple hardware reviews and in the tech community in general.

Well, the thread turn around discussing LTT and their hardware for editing, so that's why I asked it like that. But yes - it can be asked for any kind of channels.

 

P.S. I follow a channel about photography, which use Nikon cameras for filming, which are given and updated, when new model is released, by Nikon themselves.

[TheProfosist]

Ill get back to you guys after work tomorrow at the moment I need food and sleep. I can tell that some of you are a bit off track though.

[Helio_Vice]

thanks for your amazing contribution 

you for P.M !

If I recall correctly I was replying to someone. My contribution has already been made, sorry for thinking I can respond in jest to other people who like the people I do. Your sarcasm and response is probably far less contributive than mine, check yourself before you Shrek yourself. Your comments here have been largely ignorant and false anyway, you're not in a position to personally call anyone out for being "contributive". 

 

 

 

 

YOU GET IT> YES! 

people think I am just hating on Linus. I'm not Im a lover of the videos. but the other week I just lost it. Im being basically treated like a fool, and I dont appreciate it at all.

"I'm being basically treated like a fool, and I dont appreciate it at all."

 

Maybe because you're making accusations and you believe you know more about a completely transparent group and what they do, when you don't even work there? All you have is near baseless assumptions and inconclusive evidence, yet you try to pass it off as a "matter-of-fact." You act all huffy and puffy when you're responded to (Like Linus himself did) to say the reality, and yet you keep this ignorant thought process going. Of course people will question your motives and beliefs, because you're being nearly senseless. Provide us with evidence that back up your clams, or just do the adult thing, and stop. Besides, you're unnecessary sarcasm to me for no reason is another reason you're looked at as a fool.

[SpaceNugget]

for my personal riggs and my business. yes Linus. us "normal" people do

Thats not what he asked.

 

I am not saying this to be rude but you really aren't thinking very hard about the things you say or you really have a difficult time understanding some pretty basic concepts.

If you truly want this thread to be productive you need to slow down and try to look at things from a wider perspective. Also, be less inflammatory. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

[Rashy]

Things are going down in this thread

even linus is viewing this

[LogicalDrm]

Man do I wait to get home and typing. I'm starting to get good picture why people are overreacting and what this thread still lacks.

YOU GET IT> YES!

people think I am just hating on Linus. I'm not Im a lover of the videos. but the other week I just lost it. Im being basically treated like a fool, and I dont appreciate it at all.

Could you do me a favor? Please give example of video which doesn't have proper disclosure. That's what TB video is all about and we all keep referencing it.

[astranger200]

Linus I trust you and what you say. You have my complete and utter support against these arrogant/ignorant people

[You_are_a_cunt]

I see no reason why a reviewer shouldn't get paid to release a review. You can't expect someone to buy a $1000 GPU out of pocket just to see if it's good or bad or if it's worth the money. Afaik most review samples get sent back to the manufacturer once the reviewer is done with them.

 

OFC, getting paid to make the review shouldn't guarantee a positive review. It should be as fair and realistic as possible.

 

At the end of the day the manufacturer gets its share of advertising and the reviewer gets his/her hard worked payment. Some people actually make a living out of reviewing.

 

The FCC/FTC need to sort out their shit and crack down on people/companies paying for favorable reviews on crap merchandise, not honest reviewers that aren't biased by a paycheck.

[rentaspoon]

So quick question, since most of the specific examples people have brought up were either CLEARLY sponsored or NOT actually sponsored..

Has anyone ever actually been confused about an ACTUAL sponsored thing we've done?? (FYI the video for the Titan X cards is not out yet but iirc I mention where they came from, so let's leave that one out for now)

Does anyone here think I spend 10s of thousands of dollars a month on tech gear??

More just curious than anything else.

I don't think there is a single one where I have been confused nor have I ever brought a product solely on one of your reviews.

Your Titans I remember you saying hundreds of times on the WAN show, possibly on the Hex bug racing and I'm sure on the recent moving in blog you said that gigabyte/EVGA gave them to you (can't remember who, I don't think that matters)

Honestly this whole thing comes down to common sense, anybody can figure out you can't afford all these products so you must either get to keep them or send them back once your done, with that in mind I look out for any bias or conflict of interest and don't see any, you usually say EVGA/MSI sent us this or I bought this myself.

The only Youtuber I saw with a conflict of interest was Jayz2cents when he told people not to buy Thermaltake products because your taking money out of a Caselabs workers pockets, he disappointed me with that line and lost my subscription when he bitched about you moving to Vessel, he doesn't owe me an apology or anything and I picked up that COI myself.

The only issue I have is your lack of fan reviews, personally I'd like you to do more. And I think you could use Noctuas as the standard to beat (this is better/louder/less efficient/worse etc.)

Keep up the good work, if you HAVE to say certain thing like this is sponsored due to the law fine otherwise just stick to current standard.

[astranger200]

Linus I trust you and what you say. You have my complete and utter support against these arrogant/ignorant people

now who is with me.

Lets show linus some love @LinusTech

[SpaceNugget]

now who is with me.

Lets show linus some love @LinusTech

You are the kind of person to like your own status updates on facebook.

 

Being a strangely devoted fanboy/stalker will not help either point of view on this issue.

[Helio_Vice]

now who is with me.

Lets show linus some love @LinusTech

Linus I trust you and what you say. You have my complete and utter support against these arrogant/ignorant people

Blind fanboyism is unnecessary and unhelpful in topics such as this, it's cringy to a point to ask for a following of backers, when that's beside the point. If you wish to support LMG do so by defending points, not kissing their feet, so to speak. 

[LinusTech]

The R 285 budget/easier to run games 4k video was that sponsored? In hindsight watching it back I think it might have been. What about the choice of graphics card was that with LTT or did AMD recommend it/provide it along with the CPU and motherboard? Were the Kingston SSDs, Corsair RAM and the case etc chosen because they were the right fit for the budget or because they were what you had laying around from your sponsorship from those companies? Is any of this really clear?

 

Edit (adding the video for clarity):

 

 

This video was sponsored by AMD. My wording of "challenged by AMD" indicated that AMD issued us a challenge to build a 4K gaming PC using their components with a given retail price target, but it didn't affect our representation of the results of the challenge.

 

AND I'd like to point out this also WASN'T a review. 

 

We built a computer (build log) and benchmarked it. The money affected our decision to create the video in the first place, but not the results. We made it very clear to AMD that if the gaming experienced sucked donkey balls they were going to have to live with us saying "we built this thing and the gaming experience sucked donkey balls"

 

As for the rest of the components, we picked whatever we wanted. If we happened to have something we wanted lying around we threw it in, and if we didn't we fired an email over to our press contact for the appropriate hardware vendor and they sent it over.

How does anyone who has watched our videos for any kind of extended period of time not know this??

 

For everyone's reference.. Tech influencers and reviewers usually aren't paying for hardware unless they feel like it (Not that I haven't defended plenty of negative reviews, but I bought my Pono Player just so I wouldn't have to deal with the bitchy email from a PR rep, for example) or can't get access to a sample or something (we bought our iMac 27in Retina for this reason). It's news to me that this wasn't already crystal clear. How do you think we get early access to this stuff??

That's why so much noise is getting made about [H] and Tech Report not receiving a Fury Nano from AMD right now. BECAUSE NORMALLY THEY WOULD!

 

I don't know why anyone thinks these people would be paying for hardware.. Does anyone assume a film reviewer buy a ticket to an early screening?? Does anyone assume a food critic pays for the meal? Are they expected to purge it afterward and give it back?

 

So bottom line is this: We ALWAYS appreciate constructive criticism here at Linus Media Group - especially when it underlines an issue we weren't aware of - and now that we've collectively gotten past some of the early accusations that we're on the take and it's affecting our product recommendations, we'll look into how we can revise our best practices in the future to avoid any of the confusion I didn't know existed.. but in the meantime here's the bottom line: 

 

I haven't bought a graphics card for my personal rig (I have bought many others for other projects) since the ATI X850 Pro, which died a couple times and through Future Shop's extended warranty was eventually replaced with a GTX 260 iirc, and I haven't bought a CPU since I picked up an open box Q6600 around the time that launched from my boss on the cheap. That should give you some idea how often I pay for tech stuff for my own use, and this REALLY shouldn't surprise anyone who realizes that NBA athletes aren't paying for their shoes.. 

 

I can basically snap my fingers and conjure pretty  much any consumer-grade computer hardware on the planet. This is across the board, mind you.. so it doesn't create any kind of loyalty to a particular brand unless they make the fastest/most reliable hardware - in which case that's not loyalty.. that's evaluating the available options and choosing the best one (my job)..

 

TLDR: if I didn't say I paid for it, then assume I didn't. If I didn't say I'm sending it back, then assume I'm not. 

 

With this rule there will be many cases where I *DID* pay for it, or I *DID* have to send it back and you'll have assumed the opposite, but frankly it doesn't matter. It wouldn't have affected the content either way, and I'd rather err on the side of caution.

[LinusTech]

The only issue I have is your lack of fan reviews, personally I'd like you to do more. And I think you could use Noctuas as the standard to beat (this is better/louder/less efficient/worse etc.)

Keep up the good work, if you HAVE to say certain thing like this is sponsored due to the law fine otherwise just stick to current standard.

 

We don't do fan reviews because we (and pretty much everyone else) lack the equipment to test them at all properly.

 

Corsair has one of the machines you need, and it takes up like 20sqft and costs 10s of thousands of dollars

[Ultragunner]

@LinusTech: the TL;DR at the end of the day is that from now on, in every video you should consider to explicitly say something like "This video is sponsored by...", or "this product is sent by...but we didn't receive any money", or "I reached out for this project because I think it's cool"....

and lastly DO NOT make assumptions that the viewers know about this, you HAVE TO make it extremely EXPLICIT and OBVIOUS

[Quincy15]

We don't do fan reviews because we (and pretty much everyone else) lack the equipment to test them at all properly.

 

Corsair has one of the machines you need, and it takes up like 20sqft and costs 10s of thousands of dollars

 

I think after Linus latest two posts this thread should be locked. We have sufficiently made our points to Linus withy reference to the advertising and sponsored videos and its something that he is going to review in the future. We have had our say, you can never say that this forum censors content.

 

Thanks all,

[BrightCandle]

It should also be noted that despite an admission here of some guilt we need to also make complaints with the ASA and FCC so that they are aware of this and can help guide his actions as to what needs fixing both historically and now into the future.

[Quincy15]

It should also be noted that despite an admission here of some guilt we need to also make complaints with the ASA and FCC so that they are aware of this and can help guide his actions as to what needs fixing both historically and now into the future.

 

No just no. Linus has said he will look at the sponsored content in the future and lets let him do that. Are you going to report nearly every tech reviewer along with him?

[TheProfosist]

Things are going down in this thread

suspense.png

even linus is viewing this

Autobots Roll Out!

[Optimus Prime]

Please can the mods just lock this thread now. Linus has more than made his point and so have other the other members of this forum.

Also the sense of entitlement and SJW comments annoy the crap outta me, especially since this is a free forum and with the exception of Vessel which only offers early access no pay wall video content and a minority of people just want to rip on LMG. Also if you are only getting your information from LMG than you are doing it wrong, compare what you see on their video's with the what other people have published online. Read the review sections of Newegg and Amazon, the forums like OCN & LTT and than make up your mind. Lastly I have never has any confusion in respect to video's that where or where not sponsored, perhaps a high level of reading comprehension and intelligence has a factor to play. 

P.S I did not proof read what I just wrote so if I made grammatical mistakes than so be it.

 

Autobots Roll Out!

I had to seize the moment when this forum opened up. For the sake of Humanity and Cybertron

[vXhanz]

It should also be noted that despite an admission here of some guilt we need to also make complaints with the ASA and FCC so that they are aware of this and can help guide his actions as to what needs fixing both historically and now into the future.

 

What? That is so not necessary. At all. 

 

The discussion was presented, drawn out, and Linus responded to everything. Why not give him the benefit of the doubt, let him make changes (if any need to be made), etc.  I don't know him personally, but he seems like a nice guy and pretty genuine, and I'm guessing he will do his own research into this. No point throwing him under the bus "just because". 

[AdmiralDonut]

I thought that the ASC was fairly clear on paid advertisements, Linus. Your video failed, in every way, to abide by the law. You should probably start taking such things a little more seriously from now on.

[BrightCandle]

I thought that the ASC was fairly clear on paid advertisements, Linus. Your video failed, in every way, to abide by the law. You should probably start taking such things a little more seriously from now on.

I could not find anything in regards to the ASC and paid content, all I found was some guidance on the law from 1967. Do you have a more up to date link on where they might take issue with this and the other issues raised (but so far not addressed like native advertising)?

 

Edit:

Someone provided the following - http://www.adstandards.com/en/standards/canCodeOfAdStandards.aspx

 

So yes it does look like Canada has very similar laws to the USA and UK in this regard. I am not expert but it looks like Linus you may have broken the law.

[Quincy15]

I could not find anything in regards to the ASC and paid content, all I found was some guidance on the law from 1967. Do you have a more up to date link on where they might take issue with this and the other issues raised (but so far not addressed like native advertising)?

 

You really should not bother wasting your time dude seriously.

 

Linus is reviewing this so stop

[linuxfan66]

I could not find anything in regards to the ASC and paid content, all I found was some guidance on the law from 1967. Do you have a more up to date link on where they might take issue with this and the other issues raised (but so far not addressed like native advertising)?

Edit:

Someone provided the following - http://www.adstandards.com/en/standards/canCodeOfAdStandards.aspx

So yes it does look like Canada has very similar laws to the USA and UK in this regard. I am not expert but it looks like Linus you may have broken the law.

Nice research work by the way...