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BatchTheBrit

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  1. It should be necessary on videos by other writers and it takes very little effort to do so (a 5-10 second disclaimer at the start of the video). While the other writers may not be directly influenced by Linus's investment there is still a financial incentive for the OWNER of the company. This can lead to editorial changes to content that would not happen if there was no investment, consciously or otherwise. It would also speak to the overall structure of the company but that is still something that the audience needs to be aware of and should be disclosed. As for advertising relationships, it depends where you personally draw the line. If they're reviewing/covering a product from a company that they have an active advertising relationship with (i.e. are being paid by them) I think that should be made clear in the video. But that's my own standard that I can only establish if I'm made aware of that potential conflict. I personally have issues with the Hyundai laptop video being sponsored by another company that also makes laptops but that's just my standard. I'm not suggesting they change their advertising policies or Linus sell his Framework shares, I just want them to be open about these issues so the audience can make their own decision on the validity of the content. The exact mechanism behind how there could be potential ethical issues is irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make. The standard for a conflict of interest doesn't take these things into account, it only requires there to be a material connection to two conflicting interests. Also it doesn't matter that Framework is a legitimate player now, if they're comparing Framework products to another product it should absolutely be disclosed that the company's owner also owns part of Framework. There is no way to objectively review tech unless you're literally just listing specs with no personal impressions of actually using the device. No LMG content is, or will ever be, like that so I'm confused by this point. I would argue that it's just as important to disclose the investment for other laptop reviews/videos as it is in Framework videos. LMG coverage of competing products can, by extension, change the perception of Framework and potentially their sales as well. For example, if they stress the lack of reparability and upgradability on a competing product they can indirectly improve the perception of Framework's laptops, especially if they later use Framework as an example of upgradability done right. They wouldn't be wrong by complimenting Framework's excellent reparability. However, you will then never be able to discern whether this true statement was said because it's true or because there's a vested interest in improving Framework's perception. I'm asking for there to be a disclaimer so the viewers are "educated" about the conflict of interest before they watch the content. Not every viewer of LMG content is aware of the Framework investment. I am stressing the need for more information availability so people can make better decisions. You are actually agreeing with me here. I mention above that it will be hard to discern whether claims made about products are influenced by the Framework investment. But I can give an example. In the Ali Express Laptop video they call HP "certified dickheads" for putting screws under the laptop feet (16:30). They then do the same for Chuwi. Again, these are true, if somewhat hyperbolic, statements considering how consumer-friendly reparability is. They then mention Framework 2 minutes later with a very short and missable investment disclaimer, albeit in a discussion about battery life. I'm almost certain that this was done just because Framework had published a blog post that was relevant to the battery issues found on the Chuwi, but you cannot be certain that there was no incentive to include a reference to Framework, even in passing, so they'd look good comparatively. Again, I'm NOT saying that this is happening (and it's not the best example) but there is the potential for it to happen and that must be disclosed. I hope this clarifies a few things
  2. Oh yeah of course! Gotta say I miss the old annotation days on YT.
  3. This would be perfect at the bottom of the video during the intro or something. I feel like putting it in the description makes it easily missed. Advertisement disclaimers on YT are both in description and on the videos themselves
  4. I think you're misunderstanding my point. I'm totally aware that Linus is the one who invested in Framework, not LMG. I'm also aware Linus stepped down as CEO. The issue comes from OWNERSHIP. Whether or not Linus is in the video, or is as involved in the day-to-day as he used to be, is irrelevant. As far as I'm aware Linus is still the majority shareholder/owner of LMG. He owns LMG (a comparatively massive media company in this space) and a company that is both covered by LMG videos and competes with other companies that are covered by LMG videos. There is a monetary conflict of interest there for the owner of the company and by extension the whole company in general, since, as owner, he still has a lot of control over the direction of LMG. Would you trust, say, MotorTrend to ethically cover Tesla products if they were partially owned by Elon Musk? (Not the best analogy, but it's the best I've got at 5am). These conflicts can lead to unethical journalistic practices and, as one of the largest voices in the industry that holds great sway on the opinions of millions of people, LMG should be held to those high journalistic standards when it comes to these sorts of issues. I mostly trust them to remain unbiased but the CoI still remains and should be disclosed in videos covering laptops. I'm not saying that LMG needs to disclose everything that Linus has invested in, only the investments that would be affected by the coverage and content of LMG. The other presenters are allowed their own thoughts, I completely agree. I'm not saying that the videos or his work was somehow invalidated by the lack of a disclaimer. However a disclaimer would also not harm the video and would potentially add MORE legitimacy to these videos as they'd be approaching these conflicts openly and honestly.
  5. Thanks for the bump, it was just something I'd noticed creeping in and thought it was best to mention it. Completely agree on the timing though.
  6. Hi everyone. Something I've noticed over the last year or so is how inconsistent LMG are with their investment disclosures. These disclosures are often short or easily missed, and in ShortCircuit videos (at least the ones I've seen) they aren't mentioned at all! As frequent viewers are aware, Linus invested in Framework 2 years ago and has been posting fairly frequent updates on the main channel. They also committed to disclosing the investment in any videos that cover laptops since Linus has invested in their competition. While they have been disclosing the investment in LTT videos, the disclosure is oftentimes placed towards the end of a video and/or mentioned in passing. In some ShortCircuit videos on laptops, this isn't mentioned AT ALL. In the AliExpress laptop video posted to LTT last week, the investment disclosure was made at 19:30 in a 22 minute video with Linus briefly saying "investment disclosure" in the middle of a run-on sentence about USB and CPU power management. This disclosure would be easy to miss if you're not looking for it and many viewers don't make it 20 minutes into a video. While this may seem incredibly nit-picky for frequent viewers who are already aware of the investment, this does not serve as an adequate disclosure of a potential conflict of interest, especially for newer viewers. What isn't acceptable though is completely missing this disclosure on other channels. The XPS 15 video on the 28th July and the Hyundai laptop video on 5th October do not mention the framework investment at all. The Hyundai video hilariously even includes an MSI sponsorship which mentions "Looking for a laptop for next semester? Well they've got those!". In a video about another company's laptop. While ShortCircuit videos aren't necessarily reviews, they are first impressions that are used as information for purchasing decisions. While it is often another person on-camera, the video is still on a channel owned by LMG and is thus owned by Linus, who has also invested in Framework. Despite it being on a different channel with a different presenter, this still constitutes a conflict of interest and MUST be disclosed. I don't want to attribute to malice something that could easily have been missed, but giving consumers the financial context behind the content they're watching is vitally important on all channels owned by LMG. Content creators on YouTube are already required, by law, to disclose any advertising in their videos in clear and obvious ways. These standards should also be followed for potential conflicts of interest originating from financial investments. It doesn't have to be anything long or overly wordy, but a brief "Hi, I invested into Framework, a competing brand that also manufactures laptops. Do with that information as you wish" at the start of any laptop video would be much better. It's clear, concise, and crucially, at the start of the video. This way it cannot be missed. While I, for the most part, trust LTT to not allow the Framework investment to colour their laptop content or reviews; the disclosure is vital for transparency in an increasingly opaque media landscape. Unfortunately this is a discussion adjacent to conflict of interest in the tech influencer space in general (i.e. reviewing or featuring products from companies that are paying for sponsored ad space, even if the ads are placed on other videos) and has lead to an atmosphere of "trust me bro" in the industry. While I have been able to trust some of these people through their great track-record, limiting conflict of interest is still vitally important. Addressing CoI doesn't mean that the sketchy collusion is happening, but we should want to limit the circumstances where they COULD happen. In turn that will limit the circumstances in which they DO happen. I want to trust LTT, I've been here since the GTX 580 days (damn, it's been 12 years), and I'm aware that there are many other problems that need addressing right now. I don't want to just jump into a dog-pile but making clear and obvious investment disclaimers is a consumer-friendly change that will give people vitally important context into the content they're watching. If I've got anything wrong I'm sure people will let me know and I welcome any corrections. Otherwise I hope this feedback finds the right people
  7. I've swapped the drives and the exact same thing happens. I also tried putting my boot drive into the bottom slot and it boots normally when I do that. So there's something about this drive that my mobo doesn't like. I guess a bios flash might help? I'll have another look at the bios settings with the drive out and see how it goes lol
  8. I'll have a look. Only problems is that my boot drive is also an M.2 so I'm not sure how much it'll help.
  9. So I bought a WD Black SN850 Gen 4 NVME ssd to add some more high-speed storage to my PC. I've just put the drive in and screwed everything down. It posted but will now not continue past the post screen and actually launch windows. I was thinking that it might be a boot priority issue but for some reason I can't enter the BIOS to change these settings. No matter how much I mash delete or F2, I can't enter bios so I can't change these settings. I've checked to make sure that this slot is gen 4 compatible and it is. The pc works fine with the drive removed but I'm in desperate need for some more capacity. My current boot drive is a gen 3 SN750 and I'll list my specs below: Ryzen 3700x ASUS Tuf Gaming X570-plus 32gb Corsair Vengeance 2666 RTX 2080 Super Not sure if any other specs would be relevant but can attach if needed. Any help would be awesome as I'm hella stumped here! Thanks!
  10. I have an old i3 6100 pc kicking around collecting dust and I was thinking of turning it into a NAS for storing game recordings and as a plex box as well because I'm running out of drive space in my case. I was originally thinking of just getting an external HDD and being done with it but it'd be a good little project for me to work on. I'm confident I'll be able to set it up but will I be able to record game footage straight to the NAS over LAN? I cba to transfer files at the end of each session but being able to record straight to the networked drives would be great! I'm also hoping to edit these files in Premiere after the fact. Are there any considerations I need to make when building and configuring this thing to be able to do all of this? I know I might want to add a network card for faster ethernet but apart from that I'm not sure. Any help would be great, thanks!
  11. Yeah could spend the extra €70 on a Ryzen 5 3600? Otherwise a good build tbf.
  12. They are just solder spots to ground the motherboard to the case and don't have any impact on the usability of the motherboard. I've done the same thing with a jammed standoff and the motherboard works fine! Don't worry, you shouldn't have damaged it!
  13. Hi guys, I'm planning on getting a decent 27/32" gaming monitor at some point during the black friday sales and I want to mount my current 24" monitor above it vertically but have a couple of concerns: Will any monitor arm be able to achieve the needed height above the new monitor? If not any suggestions for specific monitor arms would be fantastic. I use some cheapo IKEA desk and will need to clamp the stand to it as I don't have a lot of desk space. Will any desk be able to support the weight of the monitor? For those who have their monitors set up like this do you have any "before you try" suggestions or tips? Cheers!
  14. I hope so, but unfortunately Sky are a bit of a pain when it comes to that sort of thing
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