Reviewer Ethics

[blue2kid3]

It kills me to feel like this and to jump into this but maybe it is just me. 

 

 After thinking about it for months and months I felt I should voice my concerns directly to the source. 

 

 I strongly feel that LTT including Linus has become very Unethical. Now I will state I DO NOT think Linus or anyone at LTT is a bad person in anyway. In fact I would say they are good people.

 

 I just feel Linus and LTT should no longer be trusted as an unbias review site / Youtube channel.

 

 I encourage you to make your own opinions on the subject. 

 

 What are Ethics in reviews, what is inappropriate and how do you stay unbias? 

 

 Pay to Play: It is unethical to keep the product after a review ( unless purchased from retailer with own company or individual funds) 

 It is unethical to be compensated in exchange to review a product regardless if its positive or negative in conclusion.

 

 What is okay? It is okay to have advertisement but advertisement must be clearly outlined and opinions must remain out of a payed advertisement I.E. It is unethical to say in an ad this is the best product we have seen. A review must be objective and can have option. An advertisement should not cross "contaminate" a reviewers opinion I.E. "This is the best product we have ever used at our company" 

 

 It is more my opinion that sponsored content is wrong by both using products for personal gain, and using sponsored content as if it is beneficial for a consumer. Why? Because sponsored content will have a context of give and take it is not a zero sum gain. Sponsored content is always in the light as if it was a review or objective and something a consumer can trust and take another word for, however that is the exact opposite purpose of sponsored content. In a typical commercial you will always see why brand A) is always better than brand B) this is easy to dismiss and think critically as you know company A will always put product A in a better light than product B in sponsored content this should never be the case as it leans far to heavily on your trust with an unbias reviewer so it is much more difficult to separate or discern when product A is getting its best foot forward. IE a 3090 playing a cherry picked list of games because that is the goal of sponsored content and is anti viewer and anti consumer. 

 

 

 I don't want to make anyone feel any way to strongly about this post. All I want is for those to maybe become encouraged to think for themselves and hopefully have more transparency and improved Ethics at LTT.

 

 

 With only love - Bluekid

 

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by blue2kid3

[kelvinhall05]

4 minutes ago, blue2kid3 said:

 I just feel Linus and LTT should no longer be trusted as an unbias review site / Youtube channel.

Were they ever?

4 minutes ago, blue2kid3 said:

It is unethical to keep the product after a review ( unless purchased from retailer with own company or individual funds) 

 It is unethical to be compensated in exchange to review a product regardless if its positive or negative in conclusion.

That's why their sponsored product videos are produced and titled as showcases, not reviews.

5 minutes ago, blue2kid3 said:

It is okay to have advertisement but advertisement must be clearly outlined and opinions must remain out of a payed advertisement I.E. It is unethical to say in an ad this is the best product we have seen. A review must be objective and can have option. An advertisement should not cross "contaminate" a reviewers opinion I.E. "This is the best product we have ever used at our company" 

Afaik they do not do this. They may only share their positive opinions, but I don't believe they would outright lie about them. I do agree that it would be unethical, but they don't do it.

 

 

I'm not even gonna read the rest of your post. If you don't like the videos, don't watch them. If you want a review, don't watch a sponsored showcase.

[Chronified]

@LinusTech

[Ravendarat]

11 minutes ago, blue2kid3 said:

It kills me to feel like this and to jump into this but maybe it is just me. 

 

 After thinking about it for months and months I felt I should voice my concerns directly to the source. 

 

 I strongly feel that LTT including Linus has become very Unethical. Now I will state I DO NOT think Linus or anyone at LTT is a bad person in anyway. In fact I would say they are good people.

 

 I just feel Linus and LTT should no longer be trusted as an unbias review site / Youtube channel.

 

 I encourage you to make your own opinions on the subject. 

 

 What are Ethics in reviews, what is inappropriate and how do you stay unbias? 

 

 Pay to Play: It is unethical to keep the product after a review ( unless purchased from retailer with own company or individual funds) 

 It is unethical to be compensated in exchange to review a product regardless if its positive or negative in conclusion.

 

 What is okay? It is okay to have advertisement but advertisement must be clearly outlined and opinions must remain out of a payed advertisement I.E. It is unethical to say in an ad this is the best product we have seen. A review must be objective and can have option. An advertisement should not cross "contaminate" a reviewers opinion I.E. "This is the best product we have ever used at our company" 

 

 It is more my opinion that sponsored content is wrong by both using products for personal gain, and using sponsored content as if it is beneficial for a consumer. Why? Because sponsored content will have a context of give and take it is not a zero sum gain. Sponsored content is always in the light as if it was a review or objective and something a consumer can trust and take another word for, however that is the exact opposite purpose of sponsored content. In a typical commercial you will always see why brand A) is always better than brand B) this is easy to dismiss and think critically as you know company A will always put product A in a better light than product B in sponsored content this should never be the case as it leans far to heavily on your trust with an unbias reviewer so it is much more difficult to separate or discern when product A is getting its best foot forward. IE a 3090 playing a cherry picked list of games because that is the goal of sponsored content and is anti viewer and anti consumer. 

 

 

 I don't want to make anyone feel any way to strongly about this post. All I want is for those to maybe become encouraged to think for themselves and hopefully have more transparency and improved Ethics at LTT.

 

 

 With only love - Bluekid

 

 

I strongly disagree with many of your points here. First off the pay to play point. It is not unethical to keep a product after the review so long as BEFORE the review when LTT talks to the company they make it clear that keeping the product or not would have no baring on the end result of the review. At that point if the company tells the staff to keep the product regardless than that's no harm no foul in my eyes.

 

Secondly the Sponsored spots. They make it ABDUNANTLY clear over and over and over again what a sponsored spot is and make the videos very clearly labeled that they are sponsored. They do more than enough to inform the viewer that the video is not a review. If the viewer STILL takes that as a review that's THEIR fault. At some point people need to accept personal responsibility for themselves. There is already to much hand holding and white glove handling of people in this world, LTT does more than enough in this case to be able to wipe their hands clean IMO.

 

As you said in your post, its just your opinion and you have every right to see it that way, but me and you definitely see this very very differently 

[Blademaster91]

It isn't unethical to keep a product, as long as the reviewer is allowed to do an unbiased review,  for example look at HW Unboxed and companies getting upset over their reviews.

But I think the sponsor spots are kinda unethical, videos aren't even marked as being a "showcase" anymore so you're forced to click on a video and read the description in order to know if the video is a sponsor spot for some product.

I personally got tired of the clickbait and no clear difference between a review and a sponsored product overlook, so I don't take LTT as a review channel anymore, IMO they're more of an entertainment channel. I watch other channels for reviews and in depth analasys of products i'm seriously interested in.

 

[Ravendarat]

4 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

It isn't unethical to keep a product, as long as the reviewer is allowed to do an unbiased review,  for example look at HW Unboxed and companies getting upset over their reviews.

But I think the sponsor spots are kinda unethical, videos aren't even marked as being a "showcase" anymore so you're forced to click on a video and read the description in order to know if the video is a sponsor spot for some product.

I personally got tired of the clickbait and no clear difference between a review and a sponsored product overlook, so I don't take LTT as a review channel anymore, IMO they're more of an entertainment channel. I watch other channels for reviews and in depth analasys of products i'm seriously interested in.

 

The videos already have a giant banner that say "sponsored by ........." immediately at the start. Seems like pretty clear marking

[blue2kid3]

1 minute ago, Blademaster91 said:

It isn't unethical to keep a product, as long as the reviewer is allowed to do an unbiased review,  for example look at HW Unboxed and companies getting upset over their reviews.

But I think the sponsor spots are kinda unethical, videos aren't even marked as being a "showcase" anymore so you're forced to click on a video and read the description in order to know if the video is a sponsor spot for some product.

I personally got tired of the clickbait and no clear difference between a review and a sponsored product overlook, so I don't take LTT as a review channel anymore, IMO they're more of an entertainment channel. I watch other channels for reviews and in depth analasys of products i'm seriously interested in.

 

Completely agree about the entertainment channel and I'm okay with that.

 

This is also one of the only mediums where you expect to keep the products, bike industry nope, audio industry is starting to go that way but most older companies nope. Even denon refused "to work with a huge youtuber" as letting reviewers keep products is against their code of ethics and some written based review companies do not allow reviewers to keep products as it's against their code of ethics.

[blue2kid3]

1 minute ago, Ravendarat said:

The videos already have a giant banner that say "sponsored by ........." immediately at the start. Seems like pretty clear marking

I said that that is 100% ethical. There is nothing wrong with having ads or sponsor spots 

[Chris Pratt]

I never understand this sentiment. Part of what actually makes Linus and the rest of LTT ethical is that they do clearly draw a line between reviews and product showcases/sponsorships. If it is a review, an actual review, then it's treated with the highest level of non-bias. When it's just showing off something cool or sponsored, or like the stuff Linus is adding to his home, etc., it's not a review. Linus has clearly laid out the differences multiple times over the course of various videos and WAN shows.

 

The problem is that people take stuff out of context, or don't really understand or know what actually constitutes a review.

[Ravendarat]

2 minutes ago, blue2kid3 said:

I said that that is 100% ethical. There is nothing wrong with having ads or sponsor spots 

I was referring to the post above mine, not your op.

[Roswell]

25 minutes ago, Ravendarat said:

The videos already have a giant banner that say "sponsored by ........." immediately at the start. Seems like pretty clear marking

To be fair, “sponsored by” is intentionally vague language. It could be anything from supplying the item, paying for a straight up ad, funding costs for a project, etc.

 

LTT and many other YouTubers get away with absolute murder, skirting all kinds of federal regulations around advertisement disclosures because they’re operating under a loophole, making content for a platform. Since YouTube isn’t responsible for creator content following stuff like FTC law, creators can do whatever they want.

 

If LTT was broadcasting their content on TV like this they would end up getting fined left and right by the government and amass all kinds of lawsuits.

[da na]

They have never been the channel I go to for legit reviews (That's GN for me) - I go to LTT for the fun ideas and crazy builds, knowing most product reviews are sponsored. 

[blue2kid3]

5 minutes ago, Roswell said:

To be fair, “sponsored by” is intentionally vague language. It could be anything from supplying the item, paying for a straight up ad, funding costs for a project, etc.

 

LTT and many other YouTubers get away with absolute murder, skirting all kinds of federal regulations around advertisement disclosures because they’re operating under a loophole, making content for a platform. Since YouTube isn’t responsible for creator content following stuff like FCC law, creators can do whatever they want.

 

If LTT was broadcasting their content on TV like this they would end up getting fined left and right by the government and amass all kinds of lawsuits.

Someone actually gets it. And it's clear now I'm old and old school and people are just okay with it. I don't want ltt to get shut down or feel hurt by this I just want them to improve. I also see a clear misunderstanding between a company and a relationship so it's okay for us to call out nvidia or Intel when they do something we feel is wrong but not LTT  Is corporation? 

[blue2kid3]

Also didn't a past wan show say that linus would keep ads off the forums but now I'm looking at a secret labs chair ad. It's not about a specific thing that bothers me but that the bar gets set lower and lower for LTT ethics and sticking to their word

[Roswell]

6 minutes ago, blue2kid3 said:

Someone actually gets it. And it's clear now I'm old and old school and people are just okay with it. I don't want ltt to get shut down or feel hurt by this I just want them to improve. I also see a clear misunderstanding between a company and a relationship so it's okay for us to call out nvidia or Intel when they do something we feel is wrong but not LTT  Is corporation? 

I went back and forth with a lot more information in this thread: 

 

 

Explains the situation a lot better, I just don’t have the energy right now to retype an essay in this thread, lol.

 

You’re going to have issues on this forum getting your point across on this because it’s filled with fanboyism and people that don’t understand the laws and regulations that content creators are able to dodge.

[KaitouX]

1 hour ago, blue2kid3 said:

It is unethical to keep the product after a review

For a review to be useful it needs to compare to other current and (recent) past products, for the data to be accurate(for new releases) you need to retest older hardware with current hardware and software, to retest it you need to keep the product, this is particularly true for GPUs and CPUs where the performance can fluctuate a lot based on the software used/tested, and the games/applications used to benchmark often change from one generation to the next, making older results impossible to compare against new ones. For LTT it probably would be financially possible to buy it themselves, but for many other reviewers it isn't.

40 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

But I think the sponsor spots are kinda unethical, videos aren't even marked as being a "showcase" anymore so you're forced to click on a video and read the description in order to know if the video is a sponsor spot for some product.

I agree with this, the lack of tags in titles in sponsored content is ridiculous in my opinion, and that isn't only about LTT, but Youtube in general.

I personally think sponsored content should have at least two of three requirements, one is to have "Sponsored" somewhere visible in the thumbnail, the other is to have "Sponsored" at the start of the title, to avoid things like "This product is amazing and incredibly cheap - Brand YYY Product ZZZ..." with the "Sponsored" hidden as the last word in the title, making it invisible until you hover or click it. The third is to have "Sponsored/Advertisement" written in some corner of the video during the entire sponsored section of the videos. The thumbnail requirement might be a bit unnecessary if the title already makes it obvious enough though. Some of these are already done in some countries in some way, but in my opinion should be made more obvious and more countries should adopt these requirements.

[blue2kid3]

9 minutes ago, Roswell said:

I went back and forth with a lot more information in this thread: 

 

 

Explains the situation a lot better, I just don’t have the energy right now to retype an essay in this thread, lol.

 

You’re going to have issues on this forum getting your point across on this because it’s filled with fanboyism and people that don’t understand the laws and regulations that content creators are able to dodge.

I can not believe I missed this and I am happy that others feel similar. If I was 20 and under I would watch linus's video and probably fall victims to becoming a super consumer and would not have see the separation of the videos and back around 2015 in our friend group it was common to say "linus said X so its true" and there was no argument as we knew we could trust him and I would like to go back to that

[Roswell]

1 minute ago, KaitouX said:

I agree with this, the lack of tags in titles in sponsored content is ridiculous in my opinion, and that isn't only about LTT, but Youtube in general.

I personally think sponsored content should have at least two of three requirements, one is to have "Sponsored" somewhere visible in the thumbnail, the other is to have "Sponsored" at the start of the title, to avoid things like "This product is amazing and incredibly cheap - Brand YYY Product ZZZ..." with the "Sponsored" hidden as the last word in the title, making it invisible until you hover or click it. The third is to have "Sponsored/Advertisement" written in some corner of the video during the entire sponsored section of the videos. The thumbnail requirement might be a bit unnecessary if the title already makes it obvious enough though. Some of these are already done in some countries in some way, but in my opinion should be made more obvious and more countries should adopt these requirements.

They should just follow consumer regulation and follow FTC law. For example, these "showcase" videos should plainly display "PAID ADVERTISEMENT" along the bottom or top of the video just like they do on television. They need to stop gaming loopholes because they're unregulated on YouTube if they want to continue virtue signaling for "the consumer" in their videos when they whine about other companies.

[KaitouX]

6 minutes ago, Roswell said:

They should just follow consumer regulation and follow FTC law. For example, these "showcase" videos should plainly display "PAID ADVERTISEMENT" along the bottom or top of the video just like they do on television. They need to stop gaming loopholes because they're unregulated on YouTube if they want to continue virtue signaling for "the consumer" in their videos when they whine about other companies.

I don't think showing it in the video is enough, Youtube is an on-demand platform, making people have to click on the video to see if it is or isn't an advertisement doesn't seem right to me.

In Germany it's a requirement to have it during the entire section of the video that is an ad/sponsored, but it still is annoying to click on it only to see it's an ad.

[Roswell]

6 minutes ago, KaitouX said:

I don't think showing it in the video is enough, Youtube is an on-demand platform, making people have to click on the video to see if it is or isn't an advertisement doesn't seem right to me.

In Germany it's a requirement to have it during the entire section of the video that is an ad/sponsored, but it still is annoying to click on it only to see it's an ad.

I totally agree. You know how YouTube shows "Ad" in the corner of ad videos on the thumbnail and overlaid on the video itself? That's because they're required to by law. If LMG was following the same regulations that YouTube has to follow, they would put the term "Ad" or "Advertisement" in the video title or thumbnail. In addition I think they should be forced to put the "PAID ADVERTISEMENT" text permanently in the video as well, just like TV ads have to do if the ad is presented as journalistic content.

[blue2kid3]

For everyone saying the sponsored content is clear here is all the information about sponsors. So did glass wire pay for the wifi  

[Middcore]

4 minutes ago, blue2kid3 said:

For everyone saying the sponsored content is clear here is all the information about sponsors. So did glass wire pay for the wifi  

 

This video is not a review and makes absolutely no claim to be one so I don't know what your point is. Are you saying you think it should say sponsored by Ruckus or something?

[Roswell]

27 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

This video is not a review and makes absolutely no claim to be one so I don't know what your point is. Are you saying you think it should say sponsored by Ruckus or something?

Linus took free stuff from Ruckus and didn't disclose it whatsoever until waaaaay into video. Not in the title, not in the description, not disclosed at the beginning of the video...

 

That video is actually particularly egregious in how blatantly they're deceiving the audience. They're not even following YouTube policy at this point, let alone actual law.

 

I missed the part where he said "sent over". Still though...

[Middcore]

Just now, Roswell said:

Linus took free stuff from Ruckus and didn't disclose it whatsoever until waaaaay into video. Not in the title, not in the description, not disclosed at the beginning of the video...

 

That video is actually particularly egregious in how blatantly they're deceiving the audience. They're not even following YouTube policy at this point, let alone actual law.

 

It's not a review. What is the audience being deceived about? Are we suggesting all the wifi speeds he shows are fake because he got the gear for free?

[Roswell]

1 minute ago, Middcore said:

 

It's not a review. What is the audience being deceived about? Are we suggesting all the wifi speeds he shows are fake because he got the gear for free?

I missed that he said "sent over", but even then, it's highly questionable with zero disclosure in the description. Why should they they be transparent about doing paid advertisements? Are you really arguing that?