Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[Princess Luna]

I am disappointed at the proportion this issue has taken. I'm with both LTT and Hardware Unboxed since the beginning of both channels in YouTube and I always appreciated both tremendously for what they were.

 

Seeing LTT attack HW in such a mediocre manner has been upsetting. I don't often have the patience to watch Gamer Nexus videos but I gotta say, that video was a bomb of reality that LTT should pay attention to and try to improve from, I have rewatched more than once at this point.

[dynastes]

12 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

Real journalists reach out for comment regardless of whether or not it impacts the viability of their story, that's journalism and you're putting words in Linus's mouth with the whole lawyer Comment. in the history of the history of LMG not once has he ever ever gotten a lawyer involved that I am aware of. He generally owns up to his mistakes and handles them despite being attacked on all sides if there was ever a time where Linus or Taryn should be reaching for the legal option, it's now because this is basically slander because the difference between slander and a newspiece is that a newspiece you reach out for comment with slander you don't

You are genuinely clueless.

 

 

I am out. GN8, people.

[Nachmanowicz]

1 minute ago, Simondo87 said:

I think you mean auctioned...  

Thank god it was auctioned, imagine if it was actually traded for a Funko Pop collection? That would sting....

[smcoakley]

2 minutes ago, coopa said:

Quite frankly, I disagree. Let's pick out some wording in Linus' statement:

"To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece"
"We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing"
"With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it."

"Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team."

 

There was little done in Linus' statement to address the actual quality issues of the videos or how he planned to improve them, and a lot of language about how he felt hurt/sad/damaged.

Yes, and? Saying how he feels about the situation doesn't necessarily follow that he's taking it as a personal attack. I'm just not seeing the logical "if-then" bridge that you're making.

[jitteryzeitgeist]

19 minutes ago, Thepyrodex said:

If you don't like the content why did you watch it?  Your life will be better if you aren't TRYING to be angry and watch/do things you do like, Trust me bro lol

 

I haven’t watched them in about a year, after Linus had a pissybaby temper tantrum and berated a Twitch chatter for suggesting AMD GPUs (6000 series on) aren’t that bad now.  Just an absolute child.

 

I’m here because this is where I can express my dissatisfaction with someone whose actions are having a knock-on effect on the entire tech review space with him barely benefitting from it.

[Wintyr]

 

saw this on reddit love it

[WallacEngineering]

Yo guys take a look at how many people have joined and signed up to the forums just to comment on this specific thread. Look at how many of them were never interested in joining a forum but happily watched Linus and are now extremely disappointed with his actions.

 

If that doesn't tell you there is something seriously wrong going on here, then I don't know what does.

 

Holy s*** guys, wtf is happening right now...?

[Reclus]

3 minutes ago, bramturismo said:

Are you seriously this naive?

 

Billet wasn't contacted until after GN made the video public.

 

Don't try to tell me you believe LTT would've fixed this if the video wasn't made public.

Ummm... Did the comment you replied on go over your head?  

[Ooooffff8732]

icuck better not be sleeping on this, you already got your potential first line up for creator clash 3

[dege13]

1 minute ago, Simondo87 said:

I think you mean auctioned...  

Exactly. Same thing

 

 

auc·tion

noun

 

1. a public sale in which goods or property are sold to the highest bidder.

   "the books are expected to fetch a six-figure sum at tomorrow's auction"

[joaopt]

Just now, VisibleXela said:

Oh, I'm not defending shit.

 

If Linus actually did say "no, we reached out beforehand, we contacted them 2 weeks before LTX and they ghosted us" then cool, that's actually something. That's two different timelines to disagree with, now we have competing narratives where only one person can be right.

 

That's not what's happening. GN and Billet are openly talking about what the timeline actually is, while Linus tries to weasel his way out of taking responsibility without outright challenging the narrative or positioning an alternative one.

 

The comment I responded to, regarding the "two different timelines?" Yeah, Linus probably wishes there actually were two different timelines, that would be way better for him.

 

At this point Linus doesn't wish for 2 timelines, he wishes for a time machine or a parallel universe where this didn't happen

[plume]

10 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

A lot of people are missing this: sometimes how your report something matters more than to the why. that is part of journalistic integrity and that is a point I think Steve has missed it. Doesn't matter if you're right if you look like a douchebag while reporting on it

 

You are the one missing the point if you think not looking like a douchebag is more important than the facts presented or the accuracy of the reporting. 

 

I'll grant you that we could not have known this ahead of time...   but including a response from linus in the videos would have made things far worse for LTT and would have supported GN'S statements even more. 

[RichardBirch]

10 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

A lot of people are missing this: sometimes how your report something matters more than to the why. that is part of journalistic integrity and that is a point I think Steve has missed it. Doesn't matter if you're right if you look like a douchebag while reporting on it

Sweet beautiful irony. Although you're not right either, you've just been incendiary and downright insulting for the past 50(!) posts.

[VisibleXela]

Just now, Reclus said:

Ummm... Did the comment you replied on go over your head?  

apparently lmao

[Thepyrodex]

2 minutes ago, MotherboardsInThePark said:

You're not intelligent enough to be making points, sweetheart. Nice try, though.

 

I absolutely have an impact on him along with my fellow viewers. Just look at the like/dislike ratio of his microphone video. There's more to follow.

oh man, you mean I should look at the video that was posted during the middle of the outrage shit storm as an accurate view of their average work and not the last few weeks/months of like/dislike?

 

I don't think you're mature enough to understand the difference between "emotional lashing out" and "intelligence" because you seem to think your childish outbursts are witty, smart or impactful.  But again, everyone who isn't part of your mob is stupid!  

 

dollars to donuts you're still here posting in 2-3 months like nothing happened.

[Cosmic Emotion]

I still cannot believe Linus was that naive to think something this huge would go away in due time and he even went ahead and lied about it, just because of that thought. It honestly defies any kind of logic I have.

[yobson]

[Leksi T]

2 minutes ago, joaopt said:

 

this is on Linus, clearly throwing the employees under the bus is not right, it's on him to check the facts before he himself posting stuff. Trust on the employees or not is irrelevant. Even more so when we can clearly see the employees are afraid to tell them the truth, even Luke.

Yeah, it is on him.  I listed reasons why he would do it, but you're right that it really doesn't excuse it.

[filpo]

Just now, yobson said:

Love that someone made this meme. Props to whoever did (even if it's you)

[YoungBlade]

2 minutes ago, TylerD321 said:

There is no winning. You know the backlash would've been 10 times worse if he waited any longer to respond. Something about sweeping it under the rug and ignoring it I would wager.

Linus has talked a few times about the idea of other companies taking two Ls and turning them into a W. If he had taken his own advice, his response would have been something along the lines of: "I'm really sorry about all of the things Steve brought up. I feel like we've let you all down. I'm working with the team to come up with ways we can make things right with Billet, Pwnage, and the other companies involved. We're going to have a discussion about how we can correct these oversights going forward. Thank you so much, Steve and the LTT community for holding us accountable and always pushing us to be better."

 

The response to that would have likely been very positive.

 

He could then have asked both Steves (privately) if they would like to appear on the next WAN Show, or in an upcoming video, to talk about the challenges of reviewing and ask for their honest feedback on how the LTT can do better in the future. He could have asked his C-Suite to all come on the next WAN Show, or do a video, and talk about processes they're going to be putting in place to catch mistakes going forward. The WAN Show could be an open Q&A with the community, saying that all profits from Merch Messages during the show are going to be going to charity, so he's not profiting off of it even one cent, and saying that he wants to listen and understand why people are upset.

 

The response to that would have likely been very positive.

 

Honestly, all he probably needed to not make this into a bigger L was a response that showed genuine humility and remorse for what happened. Instead, he gave a response that, knowing what we do now about the Billet situation, is misleading at best, and a lie for damage control at worst. I can't see how no response at all would have been worse than that...

[Hydra_20]

8 minutes ago, craigjennings said:

The community's priorities are always going to be accurate quality information on the products you review. If LTT is merely an entertainment channel, we'd appreciate it if you just say so up-front so we can look somewhere else for objective and accurate testing and information

Not really. LTT has been entertainment focused from day 1, their content and Linus has been very clear about that, the labs project is the first time they've shifted away from that. I've never based a purchasing decision on LTT, I go to other more factual and data driven channels for that. I think you're in the minority if you missed that. 

 

LTT has a lot of ground to cover in data accuracy. As a data analyst I hate LTT graphs and methodologies, they frankly suck. I remember watching the billet cooler video and felt like they wasted my time because they didn't even test the cooler as it was intended to. 

 

If LTT wants to be taken seriously for their Labs effort they need to fix their data issues sooner rather than later.

[Simondo87]

1 minute ago, dege13 said:

Exactly. Same thing

 

I know that, but apparently Linus doesn't!!

[MotherboardsInThePark]

1 minute ago, Thepyrodex said:

oh man, you mean I should look at the video that was posted during the middle of the outrage shit storm as an accurate view of their average work and not the last few weeks/months of like/dislike?

 

I don't think you're mature enough to understand the difference between "emotional lashing out" and "intelligence" because you seem to think your childish outbursts are witty, smart or impactful.  But again, everyone who isn't part of your mob is stupid!  

 

dollars to donuts you're still here posting in 2-3 months like nothing happened.

Whatever you say, dear. Feel free to quote me again and have the last word. Just know that you're 100% a moron.

[Blacksunshine]

I don't hate Linus and LMG for what is happening.  I understand the gravity of the issues, but I think it's something that is repairable and can be put back to where it needs to be.  Not too long ago he made that video where the staff spoke about what they thought of Linus. Many of them said that thy wished more time for properly testing products, so this was a thing before GN pointed it out.  Now that the cat is outta the bag, hopefully Linus and Co. will take that next step to address the issues.  25 Videos a week is a bit much. Even just dropping it down to 15-20 per week would give enough time to add additional tweaks an re-tests.

As for the Billet Labs thing.  I feel Linus is doing what he can to correct the situation (hopefully I am not wrong on that assumption). Being that his content is grand in views and presence, it only makes sense that it would be done right. 

I don't know how I feel about GN putting it all out there in this manner.  I saw it in it's entirety and it came of as a hit piece pointing fingers and shaming more than a "we need to talk" situation. Maybe that's just his nature and never meant for it to come off that way. 

In the end I hope both sides can move passed all of this and grow together knowing each others faults. As well as Billet Labs hopefully not being too affected by it all. The community is there for a reason, would be awesome if they used it more to gain a different view on all of the things that happen rather than just show up when it's convenient. 

 

[kokosnh]

linus have to have somebody (like luck) stop hem from these fast response, it's not the first time, where in my opinion, his reaction/comments are unnecessarily rushed, and it's not making it any better, quite the opposite really...
He should just sleep with it for couple days, talk to people, check everything from top to bottom couple times, and only then respond.