Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[Drazil100]

5 minutes ago, ZombieMan762 said:

Where is the new CEO in all of this? We have heard ZERO from this guy since the take over and since this whole thing kicked off.

Agreed. One of the things that was always great about LMG is that we got to hear from the CEO (Linus) about what the company was doing and any major changes they make. Now that Terren has taken over I feel like that has been taken away from us. I am ok with that on any normal day, but for controversies like this I would really like to hear what the CEO thinks about this and what he plans to do about it. Hearing it from Linus is great and all, but we should really hear from the CEO.

[mikaelus]

2 minutes ago, LinusAuctionTips said:

OK, opinion also isn't defamation. My read of that was for those parts, Steve chose his words very, very carefully.

Of course it is defamation when you effectively call someone a hooker. 

[Gncsmd]

Just now, jooroth18 said:

This take is so unbeliveably bad.

 

WHO ARE YOU to say that im jealous. No, im not.

 

Im a big LTT supporter who had floatplane, has a bunch of LTT merch, and has been watching for 8+ years.

 

Im deeply dissapointed in linus's handling of this. And all i want is him to do better. Im NOT a hater, im a dissapointed fan who wants better.

If the shoe fits…

[m9x3mos]

7 minutes ago, ZombieMan762 said:

Where is the new CEO in all of this? We have heard ZERO from this guy since the take over and since this whole thing kicked off.

He isn't an onscreen personality. I bet you won't see he. He might do some work on pr message to be delivered by Linus. That is all I would suspect will happen. 

[JoshuaScholar]

The point of the video was never "STEVE HURT MY FICTIONAL BOYFRIEND!"

 

God, people!

[LinusAuctionTips]

Just now, mikaelus said:

Of course it is defamation when you effectively call someone a hooker. 

uh, no. no it isnt. Saying that someone is "in your opinion a hooker" to use your rather poor choice of words is not the same as saying that "someone is a hooker."

[jooroth18]

1 minute ago, Gncsmd said:

If the shoe fits…

Does it, though?

 

[xg32]

13 minutes ago, ReallyThough said:

I'm a bit confused about the guy in Labs tour supposedly "calling out Gamer's Nexus".

What he said was factual. When the labs is up and running, and new hardware comes in, they will test it then RETEST ALL THE OTHER HARDWARE at the same time on the latest drivers, thus giving the viewer the most accurate comparison data. Him stating that Gamer's Nexus doesn't do this IS CORRECT, they don't cause that's a lot of work.

There was a video review GN did where Steve said that some of the data is from A YEAR AGO and probably needs to be redone with new drivers, though he was still going to use it as it should be close enough to not matter much. (I actually disagree with this statement, we've seen AMD pull double digit improvements in a years time of driver dev on new hardware).

 

I guess Steve felt it was tit for tat then? Getting annoyed that LTT employees are saying things about his channel (though factually true), so decided to start findings things to be critical about.

 

Honestly, LTT and their employees should NOT be comparing themselves to other channels as they're striving to do things that no other channel can do.

 

All this doesn't excuse the Billet Labs issue though. I can see how it can happen, there's no much hardware at the LTT headquarters, I am amazed that they manage to keep track of it all. Linus has complained before that some employees don't put things back in their proper place, even though he's gone out of his way to make a space for everything. But they need to get this fixed and it looks like both parties have come to a solution (money).

GN/HUB have acknowledge they've noticed the errors in LTT videos for awhile now, and avoided LTT out, basically handling LTT with kiddie gloves. The way Labs guy phrased it was certainly poor, and namedropping GN/HUB while Labs can't get basic testing right is questionable at best. Retesting everything everytime when you are dealing with release day reviews are also unrealistic/unnecessary, which leads into the HUB comment about accuracy.

 

I think some viewers will see that clip and interpret it as LTT>GN/HUB in benchmarking and GN felt a need to act. It's risky doing a piece on LTT for GN so it's either all-in or nothing

[TheSilverSpade]

Now that Linus had had time to brew the perfect response is it too late for him to bring out the Ukulele? Toxic gossip traaiiin would anyone take it seriously we already saw how he actually thought.

[mikaelus]

Just now, LinusAuctionTips said:

uh, no. no it isnt. Saying that someone is "in your opinion a hooker" to use your rather poor choice of words is not the same as saying that "someone is a hooker."

Absolutely no difference. 

[tech.guru]

9 minutes ago, Im_a_Rhinoceros said:

That’s exactly my point. He’s pretending to be one but not subject to any of the same ethical or legal requirements of real journalists and real news publications. He doesn’t comport himself in the manner of a journalist. GN doesn’t operate in a manner of have the checks and balances of an actual newsriew with ombudsman and legal review. He inserted all sorts of editorial content in the videos And he has an obvious and massive conflict of interest. He can say he’s a journalist but it doesn’t make him one any more than me saying I’m a ham sandwich makes me pork and bread.

Look ltt has breached many ethic rules.

He regularly reviews products from his sponsors without declaring the money he receives from the companies.

I work for a large company. We have a code of conduct and value of ethics.

We can not accept gifts or money from vendors because the appearance of conflicts of interest.

Linus has vendors personally give him and his staff devices to renovate his house for free and he uses his staff and company to do those videos.

None of this is to his company benefit but him personally so he gets a nice house furnished by all his sponsorships. 

If anyone else did what he did in a major company they be fired on the spot

 

[m9x3mos]

The king of dog piling into drama put out a video on this too. 

https://youtu.be/SLaN-eMAuEg

[ddpp]

6 minutes ago, ReallyThough said:

When the labs is up and running, and new hardware comes in, they will test it then RETEST ALL THE OTHER HARDWARE at the same time on the latest drivers, thus giving the viewer the most accurate comparison data.

 

Honestly, LTT and their employees should NOT be comparing themselves to other channels as they're striving to do things that no other channel can do.

Pure cope until they actually go through the meticulous, time consuming process of testing and resting ALL of the hardware. Even then, LMG has such a bad track record with tests, whatever comes out of Labs should be treated as suspect. 
 

 

[LinusAuctionTips]

2 minutes ago, mikaelus said:

Absolutely no difference. 

To you, no, clearly not. To the courts, yes, there is.

 

Defenses to Defamation

Truth – To be defamatory, a statement must be false. Truth is an absolute defense to a defamation claim.

Opinion – Only statements of fact can be defamatory. Statements of opinion are not. For example, saying that Kevin stole money from the collection basket on two occasions is a statement of fact. Saying that Kevin is a "thief" is an opinion, though courts and juries may interpret it differently depending on how they feel a reasonable person might take it. The line between fact and opinion is often blurry and can depend on the circumstances.

Absolute Privilege – Statements made in certain contexts are subject to an "absolute privilege," a complete defense to defamation. In other words, in some situations, you can lie. Examples include statements made by legislators on the floor of the legislature and statements made between spouses.

Qualified Privileges – Some statements are subject to a "qualified privilege," which recognizes that you may have some right to make a false statement in some cases. For example, published reviews containing fair criticism of books or films are subject to a qualified privilege, as are statements made to warn others about potential danger.

Retraction – A retraction is a public and formal withdrawal of a previously made false statement. Although you can still sue the speaker for defamation, the retraction lessens the actual harm done by the false statement and reduces the amount you can recover for the civil wrong.

[TB_GB]

On 8/14/2023 at 10:25 PM, LinusTech said:

There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.

To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready.

To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.

Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. 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. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold.

 

With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...

 

I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference.

 

Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip.  I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market.

 

Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).

 

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. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient. 

 

We can test that... with this post. 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. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.

 

Thanks for reading this.

I have been a fan of yours for multiple years and listen to the WAN every week and have to admit I am disappointed in your response to what I think are fair criticisms of problems that your/your company partly makes and I feel that in your expansion of the last couple of years into the Labs and other side business you seem to have forgotten the reason your fans watch you is the trust that you have built up but has been slowing eroding & you need to evaluate your actions and how to keep the trust we have in you. It takes years to build and can be lost quickly.

 

• For the Billet Lab situation YOU yourself need to take responsibility for both not testing with the 3090 which is unfair for the company and the fact that is sold and not separated AS YOU DIDN'T OWN  IT needs IMMEDIATELY addressed internally with your Logistics department. Why was an item you didn't own put somewhere where someone thought it was available to be auctioned? Are items that you don't own kept with your normal stock in logistics?  
• @LinusTech Surely you have the details of the winner of the auction so can you get in contact to buy it back and return it to its RIGHTFUL owners? And that it isn't a company that wants to run tests/clone it.
• Your response about Biillet Labs is INSULTING to them when they send you a prototype for you to test and insult both the product and company is terrible and you owe them a full apology on a video! As you DIDNT apologize here (I feel that they deserve s full apology video and maybe testing the product properly But at the very least deserve an apology on WAN )
• With the Labs project, you need to make sure ALL details are correct as you are marketing the Labs as unbiased accurate tests and frankly, your monitoring of test are proven to be flawed as multiple errors have been in your videos and frankly, you only have a small number of tests compared to what you are planning for the Labs' future. There hopefully will be a review of how the numbers/graphs are created, whether they are around the estimated figures, and if not why not?

The fact that you didn't acknowledge your mistake and hit out at Gamers Nexus suggests you need to have a frank discussion with your team on the video and how to not make the mistakes again. Your YOLO attitude that you have can no longer happen when you are trying to show the labs for reliable results. Instead of hitting out at Gamers Nexus you should be looking at how they run their tests and how to spot outlier results.

 

All of the points in the video Steve made were fair and you should pass the video to your team leaders/department heads and then have a meeting with you where they can raise their concerns to you without repercussions to give you their concerns to help improve the company. I don't believe that the mistakes were intentional but they were mistakes made and you should make improvements so they won't happen again. Maybe your new CEO should watch the video and look for improvements to the processes you already have.

 

I have been a big fan for years and will be watching the WAN where hopefully there will be a segment on the points raised and whether any improvements are going to be made and hopefully an apology to Billet Labs. If there is no mention or no apology to Billet and some self-reflection it will be the last video I watch for a while.

 

So please reflect on the points raised because imperfection is not something that should be in the same sentence with LMG as you have the Lab now. 

 

A Fan

[OuterMarker]

With regards to "journalism" and ethics... Steve was not required to talk to Linus ahead of time before posting the video. In journalism, you only contact the subject if the evidence you have is from third parties or if you think the subject of your piece might give you a good quote. The bulk of Steve's criticism was directly from LTT videos, so there was no need for Linus to comment on videos his team approved or direct quotes from Linus on the WAN show.

 

Now for those who think that he had a social responsibility to talk to Linus directly because they are friends: I'm glad he didn't. Do we really want to live in a world where issues are handled behind the scenes to leave the audience in the dark? Steve wants Linus to do better and calling him out publically is the only thing that will get his attention (kind of like the video Linus did about Intel in the rain). I'm sure plenty of the LMG staff have expressed concerns about the quality of the videos, but he has obviously ignored them because he thinks upload schedules are more important than accuracy. Also, if Linus gets a crappy CPU from Intel, does he spend weeks emailing them about the poor test results and give them time to ramp up their PR machine? No, he publishes the video because it's more important to inform the general public of the poor product before a large company can spin the negative review in their favor.

[dynastes]

1 minute ago, JoshuaScholar said:

The point of the video was never "STEVE HURT MY FICTIONAL BOYFRIEND!"

 

God, people!

Well, emotional investment runs hot on this one.

 

I'll admit it myself, the whole thing pisses me off so much, because I am emotionally invested into LTT's content. I still fail to see, however, how this attachment can blind people so much to obvious facts. Trying to discuss whether or not Steve's a journalist, for instance, is so utterly besides the point, it's actually spectactular.

[m9x3mos]

1 minute ago, mikaelus said:

Absolutely no difference. 

Legally speaking it is a big difference. 

[Texbobcat]

1 minute ago, TheSilverSpade said:

Now that Linus had had time to brew the perfect response is it too late for him to bring out the Ukulele? Toxic gossip traaiiin would anyone take it seriously we already saw how he actually thought.

I wouldn't believe jack he says on the situation as linus has told everyone before that "judge a company based on how they respond to criticisms" why should he be any different.

[mikaelus]

9 minutes ago, LinusAuctionTips said:

To you, no, clearly not. To the courts, yes, there is.

No, it is not. And not even in the USA, which is generally more lenient.

 

8 minutes ago, m9x3mos said:

Legally speaking it is a big difference. 

Nope. But good luck

[Gncsmd]

2 minutes ago, jooroth18 said:

Does it, though?

 

Idk bro I’m not the one who said it applied to me.  So does it?  Does the shoe fit?  

[tech.guru]

I mean he uses his company resources and contacts to renovate his house.

He makes videos but has his staff run cables and take care of things that should not be part of the business.

Presents it in a video to pretend its related to the business so he can get expensive equipment for free installed in his house.

 

dont pretend a vendor giving Linus free equipment isnt for any other reason than to try and get influence. vendors goals are to make money they dont give things away for free without a reason.

His goal should be to present us non bias accurate information not use us and his platform to get freebies to benefit him personally.

 

even has his staff is involved and regularly get AMD and INTEL upgrades as part of videos he passes this corrupt  culture onto the staff.

You really think his staff are going to objectively review a product when their entire apartment was renovated by that company?

 

Its not like linus cant afford the money. he could fork 5k on his own but he rather have amd pay for it

 

 

 

 

[LinusAuctionTips]

2 minutes ago, mikaelus said:

No, it is not. And not even in the USA, which is generally more lenient.

Take a moment to read this. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

 

Defenses to Defamation

Truth – To be defamatory, a statement must be false. Truth is an absolute defense to a defamation claim.

Opinion – Only statements of fact can be defamatory. Statements of opinion are not. For example, saying that Kevin stole money from the collection basket on two occasions is a statement of fact. Saying that Kevin is a "thief" is an opinion, though courts and juries may interpret it differently depending on how they feel a reasonable person might take it. The line between fact and opinion is often blurry and can depend on the circumstances.

Absolute Privilege – Statements made in certain contexts are subject to an "absolute privilege," a complete defense to defamation. In other words, in some situations, you can lie. Examples include statements made by legislators on the floor of the legislature and statements made between spouses.

Qualified Privileges – Some statements are subject to a "qualified privilege," which recognizes that you may have some right to make a false statement in some cases. For example, published reviews containing fair criticism of books or films are subject to a qualified privilege, as are statements made to warn others about potential danger.

Retraction – A retraction is a public and formal withdrawal of a previously made false statement. Although you can still sue the speaker for defamation, the retraction lessens the actual harm done by the false statement and reduces the amount you can recover for the civil wrong.

 

Higher Burdens for Defamation: Public Officials and Figures

Our government places a high priority on allowing the public to speak their minds about elected officials and other public figures. Compared to private figures, people in the public eye get less protection from defamatory statements. They also face a higher burden when attempting to win a defamation lawsuit.

The Supreme Court has ruled that freedom of speech limits a public official's ability to sue someone for defamation. When someone criticizes an official in a false and damaging way for something relating to their behavior in office, the official must prove the statement was made with "actual malice" and all the other defamation elements.

The U.S. Supreme Court defined "actual malice" in Hustler v. Falwell (1988). In that case, the Court held that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution protected certain statements that would otherwise be defamatory.

This meant that public officials could only win a defamation suit when the statement was published with the actual intent to harm the public figure. Actual malice only occurs when the person making the statement knows it is not true or has a reckless disregard for whether it is true.

Other people in the public eye, such as celebrities, must also prove actual malice to succeed in a defamation claim.

Edited August 16, 2023 by LinusAuctionTips
Edited to add info regarding heightened standard for public figures.

[SirCadvan]

Please bear with me for a moment as I explore a somewhat far-fetched idea. What if all of this recent controversy has been orchestrated to bring Billet Labs into the spotlight intentionally? The increased attention could translate to higher revenue for them, making the prototype issue less relevant.

 

Now, shifting to a more serious note, I have a few thoughts on Gamer Nexus's quick involvement in this situation. While it's easy for them to join the chorus demanding change, it's important to acknowledge that it might not be their place to orchestrate such change. While they're entitled to share their perspective, claiming that Gamer Nexus represents the pinnacle of journalism might be a stretch.

 

Presently, the situation has devolved into a series of conflicting claims. Frankly, until I see a formal document signed by both an LMG team member and a representative from Billet Labs attesting to the prototype being on loan, I find it hard to form a solid opinion. While LMG should have exercised better diligence, they are now taking responsibility and should work to make amends with Billet Labs. This doesn't necessarily mean covering the entire development cost, but rather replacing what was "auctioned off."

 

Finally, it's disheartening to see Gamer Nexus attempting to shame someone who had no direct control over the matter. In particular, the valuation comparison between Stephen Burke and Linus's previous CEO role is flawed. With Linus no longer holding that position, his responsibilities have shifted. As such, it's important to refrain from unnecessary drama and let the situation unfold more appropriately.

 

 

EDIT: True, Linus could have tried to hold off on responding...  and let his CEO respond... But this benefits no one either then GN or GN and Billet Labs 

 

TLDR: BURKE STFU AND SIT DOWN!

[TheSilverSpade]

I am genuinely shocked at just how many people are holding Linus accountable