Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[silentdragon95]

14 minutes ago, TheSilverSpade said:

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

Nobody holds Linus accountable personally for the auctioning of the prototype. LMG is a large organization and he most likely had no idea that any of this was going on.

 

However, we definitely can and should hold him accountable for the way he reacted to the very valid criticism surrounding this entire issue. What, spending an extra 500 dollars (his words!) are too much to properly test a product because he thinks it's bad value anyway and so accurate numbers don't matter? He also apparently just can't get himself to admit that he and/or LMG made a mistake. Saying "yeah no we really don't need to address this and everything is already figured out with Billet Labs" when that is just factually incorrect doesn't really paint a good picture.

 

Linus is always big on pointing out how we should trust him (bro) because his credibility is the most important thing he has and that he would be stupid to risk it for money. However that is kind of what happened here, and instead of realizing his mistake and acting accordingly, he just doubled down on "I didn't do anything wrong!". That's the issue. And if Linus doesn't address this properly this one is going to hurt all of LMG.

[OcDmn]

14 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Tbh, I feel it would be prudent for Linus to buy back the block, and return it anyway. While it may be too late to alter public opinion here (and really isn’t the point), it would guarantee protection of the IP, which would be foremost on my mind. Even if the relationship is beyond the point of salvage, closing it out as best as possible would be the right thing to do. 

Reimburse the auction buyer, return the block on top of the agreed reimbursement, and DO NOT take back the charity money.

[TheSilverSpade]

2 minutes ago, Amaninacity said:

You don’t have to be factually incorrect in all regards to be found to have libeled a public figure. But you do have to have at least some, and an apparent disregard for whether the information is false. Tell me your gut, “training as a lawyer” doesn’t tell you that if Steve was your client he has a very high chance of getting FUCKED in discovery.

It is not. I resent that. Slander is spoken. In print, it's libel.

[Dangerbone]

9 hours ago, Matthew87 said:

That doesn't mean that their video is false. The mentioned issue with incorrect information is real. It is great that the LTT team can catch it before the release. However, it results in more and more asterisks in the video itself. This confirms that the process of creating videos is rushed and quality assurance isn't as good as it should be.

Something that bothers me about this recent unprofessional behavior and the general trajectory of the channel as a casual viewer is an express lack of concern for QA/QC and proper protocol.

 

I work in quality at a rather advanced level and from what I've seen of the LTT Lab content is the veneer of QA/QC and proper practices but a general ad hoc nature to daily operations. As an example, the robotic keyboard tester is a great idea to quantify what is otherwise a qualitative aspect of a product (how a keyboard feels and/or repeatablity). However, I wonder if there is even a draft standard operating procedure (SOP) for the apparatus. What are the calibration/qualification standards? Are known good/known bad artifacts used alongside more standard qualification artifacts? How often is the apparatus qualified? Are statistical safeguards like guard banding used if the accuracy of the apparatus isn't ideal? I could go on.

 

I would guess that for many of these questions the engineers hired on to make these funtional prototype processes would be hard pressed to answer. This isn't an insult to them, but more a concern of the overall state of SOPs at the Lab and LMG. Without good SOPs no good data will be recorded or published. Even when junk data is caught, there is precious little time to edit and fix the video. The result is, like you said, junk data on screen with a blizzard of asterisks. In my line of work, the amount of quality escapes to the customer that routinely show up in LMG data would be grounds for termination.

 

This isn't to say that all quality escapes are caused by negligence, complacency, or management. Sometimes people make mistakes, it happens. Sometimes a process is flawed and needs revision. What shouldn't happen is the person or organization responsible for the quality escape doubling down on the junk data or out-of-spec parts. Own the quality escape and fix the mode of QA/QC failure.

If the Lab is to be taken seriously then quality must be prioritized. A qualification laboratory that can't publish good data won't be a qualification laboratory for long.

 

As for the unprofessional conduct, it's shameful. Selling/auctioning a piece of property you do not own against the will of the rightful owner is fencing a stolen item. Selling said item when it is a potentially sensitive prototype is not only theft, but potential corporate espionage. That "private individual" may have been an employee at a rival firm. How could Linus or his employees know that at a live auction?

Not a lawyer and all that, but a grown man should know not to sell things that aren't his.

Billet Lab could be lying, but what would they plausibly have to gain? "Cui bono?" is a question that should always be asked when considering motive.

 

 

To close on a personal note, I found the emotional response to getting caught with a hand in the cookie jar pathetic. No other word describes it. I genuinely lost respect for Linus when he went on about how getting caught made him sad and it was a hard day. You run a multimillion dollar company, stop crying crocodile tears.

 

GN raised excellent points regarding faults and concerns with LMG data and methodology. The onus is on LMG to prove that such faults aren't the norm. If they are, then why? How will they be fixed? Complaining that you didn't get to spin the story before publication is ethically dubious. Grousing about pitchforks when presented with legitimate criticism is weak.

Own up to the mistakes, fix the issues, and strive to be better.

 

Pardon me for the War & Peace size post, but this whole fiasco deserves as much.

[LinusAuctionTips]

3 minutes ago, Amaninacity said:

You don’t have to be factually incorrect in all regards to be found to have libeled a public figure. But you do have to have at least some, and an apparent disregard for whether the information is false. Tell me your gut, “training as a lawyer” doesn’t tell you that if Steve was your client he has a very high chance of getting FUCKED in discovery.

correct, who knows what discovery will dredge up if litigation occurs. but at the same time, in litigation Steve would have the right to discovery as well, its a sword that cuts both ways. But in the meantime, its frankly stupid and pointless to speculate.

[Dangerbone]

Edit: double post. Latency is amazing.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Dangerbone

[Dominatus]

1) Despite the errors in the videos, I have never felt that the final conclusion of the product is damaged by them. I do not expect a video to have 0 errors as I am aware that it would take a lot more time and for the business model that you now manage of daily videos it is impossible, despite this:

 

2) If a small error is made about the product (for example that the peak brightness of a cell phone is not 900 but 1000, or an error in a graph that shows that a graphics card was rated 2 fps below where it should be) and this does not affect the conclusion of the product I do not see problems in that it is simply corrected in the description or in the comments. Not relevant (but please try to avoid silly mistakes that can be fixed with a 20 sec search of the spec sheet and box contents).

 

3) If a big mistake is made about a product and it affects your final opinion, the error should be reported to the community and that video should be deleted

 

4) the billet labs review is a shame, I agree that the conclusion will not change even if you use the 3090 but it simply seems disrespectful to the brand that sent you the product, and it seems that you are being lazy by not recognizing your mistake and do what is right to give you a fair review. What happened later with the block in LTX directly is a serious internal error that you must solve because it is really bad.

 

5) The controversy with Pwange Mouse was as easy to solve as doing a retesting and sharing your results. If your results confirmed what Pwange mouse said, simply apologize and redo the video, if your results do not change, simply show them again and confirm that nothing strange happened.

 

I will not be the typical karen who will say "I will unsubscribe and stop buying your products right now", but I really ask that you give the subject the seriousness it deserves and talk about it on the WAN Show, since in the same way that I saw GN's side of the issue I want to see yours.

[Drazil100]

6 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

I don’t feel this email mitigates that what LMG has done was, both ethically, and legally, wrong. Rather, Billet probably sought to close out ties as cleanly as possible. 
 

Assuming the email is legitimate, and the buyer was contacted in writing as well, the buyer is likely free and clear to keep the prototype. 

It's a reddit post embed not a screenshot. Also I shared it not to mitigate what LMG has done but to share what Billet Labs as publicly requested. People were suggesting that Linus get in touch when the person who got the cooler to try to get it back and Billet Labs purposely made a most to prevent people from going after and harassing whoever was in possession of the cooler.

This is not a defense of LMG, I am simply making sure that people are demanding from LMG what Billet wants from them and not what they think Billet wants from them.

[JoshuaScholar]

There shouldn't be any asterisks, period.

If Linus and the talent can't be bothered to reshoot a few minutes when there's a mistake, they're in the wrong business!

[Why_Me]

3 hours ago, UTiii said:

Why has Stalker Steve been cataloging any typos or mistakes LTT have made over the last few months?

 

Don’t you find it odd the benevolent stalker Steve has been cataloging typos / mistakes like having the incorrect cache etc going back months! 
 

this dude has been sat there for months sweating profusely watching LTT videos on repeat highlighting any mistakes.

 

don’t y’all find that a bit weird from Steve the snake?

 

and then when he has something “juicy” releases his vid. And the something juicy could have been cleared up with a phone call given Linus probably didn’t even know about it.

If that's all you got out of this you might want to sit this one out.

[tech.guru]

30 minutes ago, LinusAuctionTips said:

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.

Not to mention suing GN... would allow GN access to internal documents as part of discovery for defense against the libel claim. This could expose all LTT dirty little secrets publicly.

 

Not a good idea. LTT aint interested in that.

[Silviecat44]

1 hour ago, Mattumanu said:

 

As it is, it's Linus under his own half finished bus.

oof

[TheSilverSpade]

1 minute ago, tech.guru said:

Not to mention suing GN... would allow GN access to internal documents as part of discovery for defense against the libel claim. This could expose all LTT dirty little secrets publicly.

 

Not a good idea. LTT aint interest in that.

It is not. I resent that. Slander is spoken. In print, it's libel.

[plume]

2 minutes ago, JoshuaScholar said:

So many posts felt like "HOW DARE STEVE HURT MY FRIEND LINUS!"  He's a bad man.  Bad bad bad!

have you ever been on twitch or the younger side of youtube (ei. what I thought linus was targeting with the clickbait title and colorful thumbnail)? If this was xQC's or Dream's forum, there would be at least 50 spam comments with meme for every legible ones.

[JoshuaScholar]

1 minute ago, plume said:

have you ever been on twitch or the younger side of youtube (ei. what I thought linus was targeting with the clickbait title and colorful thumbnail)? If this was xQC's or Dream's forum, there would be at least 50 spam comments with meme for every legible ones.

I like this forum better, now that you point out the lack of shallow memes!

[TheSilverSpade]

Just now, JoshuaScholar said:

I like this forum better, now that you point out the lack of shallow memes!

Agreed

[ChumleyTGT]

11 minutes ago, silentdragon95 said:

Nobody holds Linus accountable personally for the auctioning of the prototype. LMG is a large organization and he most likely had no idea that any of this was going on.

 

However, we definitely can and should hold him accountable for the way he reacted to the very valid criticism surrounding this entire issue. What, spending an extra 500 dollars (his words!) are too much to properly test a product because he thinks it's bad value anyway and so accurate numbers don't matter? He also apparently just can't get himself to admit that he and/or LMG made a mistake. Saying "yeah no we really don't need to address this and everything is already figured out with Billet Labs" when that is just factually incorrect doesn't really paint a good picture.

 

Linus is always big on pointing out how we should trust him (bro) because his credibility is the most important thing he has and that he would be stupid to risk it for money. However that is kind of what happened here, and instead of realizing his mistake and acting accordingly, he just doubled down on "I didn't do anything wrong!". That's the issue. And if Linus doesn't address this properly this one is going to hurt all of LMG.

Except there seem to be some weird people in thread who seem to be making Linus out to be TechYoutube Donald Trump that demands absolute loyalty, runs LTT as a Dictator, Hates Unions, is corrupt as sin, and eats kittens(

Spoiler

I'm joking on the kittens

)  @silentdragon95

[TheSilverSpade]

2 minutes ago, ChumleyTGT said:

Except there seem to be some weird people in thread who seem to be making Linus out to be TechYoutube Donald Trump that demands absolute loyalty, runs LTT as a Dictator, Hates Unions, is corrupt as sin, and eats kittens(

  Reveal hidden contents

I'm joking on the kittens

)  @silentdragon95

“For all you know I kill cats” -Linus on WAN

[Im_a_Rhinoceros]

11 minutes ago, dynastes said:

Okay, that's good then. The thread moves so fast, it is hard to catch everything. My apologies.

No doubt. To the actual issue here this is not relevant, however. GN did not force Linus to react as he did, after all.

To be fair, Gamers Nexus has changed quite a bit in the hardware space by exactly their type of reporting. Still, you are of course entitled to viewing their approach to LTT's issues critically. What they critisized, however, they also have provided proof for. So in this specific case, much of what you say here, again, does not matter. Saying "You fucked up earlier, too!" does not take away from their right to point out issues.

No, mate - the reason, we are down this rabbit hole, is that Linus reacted in the way he did. There didn't need to be an escalation like this. A preparation of a simple statement acknowledging the issues and laying out plans to alleviate them as well as an apology to Billet would have done everything necessary. What we got instead was an entitled, gaslighting, self-victimizing rant by @LinusTech. I will not lie, it is actually pathetic.

And that will be fine. It is still not relevant to the present issue though.

No, the point was pointing out LTT's misssteps. Of course that will bring in attention, that's just the nature of the beast. If you do not want people to see a video, however, you do not need to make it in the first place.

LS’s reaction was childish and a embarrassing but I also don’t think it is the actual root issue. The real issue is the “story” seems to me to be a big nothing burger designed to drive views. The fact they went from averaging 60k views to 1mm+ for the LTT videos, and there was a follow up to double down, kind of shows it.

 

The reality is that we can’t really know what happened with Billet labs without seeing all communication between them. From personal experience, email correspondence is typical not urgent, and the delay between the last email from Billet to LTT was 4 days (including a weekend in there) between the last email and the GN story. We know there was a long delay while they were trying to get their prototype back but we also know Logistics lost the 3090 which could have led to the delay returning the heat sink. No one can know without seeing the emails, but I suspect the issue goes back to incompetence rather than malice, which is a problem for LTT but not really worth a video IMO. Steve reporting that it was sold (implying for profit) and saying that it could have been bought by a competitor is editorial speculation and just further unnecessarily added speculative fuel to the fire.

 

Regarding the framework and asus stuff, Linus discloses his investments in the videos and that isn’t really a problem. It’s no different than WaPo reporting on Amazon and putting a disclaimer that Bezos owns them in the story.

 

Everyone makes mistakes in benchmarks and reviews. LTT has certainly made more than their fair share but everyone does. They also say every time there is a Labs test that they are still working on the process so take the results with a grain of salt.

Steve has even said that GN should rerun tests with upgraded drivers but they won’t bother, which is no different than what Linus said. It is a business and comes down to money. It is disingenuous for GN to say that these mistakes are a problem when they have done the same sort of things and really even worse. They burned me with the mod mat thing and definitely didn’t fix that problem the way they should have. Glass houses and whatnot.

 

Again, LTT has fucked a ton of stuff up and isn’t blameless but we really don’t really have enough info IMO for the pitchforks to come out for the underlying allegations in the video.

 

LS’s characteristly juvenile response to the video is a whole ‘nother can of worms, but again, given the reality or lack thereof of the story I’m disinclined to crucify him for it. Again, for about the five thousand time, that doesn't excuse LTT but there will be a new outrage du jour soon.

[HiTechLowSpec]

2 hours ago, ChumleyTGT said:

So... some things I... think are not very hot takes. 

LLT in retrospect has expanded too quickly and it's clear now the right hand often knows not what the left hand does. 

 

Linus was burnt out trying to captain the ship and just wants to be a presenter and entertainer. 

This whole fiasco says everything about why Linus not only wanted to but NEEDED to step down as CEO. 

 

The labs and current employment level likely have caused LTT's income-to-profit ratio to be tighter than a channel its size would be otherwise. 

 

The surge in new employees all at once likely is having a knock-on effect leading to more mistakes happening

on the average. Unfortunately, the situation with Billet is a very big, bad, and even potentially costly mistake.

 

I like to think that while Steve at GM thinks he's making a difference here and pushing accountability to make LTT raise its standards they're actually already very much self-aware and that's why among other things @LinusTech resigned as CEO and he's been begrudgingly letting other people run the ball at the top of the leadership structure when their skill set makes them better equipped for it. Unfortunately, I think bad habits are still there and even though yes this all went down under his tenure and the new CEO is still in transition he should have still approached the new CEO(who in theory has the experience and wisdom the position needs) and been like, "So I screwed up and this is on me but I don't want to pass on broken community public relations to you because that would be unfair. How should I/we approach this so  the baton is passed smoothly and this doesn't lead to endangering the livelihoods of the people who work at LTT."

How do you know that Linus didn't approach the new CEO?

[dogwitch]

welp am done commenting at all on reddit on this  drama.

i cannot wrap my head around me calling out people thinking its ok for ddos/send threats to ltt or its employees,or let cooler head prevail mind set.

is defending ltt or even attacking gn....btw already had 2 threats sent to me via burner accounts on reddit. that got perm banned with in the time frame of reading the threats...

 

again i cannot understand people supporting that and thinking its ok  to do that...

give respect to mods here and  reddit subs dealing with that type of user atm.

 

[S w a t s o n]

 

[wanderingfool2]

5 minutes ago, silentdragon95 said:

Nobody holds Linus accountable personally for the auctioning of the prototype. LMG is a large organization and he most likely had no idea that any of this was going on.

While LMG is a large organization, the levels of utter incompetence to have a prototype auctioned off is mind-boggling.  At any places I previously worked, if we found an error like this the first thing would be personally calling them and apologizing and making sure they knew that they would be fully compensated.

 

With that said, we wouldn't ever even get to that place.  The items were supposed to have been returned weeks earlier; so someone had to royally mess up there.  Then someone has to mess up in not asking, are we allowed auctioning this.  Then they mess it up even more by emailing and not responding back immediately.

 

8 minutes ago, Dominatus said:

4) the billet labs review is a shame, I agree that the conclusion will not change even if you use the 3090 but it simply seems disrespectful to the brand that sent you the product, and it seems that you are being lazy by not recognizing your mistake and do what is right to give you a fair review. What happened later with the block in LTX directly is a serious internal error that you must solve because it is really bad.

Well I mean no one would think that it's "worth" the money...but RGB also is an utter waste when you look at performance (And I'd much rather pay less for things without it).  The fact is essentially trashing it by saying it's performance is terrible kills any potential market they are going for (ones that want the looks, but without really sacrificing things).

 

11 minutes ago, Dominatus said:

I will not be the typical karen who will say "I will unsubscribe and stop buying your products right now", but I really ask that you give the subject the seriousness it deserves and talk about it on the WAN Show, since in the same way that I saw GN's side of the issue I want to see yours.

The general issue though is the refusal to change, or at least it appears that way.  In one of their videos they talked about Infinite Cables and how they were essentially surprised at how cheap the cable was for the quality you got...the problem they said it was below $1000, even joking that they were looking at the invoice...but it was a $5000+ cable.

 

Mentioned it in the comments and on the forum board and nothing.  Asked about not really disclosing relationships with Toyota, and Linus' response was essentially that they don't have to.

 

LMG just doesn't seem to really learn.  How many times has Linus leaked important things on the WAN show earlier on by not using a different laptop; despite being the size where they could have easily just had one laptop that would be dedicated for the WAN show.  Lots of apologies it seems for not essentially doing good enough.  At a certain point, addressing the concern is pointless if no proper actions are taken.

[TheSilverSpade]

The Linus Tech channel was at 15.6m on the 14th now it’s at 15.5 thats crazy.

[ChumleyTGT]

1 minute ago, HiTechLowSpec said:

How do you know that Linus didn't approach the new CEO?

@HiTechLowSpec it's a reasonable conjecture that an experienced CEO like Terren Tong would have advised against the response Linus gave. Now I wouldn't be surprised if since then they've talked. This could explain the current radio silence from LTT.