PC Perspective accused of violating journalistic ethics *Update 2 with PCPer reply*

[Mihle]

19 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Oh sorry, I forgot that he made one or two videos where he said some slightly negative things about AMD GPUs. You know, that video he made between ranting about how Nvidia are ruining the entire industry and how all other reviewers except him don't understand how to benchmark the glorious AMD GPUs. Clearly only he with his extreme cherry picking skills knows how to present "real" evidence of how good AMD are.

 

You can be an extremely biased fanboy and still say some negative things about the company you deep-throat on a regular basis.

 

 

Credit where credit is due. Adored made the right thing in taking the video down for now. Sadly, the damage might already be done.

I also think it's weird/scummy that he only posted it to his patrons. He should have put up a video on his channel so that everyone could see it.

I am not saying he is not biased, but he is less biased than you write like he is.

 

He did write it on twitter too btw.

[Paranoid Kami]

This is stupid. He did nothing wrong. Jim is just mad because Pc Per got 4 drives and he got 1. Intel can give out as many as they want to whoever they want and they can use it for whatever they want unless Intel says they can't under a contract.

 

As for owning another company it's literally just a few hundred dollars for a name. It's mainly done for tax reasons or to make people think it's actually another company. Example: LTT and Floatplane are different companies but they're the same people working in the same location working on the same things.

[Drak3]

13 minutes ago, Paranoid Kami said:

This is stupid. He did nothing wrong. Jim is just mad because Pc Per got 4 drives and he got 1. Intel can give out as many as they want to whoever they want and they can use it for whatever they want unless Intel says they can't under a contract.

 

As for owning another company it's literally just a few hundred dollars for a name. It's mainly done for tax reasons or to make people think it's actually another company. Example: LTT and Floatplane are different companies but they're the same people working in the same location working on the same things.

The issue is that the other company was paid for white sheets on the product in question, and the same person paid for that white sheet also did the review itself.

[dalekphalm]

Just now, Drak3 said:

The issue is that the other company was paid for white sheets on the product in question, and the same person paid for that white sheet also did the review itself.

Yeah I think way too many users here are getting hung up on the whole "PCPer got 4 review models, while others got less or none".

 

That's literally a side point - honestly irrelevant to the primary argument (and also difficult to prove that it was done due to favouritism).

 

The primary ethical issue is simply the lack of disclosure that Allyn was deeply involved in both the review, and the paid white paper that his (and potentially all other reviews) are based on.

 

Ethically, Allyn should not have written the review at all. But at the very least, he should have posted a clear disclaimer at the beginning.

[Yoinkerman]

5 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Says who? Ryan Shrout, and the reviewers at PCPer, are most definitely journalists. They report news, do reviews, etc.

 

Now you're saying they don't even need to follow journalism ethics? That's insane. So let's lower the bar?

I'm a bitter jaded old man.  Fight the good fight.  I hope you can make a difference

[NumLock21]

His video is already back up.

[Hecate91]

1 hour ago, NumLock21 said:

His video is already back up.

So he removes the video,admits he isn't adhering to his own ethics yet still plays the victim,then claims he didn't get a good enough answer from PC Perspective and re-uploads the video without revealing what PC Per's reply was. This guy seems to have an ego problem as well. AdoredTV accused PC Per of creating the testing method solely for the Optane review,which they did not. AdoredTV seems okay with throwing stones in his own glass house,so to speak. Another one being his false remarks on Intel Coffee Lake turbo boosting.

The only real issue I can see,as other users pointed out was the white paper not having full disclosure,though they never really *had* to as "Shrout Research" is treated as a separate company like LTT is to Floatplane.

[NumLock21]

18 minutes ago, Hecate91 said:

So he removes the video,admits he isn't adhering to his own ethics yet still plays the victim,then claims he didn't get a good enough answer from PC Perspective and re-uploads the video without revealing what PC Per's reply was. This guy seems to have an ego problem as well. AdoredTV accused PC Per of creating the testing method solely for the Optane review,which they did not. AdoredTV seems okay with throwing stones in his own glass house,so to speak. Another one being his false remarks on Intel Coffee Lake turbo boosting.

The only real issue I can see,as other users pointed out was the white paper not having full disclosure,though they never really *had* to as "Shrout Research" is treated as a separate company like LTT is to Floatplane.

I doubt PC Perspective even had time to respond yet. I'm guessing he's most likely reupload it back up, thinking no one is going to notice.

[meson1]

1 hour ago, NumLock21 said:

I doubt PC Perspective even had time to respond yet. I'm guessing he's most likely reupload it back up, thinking no one is going to notice.

 

PC Perspective have responded.  See Jim's twitter feed here: https://twitter.com/AdoredTV

 

Over several tweets, Jim says:

 

"PC Perspective have responded in private with their concerns over my video. My initial analysis of their response is that it is very thorough and raises some valid points which I must address. However, the major concerns raised in the video remain.

 

"The damage done to consumers while my video is inactive is a larger risk than the possible damage to PC Perspective while the video is active.

 

"Therefore I have no alternative but to republish the video."

[laminutederire]

4 hours ago, Hecate91 said:

The only real issue I can see,as other users pointed out was the white paper not having full disclosure,though they never really *had* to as "Shrout Research" is treated as a separate company like LTT is to Floatplane.

Ethics do not care about legal loopholes...

[mr moose]

37 minutes ago, laminutederire said:

Ethics do not care about legal loopholes...

ethics are also not a black and white concept,  they are as subjective as morals and cultural tradition. 

[laminutederire]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

ethics are also not a black and white concept,  they are as subjective as morals and cultural tradition. 

I'd beg to differ on their subjectivity. Morals being the thinking of good and bad, they rely heavily on cultural beliefs and so on as well as values of the society. (Kant is crying in his grave reading this but anyway). However, ethics dealing with right or wrong situations, it makes them reliant only on societal values, making them more objective than moral is. Remains the unequivocal truth that ethics do not care in any sense about legality. Legality sometimes care about ethics, I do not deny it, but the other way around does not. I'd explain that by the fact that what is legal only depends on who is in charge, and therefore is an expression of his own values as well, and not only the values of society.

[mr moose]

15 minutes ago, laminutederire said:

I'd beg to differ on their subjectivity. Morals being the thinking of good and bad, they rely heavily on cultural beliefs and so on as well as values of the society. (Kant is crying in his grave reading this but anyway). However, ethics dealing with right or wrong situations, it makes them reliant only on societal values, making them more objective than moral is. Remains the unequivocal truth that ethics do not care in any sense about legality. Legality sometimes care about ethics, I do not deny it, but the other way around does not. I'd explain that by the fact that what is legal only depends on who is in charge, and therefore is an expression of his own values as well, and not only the values of society.

right or wrong is subjective too. So are social values as this thread demonstrates. Some people have an issue with with ryan having a business relationship with Intel, while others see it only as an independent consultation whilst others further see that relationship as bolstering to pcpers ability to provide more in depth review analysis. 

 

What is ethically wrong here is very dependent on personal perspective and values.

[cj09beira]

https://twitter.com/AdoredTV/status/957206790210506752

 

they seemed to have sit down like adults  

 

Quote

After a discussion with Ryan @pcper he agreed to modify the FreeSync video title and add a disclaimer to the Optane review.

I should have a video out by tonight on this and some other related topics. For now, I'm mostly satisfied and I'm putting the video private again.

 

[LAwLz]

5 hours ago, meson1 said:

PC Perspective have responded.  See Jim's twitter feed here: https://twitter.com/AdoredTV

 

Over several tweets, Jim says:

Holy shit, that guy sure loves sucking his own dick. How anything can think anything good about him is truly astonishing. 

 

18 minutes ago, cj09beira said:

https://twitter.com/AdoredTV/status/957206790210506752

 

they seemed to have sit down like adults  

Good to see that Adored finally came to his senses and started acting like an adult. If only he had done this to begin with... But then he couldn't make money by causing drama which he loves doing oh so much. 

 

I really dislike his tone though. He is "putting the video on private for now"? That sounds like a threat to post it again if PCPer does something he does not like even though the issues were resolved. 

[cj09beira]

28 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Holy shit, that guy sure loves sucking his own dick. How anything can think anything good about him is truly astonishing. 

 

Good to see that Adored finally came to his senses and started acting like an adult. If only he had done this to begin with... But then he couldn't make money by causing drama which he loves doing oh so much. 

 

I really dislike his tone though. He is "putting the video on private for now"? That sounds like a threat to post it again if PCPer does something he does not like even though the issues were resolved. 

no the issues were not resolved, this is a problem of ethics, ethics cant be patched with an bandaid, for example the freesync issue, they knew it wans't freesync's fault for a long time and did nothing, only after this video did they correct their mistake. to see if this is indeed fixed we have to wait and pay attention to how they operate in the future 

[Majestic]

On 1/26/2018 at 4:09 AM, Enderman said:

2) Unless you can prove that intel paid them to write a GOOD review, there is nothing wrong with a sponsored review, literally all tech news sites and reviewers including LTT get sponsored for their reviews, they rarely ever buy the product themselves.

The issue is not disclosing that.

 

13 hours ago, Paranoid Kami said:

This is stupid. He did nothing wrong. Jim is just mad because Pc Per got 4 drives and he got 1.

He didn't get one, he was talking about Tom's Hardware. You know how difficult drive reviews are to do properly? Afaik Jim had no intentions of doing reviews on them. It was other outlets that took issues with it, and rightly so.

[dalekphalm]

So the Disclaimer is finally up on the review.

 

Unfortunately, it's at the very bottom, where I suspect that many people will not even see it. But hey, at least it's there. Ideally it would be the first thing you read at the start of the review.

 

To me, this is an acceptable compromise between the two parties. Note: I said acceptable. It's not the ideal outcome, which is impossible (can't travel back in time: ideal outcome is that Allyn would have recused himself as per conflict of interest, and another PCPer employee would test the product and write the review).

 

Hopefully in the future, PCPer takes disclaimers more seriously, and also potential conflicts of interest, and proactively works to avoid situations like this.

 

All in all, I'm satisfied with the outcome, though there was a lot of drama bullshit (on both sides) that went with it.

[Senzelian]

Why does it take such a incident in the first place, for people to question objectivity?
I guess thinking is hard... x.x

[dalekphalm]

5 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Why does it take such a incident for people to question objectivity in the first place?
I guess thinking is hard... x.x

Just look in this very thread. It's because many people don't even see these ethical issues. Or just brush them aside because "the review outcome was still the same". As if that's relevant within preventing conflicts of interests.

[Drak3]

7 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Why does it take such a incident for people to question objectivity in the first place?

Multiple sources hitting the same conclusion.

[Senzelian]

Just now, dalekphalm said:

Just look in this very thread. It's because many people don't even see these ethical issues. Or just brush them aside because "the review outcome was still the same". As if that's relevant within preventing conflicts of interests.

You don't need to see the ethical issues, nor does an ethical issue need to occur, to simply ask yourself if what you just read is true or not and check multiple sources.

 

1 minute ago, Drak3 said:

Multiple sources hitting the same conclusion.

And there is still a chance for all those sources to be completly wrong - yet we act surprised if something goes wrong.

[dalekphalm]

4 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

You don't need to see the ethical issues, nor does an ethical issue need to occur, to simply ask yourself if what you just read is true or not and check multiple sources.

 

And there is still a chance for all those sources to be completly wrong - yet we act surprised if something goes wrong.

Sure - but even if it is true, their actions can still be unethical, as was the case with PCPer, when they failed to include a disclaimer, AND had the same person who was paid by Intel to write the testing methodology White Paper, write the review.

 

Personally, I never doubted the validity of the review. But that's irrelevant to the ethical issue anyway. Just because a review happened to be accurate, does not mean it was performed in accordance with ethical standards.

[Senzelian]

Just now, dalekphalm said:

Sure - but even if it is true, their actions can still be unethical, as was the case with PCPer, when they failed to include a disclaimer, AND had the same person who was paid by Intel to write the testing methodology White Paper, write the review.

All humans are unethical. We all have massive egos. I expect from every single one to act unethical at all times. Why do you not expect that?

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

All humans are unethical. We all have massive egos. I expect from every single one to act unethical at all times. Why do you not expect that?

Because I have standards.

 

By and large, I don't think most people don't act unethical - and certainly not on purpose.

 

Besides, journalists are SUPPOSED to be held to a higher standard. This is why we give them shit when they break those standards.

 

You can live in your nihilist world if you want - but I prefer not to.