• MüThyme@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Holy shit

    This is Billet labs all over again, they’ll literally only do something if they’re publicly called out

      • dimeslime@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        It’s probably overwork, rather than a malicious lack of integrity. Guy left a to field empty and moved on with his day, well probably was sending 900 emails a day and can’t keep track. Sexual harassment in the workplace? Can’t think of that we have deadlines!

        (downvote edit lol: not defending Linus, not defending the actions, or those involved in it all. Just pointing out that mistakes are made when overworked rather than tainting everyone at LMG with the unethical / lack of integrity brush)

        • Marxine@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Overwork is also one form of workplace abuse. It just makes the matters worse

        • dustyData@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I know this might be a controversial take. But people in professional settings are expected to fullfil the responsibilities they agree to take on, follow thru with promises, and to turn down the things they reasonably cannot be expected or can’t do. It’s called having professional ethics.

          In some ethical frameworks, intention of action is not excusable. An act or absence of act that causes harm is immoral regardless of whether the harm was intended or not.

          • dimeslime@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            Yeah I mean things drop through the cracks. Humans is humans.

            As a foreigner in the same city as LMG the work culture is to never say no, I get in to a bunch of professional trouble when saying no. So turning down work to make yourself less busy is hard for some here. I’m just suggesting that this may not be mallace and pure evil, the situation is a product of the work and office culture there. It would play out differently in different parts of the globe.

            • dustyData@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I never said it was malice. I said it was lack of ethics. They might be very good and nice people. But if in a professional setting they behave like this, they are unethical. If the whole industry behaves like this then the industry’s work culture is unethical. This is not rocket science. The tech sector is a toxic sludge of unprofessional pricks. The tech entertainment is worse. But that’s not excuse. There are professional and ethical tech entertainment companies in the space who don’t abuse their employees.

              • dimeslime@lemmy.ca
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                1 year ago

                I am in the wrong thread man. My comments are purely based on the billet labs thing where this thread started, and those not directly involved with the sexual harassment being grouped in with the unethical lack of integrity brush.

                • dustyData@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  That’s the interesting part. Linus wanted to make his yt channel a company. Created LMG with a loan and all. Cool. But that means that now the company, and by extension Linus himself as the owner, is morally responsible for all that happens within their walls. That’s also part of the initial ethical failure, I don’t mean they cause or are to blame all the time, but they’re responsible for dealing with it.

                  Linus might not have harassed anyone himself personally. But, if one of his employees harassed another of his employees, he is responsible. Worse, if he know and did basically nothing, then LMG neglected to act on its duty of care. Same reason why, when one employee goes in public to diss out and trash talk a competitor, then it’s as if it came out of Linus mouth, because it’s LMG speaking.

                  “But I was busy with emails” is not an excuse, or “I didn’t know”, isn’t either. Your company your responsibility.

        • atrielienz@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          This is the schedule that they themselves set though. It made sense a bit to create as much content as they could in the beginning when they were first starting out and growing their channel. But they’re extremely successful in this category and they don’t have to remain beholden to the YouTube algorithm to make money what with Floatplane and so on. They literally have the ability to slow down production, do reviews, and other content in a responsible way, and they haven’t.

          That work load may have contributed to him not addressing or not properly handling the situation with Madison, but that is something he brought on himself. It shouldn’t have been an email to a single person. This isn’t some random startup with venture capital. Linus built a whole successful company. A company that should have both a PR team (who don’t let him get in his feelings with reactionary remarks without getting legal counsel first), and an HR team to handle things like this. It should literally never have gotten to this point.

        • archiotterpup@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Lack of ethical integrity happens when you’re more focused on quantity over quality.

          People aren’t calling out the staff. They’re calling out the management.

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I don’t know if Madison felt safe expressing all her concerns internally, so this might be the first time they realize the extent of the issues.

    • atrielienz@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Possibly not even then. Gamer’s Nexus called them out in that video for several errors involving their testing, methodology, and results and the sheer amount of content being pushed out the door with little to no oversight and no real meaningful attempts to correct themselves to the public, using features that other YouTube channels don’t even have access to, and Linus responded by doubling down on the less important bits while not addressing any of the main points. The accountability, logical and scientifically unbiased testing, and their propensity to post information knowingly that is not true and make weak attempts to “correct” that info after millions of people have viewed the content. There doesn’t seem to be a plan to do anything. Linus and the new CEO have not addressed any changes to be made. They were also called out for essentially double dipping (reviewing products from companies they are actively promoting or have partnerships with while also reviewing those companies competition). That was also never addressed. Linus himself has an objectivity problem and that seems to have filtered down through the entire LMG as a whole.

  • rizoid@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    I’m starting a new conspiracy that Linus knew all this was coming and that’s why he hired the new CEO. I have no facts but I said it on the internet so people will believe me.

    • ominouslemon@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I know you’re kinda joking, but I think there is some truth to that. I think he made the decision because he could not manage the whole thing alone, and the workplace environment Madison described could well be caused by general stress and mismanagement

      • adroit balloon@lemmy.ml
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        I’ve been under huge amounts of stress and have been mismanaged, but it never turned me into a grabass bully.

        systemic issues like this don’t just come from nowhere. likewise, they didn’t just appear, either. nor will they simply disappear now that they’ve been exposed or with some glib promise to “do better”.

        workplace atmospheres like this take time to develop and… fester. From what Madison described, it’s been this what from, at least, the time she started, which means these behaviors, these patterns, were existing, likely for some time.

        What Linus knew, when, etc. may important in a civil case, but it’s not to me— He failed at his job, and didn’t ask for help/hire help to fix the problems until faaaar too late. If it was this bad for Madison, it had to be at least as bad if not worse for others before her who simply did not (or could not) speak out, as well as other who are still there.

        Systemic issues do not affect only one person, and they don’t appear out of nowhere. Expect more bad news and expect that any resolution/fixes will take time and major change. If you don’t see any major changes over a reasonable amount of time, don’t trust claims that they’re “working on it."

    • unscholarly_source@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Linus has a track record and proven history of doing/saying stupid shit. I think in this case, he recognizes that he’s just shit at his job and wants help. He most likely didn’t expect the Billet issue (no way he would have known Steve would have released a vid) and if he knew about Madison coming out, he’d have tried to prevent that sooner. Hiring a CEO won’t fix the Madison problem, as that event had already occurred.

    • traveler@lemdro.id
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      No, he called a new CEO because he knows he’s way over his head for years now. He even spoke about retiring some years ago, that’s how much signs he was showing. The fact he got a new CEO to handle the corpo bs is just a hint that he prefers to mess around with the hardware and just doesn’t want to handle more management shit.

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      He took the blame for it in the video because he was in charge when these things happened. I don’t think he’d do that if he whole point was to blame it on the new CEO.

        • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          He didn’t deflect to the new CEO in the original comment either:

          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.

    • deleted@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Managing a startup could be hard and stressful. But I couldn’t think Linus would go to this extend.

      After this worker coming forward, I unsubscribed from all LMG channels.

  • DarkThoughts@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Afaik this (third party) investigation was started by Terren Tong, the CEO, who was not in this position as of this year and Madison left a couple years ago. I think on this part we can at least give him the benefit of the doubt for now. Linus position might be a very different matter though.

    • Killing_Spark@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      I mean he also is a friend of Linus’ going a long while back but I agree he should be given a chance to straighten this out

      • hihellobyeoh@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Friend yes, but he was his boss, and in linus’s own words, he was the only one who could manage linus. Idk, I am cautiously positive due to the new CEO, but he does still answer to Linus so…

        • alertsleeper@lemm.ee
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          Agree, I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt. I personally don’t think I’ll resubscribe and be as much of a follower as I was, but who knows, depending on the end of this all I actually might

    • pachrist@lemmy.world
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      I have been kind of wondering about that investigation. If their HR is already 3rd party, continuing to use them would technically be a 3rd party investigation. Linus said their HR team is investigating, and they’re hiring someone outside to investigate, are they hiring two HR firms? I looked at LMG’s staff page, and they don’t have any HR listed there. Only a Talent & Culture manager and coordinator. Maybe that’s HR? Seems doubtful.

      I just feel like they might be calling in the same 3rd party HR firm that they’ve been using, find no evidence, and keep on trucking.

      • GoosLife@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        We need a second third party HR team to investigate OUR third party HR team, and make sure they stand up to scrutiny!

      • Syndic@feddit.de
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        I have been kind of wondering about that investigation. If their HR is already 3rd party, continuing to use them would technically be a 3rd party investigation.

        They have internal HR now but didn’t back then. So bringing in someone new to investigate this sounds like a good step. If they really are serious about this, then it would be one of the only way to get a handle ton this. But of course it all depends on how serious LMG is treating this and how much freedom the investigators have. They could easily try to brush this under the rug when the attention drops. So we’ll see I guess.

  • superkret@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    I don’t know why some drama about a borked GPU install has been at the top of my feed for a week, and at this point I’m afraid to ask.

    • golli@lemm.ee
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      If you are interested there are essentially 3 problems:

      • the GPU fiasco: Where they didn’t just bork a install. A small 2 man startup send them their (I think only or at least best) prototype for testing and even included the correct GPU to use it with in their packet. LTT for some reason tested it on a different one (obviously not working well there) and came to the devastating conclusion that NOBODY should ever buy this. Then instead of as requested sending it back they auctioned this prototype off at an event they hosted.

      • the second problem that was also called out in the video published by gamers Nexus was a consistent pattern of publishing data errors in their reviews. And if such errors are caught, they would be inadequately handled. Maybe through a post under the video or by later replacing part of the video. If they caught an error before publishing they also often would just add a small onscreen text correction with an * instead of redoing that part. All problematic as many people will miss those corrections and thus be influenced by wrong data.

      Those two points are especially problematic given the reach of LTT, since they are by far the largest tech YouTube channel. And thus influence a lot of people, especially beginners. Their initial response to these problems was also extremely bad.

      • the third problem was a former employee coming forward with allegations of them being an extremely toxic place to work at. With sexual harassment, intense workload and so on.
      • Lurkerloo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Thank you, I spent so much time combing through posts and comments and your comment is the first time it has been succintly explained.

    • Thurstylark@lemm.ee
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      This isn’t about that specifically, but the gist of it is that they basically got a one-of-a kind prototype GPU water block from a boutique startup to review, and instead of reviewing it with the correct model GPU and sending it back as requested, they did their review on the wrong card, concluded it was crap, and then sold it at auction during their convention.

      • decadentrebel@lemmy.world
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        And to make matters worse, insist that no amount of modification would justify buying that cooler ever. It’s literally covering your ears and muttering la-dee-da repeatedly.

      • ours@lemmy.film
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        And GN calling them out on this and a pattern of getting many things wrong with Linus doubling down on the whole thing as a response.

    • Rouxibeau@lemmy.world
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      As I understand it, it’s not actually about this entirely. it’s that this has caused people to look into things and see that there is a long running history of poor content being pushed out due to issues in the workplace. The mishandling of the Prototype and the accusations by the employee are just extra icing on top of this already fucked up cake.

    • TDCN@feddit.dk
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      I also don’t fully understand why people are so furious. Yes it’s some pretty serious alligations from Madison yes, and some dumb faults has happened from overworked stressed employees because of some bad company policies. Manny big companies have these issues at some point but you don’t hear about it because it’s handled internally or the company just slowly dissolves. LMG are at least open and a million times more transparent than I’ve seen many other companies be. Then own up to their mistakes now and are at least trying to fix things. Shutting down for a week is pretty drastic and for me it shows that they care.

      • dandi8@kbin.social
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        It’s not owning up if you’ve been caught red-handed, denied any wrongdoing, and only made an apology video once your subs started tanking. At this point it just feels like damage control.

      • FireTower@lemmy.world
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        TLDR: The LTT fan base has a culture of calling out bad actions by the company not because they hate them but because they hold them to standards.

        A small company Billet Labs sent them a prototype to test. That prototype was designed for a 3000 series graphics card. LTT didn’t have that card at hand so they asked if it was ok to use a 4000 series card. Billet said they could try but it wasn’t designed for their card. LTT published a review of the prototype based on a scenario it wasn’t designed for and Linus told people it was a bad product. They later agreed to return it to Billet. They ended up auctioning it off at a convention (where some of Billet’s competition was).

        Ultimately LTT paid an undisclosed amount to Billet. The actual damages of selling off a start ups only prototype (possibly to their competition) after agreeing to return it, after telling people not to buy a product (which was only a prototype) based on how it performed in a situation it wasn’t intended to be in is unmeasurable. They could have effectively destroyed years of work and killed the future of those people.

        Linus said he didn’t use the correct card because it would have cost ~$800. The issue isn’t that he didn’t buy that correct card it’s that he didn’t decide to not publish a video on it if he couldn’t do it right.

        On a podcast the other week Linus praised the LTT fans for not just agreeing with everything he does, creating a toxic positive feedback loop. This is them calling him out on his errors.

        Yes other companies make these same terrible decisions. But their bad actions don’t justify LTT’s bad actions.

        • TurboDiesel@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Minor correction, but Billet sent them a 3090; they lost it. It was found and returned eventually but yeah.

        • TDCN@feddit.dk
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          I get that. It’s not cool. Very much not cool. But everyone makes mistakes or do some stupid shit like this at some point on their lives and should at least have a chance to make things right no?

          • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            They did have a chance. Linus took the chance to respond by making excuses and deflecting blame. For fuck’s sake, he said they did not sell the prototype, they auctioned it off. That’s not even a valid excuse.

          • traveler@lemdro.id
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            1 year ago

            I understand your point, but the issue is that they had to get an insane clash back from the community to start doing these changes. I mean, Gamer Nexus made a video calling them out.

            • TDCN@feddit.dk
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              That’s true. And I generally don’t agree with the practices that have happened. I just hope they’ll at least get their shit together and get better at treating their hard working employers. I’m not so much of a pitchfork and torch guy and generally hope for the good in people. LMG certainly got a slap in the face now and a wake-up call it must have been. I just hope it’s enough.

              • traveler@lemdro.id
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                I’m not so much of a pitchfork and torch guy and generally hope for the good in people.

                This is apparently rare on the internet considered what’s being said and done. While I criticised, I’m also hoping they just get the criticism and use it to improve, both the video quality and the working conditions. Both go intrinsically together, happier workers will produce better quality content, which in the end will be good to everyone.

                People who are wishing for the death of LMG, remember these guys employ already >100 workers, many of them which have a passion for technology and probably are happy to work there.

                So, get your pitchforks down and lets wait for the result of this downtime.

  • kftX@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The end result will likely be something like: “We have investigated ourselves and found that we are blameless of any wrongdoing”. Which is usually how these things end up.

    Also, weird to not see them saying they’ll reach out to Madison to get the story from her, but I guess that might be one of those obvious things so not mentioned. I hope.

      • hoshikarakitaridia@sh.itjust.works
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        Yeah I think they have dug themselves in deep shit and this will not go away until they make everything public and take action. And Linus as well as Terren Tong know this.

      • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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        It means they’re hiring someone. What will matter is which type of firm they hire:

        1. Firm with a proven track record of being unbiased in their processes and conclusions.

        2. Firm with a track record of finding no fault, only low level scapegoats

        3. Unknown firm, likely the same result as option 2.

      • kftX@lemmy.world
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        My point is that when you are the one ordering an investigation on yourself, usualyl the results are bound to be highly skewed towards what you want.

        I’ve seen my government recently do this in a pretty big corruption case that would have made heads roll, as well as a couple other private entities I can think of who have hired “outside investigators” to investigate themselves only to go like what I said.

        I’m obviously open to being proven wrong in this case, but the track record of such things isn’t very positive.

        Sorry I wasn’t very clear, I just didn’t want to make my comment too big.

        • newDayRocks@lemmy.world
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          Aside from ordering a third party investigator, how else can a company prove to itself and everyone that they are serious about corrective action?

          You’re essentially saying they are guilty of everything and no matter the findings which haven’t even begun, there is a conspiracy. I don’t see how that cynicism is productive.

          • kftX@lemmy.world
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            My point is they shouldn’t be the ones doing the auditing (or at least ordering it), it should be an outside source doing it (in this case, I guess a government entity? Or something independent from LMG anyhow).

            I’ll gladly admit to being a cynic, but that’s because I’ve worked in similar work environments, quit for very similar reasons and saw nothing being done too. So it’s a sore spot for me too. I can easily see my own bias in this situation.

            In any case, we’ll have to wait and see how it pans out. Hopefully for the best is what matters in the end.

            • newDayRocks@lemmy.world
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              A third party isn’t them though. I get what you are saying because LMG writes the check, but realistically that’s the best anyone can do. Why would the government get involved? Specifically why would taxpayers pay to help rehabilitate a private company’s reputation?

              Private independent auditors are in every industry and a standard practice.

              Oh, and as long as we’re being cynical, let’s say you got your wish and a government entity does the investigation. Odds are they would just contract it out to these same people. Same results, only everyone gets to charge more for their services.

        • Stumblinbear@pawb.social
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          Issue is they’re trying to investigate something from more than two years ago. They’re unlikely to find anything at all in the first place.

          • kftX@lemmy.world
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            That’s also very true, absolutely not gonna disagree there.

            In any case, all we can do is speculate, we will see the end result when it eventually comes out. As long as this brings positive change to LMG as a whole, that’ll be good.

            I know it won’t matter overall, but I won’t see the change since I’ve unsubbed to everything LMG related myself (a long time coming, honestly) but I really do wish them all the best.

    • Saneless@sh.itjust.works
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      Nah it’ll be “negative” but generic

      “We’ve found that we were set up in a way for people to have suboptimal experiences. We thought we had a good culture and a program to minimize harassment but we obviously let some of our employees down so we are hiring a new chief sensitivity officer to address these concerns and ensure that current and future employees feel welcome,. comfortable, and respected”

      Or some shit. Basically a “yeah things got out of hand but since we’re being scrutinized, we’ll hire an adult to keep us in line, maybe”

      • MrBusiness@lemmy.zip
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        It’s like, c’mon Linus ‘If my employees need a union, I have failed as a boss’ Sebastian, you have failed as a boss and your employees need a union.

  • bstix@feddit.dk
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    Yeah yeah yeah, standard response. It won’t work. People won’t come forward and nothing can/will be done if anyone does come forward. It’ll just be awkward for them for a while. Maybe someone will get blamed, fired or resigning … and then… it’ll happen again.

    The damage is already done. There’s no way to undo it.

    They can’t handle this by just asking people to snitch. Allowing or encouraging individuals to snitch on other individuals is not the way to stop this.

    The proper way for a company to handle harassment cases is to prevent them from happening in the first place.

    The proper damage control is to admit that they didn’t do enough to prevent it from happening and then tell everyone about how they’re going to follow proper OSHA guidance from here on. Let’s hear about how they let their employees elect a representative and how they plan to implement preventive actions, and what the procedure is to handle any potential situations before they escalate into a shit show like this.

    I guess their union representative could have told them this a long time ago, but hey, they don’t have one, because they also thought they could handle everything without any. Look at where that got them.

    • WashedOver@lemmy.ca
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      With them being in Canada they have a potentially big bogeyman in the human rights tribunal to worry about. Over the years outside Labour relations lawyers I’ve been in touch with have advised no employer wants to end up there as the rules of law sort of no longer apply and the penalties can be off the charts beyond legal precedent.

      Employers need to do better jobs regardless of this bogeyman or a unions being needed avenue as they can present their own challenges for staff and employers with the additional level of bureaucracy. The more layers, the more complicated everything becomes beyond the egos of the various layers involved.

      It’s a shame to read all that’s going on or alleged to have gone on. I love tech but I’ve not worked in the tech specific industry. I was aware of Linus back to my PC building days and seen some of his videos over the years and the surprising overlaps into the auto channels eventually.

      I wondered what it would have been like to work in a smaller at the time company like his, but I saw some of his frustrations in a media system setup video a couple of years back that kind of had me wonder what is he like to work with? Linus seems really high energy and not super polished in his interactions. Being honest tech people don’t always have the best social skills, much like those that excel at social skills are not the best tech people in broad terms.

      I’ve heard rumblings of (as they aren’t a part of my online world) gamer gate and heard of other issues for women in tech. Thinking about it more I could see how a lack of social awareness and tech bros culture not being a good mix in a growing environment trying to include women. They can’t just think of them as being just another one of the guys with the usual stupid crap they do to each other. I’m getting old now because that statement leads to all kinds of new world issues with the extra gender labels that need to be accounted for today and there are other concerns that arise which the old bros culture cannot accommodate. The locker room behaviour was questionable at best and it’s always been dangerous to have in a workplace, which can really be a huge issue for them to change (if it exists). There is some smoke without a doubt and it reinforces its not easy to be a woman in these types of tech environments especially when companies grow beyond the initial friends group.

      Since I did not really watch more than a couple of videos a year of the LTT I did not realize how large they have become. Their converted warehouse space must just be jammed full of people at 100+ staff now. It was kind of small when they were smaller as it was. With the work load, overhead to cover, the youtube grind, the issues of trying to run during Rona, and the brave new world of big company issues and accommodations needed for a not friends anymore workforce with the workloads, it is easy to see how things can spin out of control with all that is going on. The silos that have developed could have become big blind spots along with the other issues discussed in the social media posts. Wolves of public opinion and of the disgruntled are at the door now.

      I suspect at some point it will be mentioned in hindsight that it would have been better for them to sell with the 100 million offer they had received but I wonder how much of this stuff would have surfaced before the sale went through from due diligence by the potential buyer?

      It’s going to be a big mess ahead to sort out and I hope they are sincere in their intentions to figure this out, make the changes needed (if they are needed, which it sounds like they are) and to repair the damaged incurred to those along the way. It’s a bloody big job and its going to be tough to do in the court of public opinion making their own decisions along the way about what is really going on inside the situation.

      Like that meme of the person trying to make the exit from 4 lanes away on the highway, Good luck everyone! The pile up is going to be big.

      • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
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        Employers need to do better jobs regardless of this bogeyman or a unions being needed avenue as they can present their own challenges for staff and employers with the additional level of bureaucracy.

        Union I would say is important because when employers take this on, and this is openly advertised by HR/diversity consultants, it’s often with the intention of absolving the employer from liability in these matters, rather than improving the employee’s experience.

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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      Yeah, they need a new robust HR system focused on workplace culture. I hope they’ll realize that it’s necessary if they want the company to still exist.

      • bstix@feddit.dk
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        Yes HR is necessary, but they also need representatives for the employees, who can speak to HR and management freely on behalf of employees, so that any individual doesn’t have to address these kinds of problems personally.

        The easiest solution for management is always to fire the one reporting problems, because then the problem goes away. That situation has to be dismantled before they can have an honest discussion of these sort of things. That can only be done by an employee representative.

          • bstix@feddit.dk
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            Yes it could be, but not necessarily. Depends on the country and what their laws are. Many countries have regulations of hazardous working environments (including psychological environment) which mandates companies having more than a few employees to facilitate employee representation, even if the company does not have a collective agreement. It’s a legal obligation rather than a voluntary union.

            Other countries aren’t that progressive and only address physical working environments in the law, leaving anything else to the unions.

            There’s usually some crossover between what the union and safety representatives do.

            It would be nice if stuff like this was taught in schools, because there are a lot of misconceptions about it.

        • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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          The problem doesn’t go away, they just stop hearing about it. I hope lmg cares about their workplace culture, (it’s even good business sense) so they would want to fix the issues instead of silencing it.

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      Exactly, what are they doing to ensure the are no future stories like Madison’s?

      That’s how we know you’re talking responsibility.

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    “Damage control, its there when you need to cover your ass. Speaking of covers this is the perfect segue to our sponsor, Dbrand…”

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    Oh my fucking lord, who cares? Linus has always been a manipulative shitlord and a bastard hyping and doing whatever clickbait will make him millions of dollars this week. Unsubscribe from his manipulative trash and stop talking about him and let his scammy, garbage little YouTube enterprise die as it should have years ago.

    • Discoslugs@lemmy.world
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      Unsubscribe from his manipulative trash and stop talking about him

      Peoeple who do bad shit should be exposed before they are forgotten about.

    • StarkillerX42@lemmy.ml
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      “We’re sorry you found out that sexual misconduct has been a regular occurrence here. We will now take this seriously and ensure you never find out anything like this again. We believe that although sexual assault may happen in the workplace, it is unacceptable for it to be brought to the public’s attention.”

    • Marxine@lemmy.ml
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      Naw, they’re gonna go back to playing Shovel Knight on one of the next WAN(ks) or so

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          I’ll be amazed if he doesn’t fuck it up by eventually blowing up and deflect accusations on his podcast in the next 3 months or so. I’d (almost) give him a prize if he coils hold it up for this long.

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    What a corporate answer that says, now that the public knows we suck I guess we need to address it.

    • TDCN@feddit.dk
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      What kind of answer would you rather have. I’m seriously asking what should the comment have been in order for you to be happy?

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        I feel a good majority of people are just in the outrage phase and there’s literally no response that would have been good enough.

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        Maybe an inclusion of the word sorry.

        And wording it so it sounds like it was written by an actual human being that gives a shit and not a dressed out HR drone that only knows corpspeak.

        • ashok36@lemmy.world
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          Dude, crimes have been alleged. You do not say “sorry” in writing while a criminal investigation is looming.

        • TDCN@feddit.dk
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          That I can agre to. The word sorry bares some weight and to me it shows that you care even more than just doing damage control.

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            Unfortunately saying sorry is an admission of guilt. A sterile corporate response is the best they can do to appear impartial while the investigation goes ahead. The apologies may come later if there is truth to the allegations.

            • NotSteve_@lemmy.ca
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              Saying sorry isn’t (legally) an admission of guilt in Canada

        • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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          Maybe an inclusion of the word sorry.

          yeah because we all know the internet is level headed and it won’t be twisted into a clear admission of guilt 5 nano seconds later…

      • GigglyBobble@kbin.social
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        There is no way. Too many corp answers that were nothing but words have been published before for anyone to not be cynic about it.

        • RealJoL@feddit.de
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          To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I have read a statement that talked about bringing in third party investigators. Is that common for corporations?

          • whofearsthenight@lemm.ee
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            It’s usually something agreed to in a settlement or in a power dynamic situation like Apple telling a supplier they want a third party audit. It also happens when you have no intention of ever publishing the findings. That they’re proactively doing it with the obvious obligation to publish what is found and the consequence of it is most def a show of positive character. I think ya boy Hanlon is right when it comes to leadership at LMG - never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.

        • TDCN@feddit.dk
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          But how to make it better? Do you just want LMG to disappear and leave 100 employers jobless, because that’s not nice either.

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              Based on the response above they’re trying to do exactly that now. So maybe wait and see?

          • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            Yes. This. Because something else will rise in LMG’s place. Because other companies will see what happened and say we cannot let that happen here, because we don’t want a salted desert where our offices are. Because we don’t want our company to be a synonym for a fallen tower.

            If abuse of employees led to business collapses, then we wouldn’t have edifices like Ubisoft who swim in their lucre while still perpetuating sex abuse rings among the upper management who take their choice of hot office clerks.

            A company of a hundred employees getting razed over a scandal would indeed serve to spare tens of thousands of jobs more and allow developers to develop in peace without getting harassed by their management.

      • emax_gomax@lemmy.world
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        This, but maybe not after what we got from Linus to begin with. This is clearly damage control and also is probable detracting from what limus actually feels which is f*ck you I can do what I want and I don’t owe you anything.

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        Oh I’m fine with the answer. With the information I gathered that same day this is probably the best they can do now. I would like to know more info about this outside investigation.

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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      If they’re smart, they’ll realize they need to address these issues in order to exist as a company people want to work at going forward. It’s in their best interest to not appear as a toxic work environment.

    • Vinnyboiler@feddit.uk
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      They recently got a new CEO a month ago because Linus the owner realized he was unfit for that purpose. It should have been dealt with years ago but I wonder if some benefit of the doubt can be given here seeing as the company was in a state of transition and probably would of cleaned up the work culture in private.

      Or not because Linus still owns the company and the buck stops at the absolute top. He put his friend in high positions so it would cause a uncomfortable position when someone who wasn’t his friend lower down the ladder were to speak out. He has also consistently showed toxic masculinity in the way he acts and has spread it within the fabric in the company,

      I have no strong opinion one way or another, but please tell me if I’m being unfair here on either side here. I think the company can still clean itself up and has shown actions before it was publicly known to address it, and I also think the company has misogyny in it’s corporate structure and DNA which will constantly be problematic.

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    It sounds like they are taking her harassment allegations seriously, but not the allegations of excessive levels of work expected, which IMO sounded far more serious. Like having someone grope you is no joke, but having to cut yourself just so you can request a day off is insane

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      The video they put out yesterday addressed the overwork problems. They were clear in their messaging that they are going to back off on the number of videos they make, or at least that’s what they said. Time will tell.

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      Too bad no one took it seriously at the time and repeatedly ignored her. It’s so unfortunate only now once its getting media coverage that they’re doing anything.

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      I’m sorry but if someone felt like the only way they could take a day off is to cut themselves and then goes through with it, it sort of makes their claims needing more validation as that screams instability and not rational thinking.

      There’s no doubt that there was a actual stress and probably really messed with her mentally. Maybe there were way too high of stakes and too much responsibility for her, but I failed to see why they wouldn’t go to their labor board, or quit if it was something that serious.

      I think it’s insane we throw all of this on the employer, when clearly something wasn’t right with her if this is the case

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    I always thought his channel was really dummed down. I watched a video or two and then noped out of it. Wasn’t many if at all any tips from the so called tech tips site.

    Oh and stating the obvious but he’s ‘sorry’ because he got caught.