You’d think Linus would know better than to ask GN for receipts.
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He genuinely believes that he's above all of that now, or almost too successful to fail. If the last huge controversy hasn't put a dent into his cult of personality, not too many other things will
I dunno. I haven't watched another episode since I heard that girl's story about sexual harassment and toxic culture while working there.
Same! I stopped watching any of his company’s content
I just checked out r/pcmasterrace and Linus might be right then. Most people over there seem to be parroting Linus excuses and down voting anyone who says otherwise.
How many times do we need to teach you this lesson, old man?!?
We also allege that there were derogatory comments made by Linus Sebastian in a conversation with Steve Burke on a private phone call on August 31, 2021 at 7:31 PM Eastern lasting 9m 43s, where Sebastian referred to Burke as being “less autistic than you used to be;” however, with no recording of said call, this can only be alleged and there is no additional evidence to provide.
Well that’s pretty fucked up
I get the different likes and dislikes, but seriously, at this point why would anyone watch Linus videos?
Some people like to watch a trainwreck.
I was one of them, for a while.
but he got to stupid and insufferable to even hate watch.
Lol. Made me chuckle
It's fun to watch them do dumb projects and drill too many holes in a wall
For people who love ads and being shilled to and watch infomercials in their free time.
It’s wild how Linus hasn’t pivoted into acknowledging his videos are like junk food. They’re fun but you shouldn’t take them too seriously.
Instead he’s doubling down in all the worst ways while continuing to come off as another whiny tech ceo
I find it really ironic, given that he's spent the last 5-ish years trying to double-down on technical accuracy, while being entertaining. Now there's no accuracy, and the entertainment has turned into repulsive cringe
He has? Not to the degree you're taking it, but that's been a topic of conversation on the WAN show multiple times.
Holy shit it has a table of contents
Man, these people need to sit down and have a proper talk. It's embarassing that they've been fighting in public for so long. A lot of that sounds like simple communication breakdowns, even.
Every goddamn time there's a new step in these conflicts, my opinion of everyone involved tumbles.
Did you not read the entire page? They were in private communication. Linus stole a long GN article, Steve only asked for recognition instead of threatening lawsuits and Linus never responded.
After skimming the comments I can confidently say there are 4 types of people here: people who hate LTT, people who hate GN, people who don't know what plagiarism is and me. Best course of action is to just move on to the post. The second best is getting the popcorn ready before diving in, you'll feel like you're back on reddit.
If anyone wants to neatly summarize this drama in a few sentences, that would be much appreciated. I don't have time to read this essay or watch multiple 45 minute videos on GN.
why is there 0 response on the honey and billet labs thing, which is part of that same wan show? what's with this half done response, why not show all the receipts? and also, why does he bring up a threat of legal action when there was no actual threat of legal action if you see that wan show?
this is such a disappointment, I'm apparently meant to watch as these two adults constantly miscommunicate, misunderstand and ignore half of what the other has said online, and stretch the back and forth even longer than it needs to. This will take like 5 wan shows and gn articles to conclude properly
I'm not sure these are the receipts GamersNexus believes them to be. They're all kinda stretching things into a gray area.
The plagiarism part is straight up incorrect. LMG did not say that their discussion was original reporting. The WAN show is explicitly a podcast reacting to news articles and events (WAN = Weekly Analysis and News). Plagerism needs a "passing off as your own" piece, while IANAL given react content typically ends up in the fair use category because of additional commentary and thoughts being added, the WAN show doesn't have to disclose sources. Usually on WAN show they mention where they heard of the story, and not mentioning GN is a dick move, but it's not plagiarism.
The history of not following up on issues was definitely better addressed in the original GN video. But at the same time, this just makes it seems like GN is trying to use the argument "Hey we warned you once that some of your methodologies aren't great and led to skewed results and you didn't really react, so now we're gonna release an hour long video on all of your previous fuck ups and not tell you, k thx bi*"
To Linus's original point on not getting a heads up, that's not industry standard behavior and also kind of a dick move.
The unprofessional communication part I can go either way with. Would I talk to my boss like that? No. Technical mentors and peers that I had a good relationship with? Absolutely and I have done it. By the book it's unprofessional it's hardly the damning statements Gamers Nexus is trying to sell them as.
Also for those of you who have not watched any LMG content since that original GN video, LMG has cleaned up their act quite a bit, so credit where credit is due. Linus also only asked for receipts since he was getting increasingly frustrated with several negative comments coming from GN whereas on the LMG side they've continued to praise and recommend GN content
Your understanding of what qualifies as plagiarism feels wrong. Just because an organization advertises itself as a "weekly analysis and news" doesn't disqualify them from citing sources. They still are required to give credit where credit is due.. Even mainstream news channels will let their audience know where they are acquiring their information whenever it isn't coming from their own investigations.
At the end of the day, if a primary source privately requests a citation, then a citation is definitely required, so this is where lmg really messed up. GN (as the primary source) felt wronged when lmg used information from their own investigative journalism and did not give them credit (when they apparently gave Jayz2cents credit). At that point in time, lmg was obligated to give GN credit and lmg admitted to this mistake; but then did little to nothing to rectify it.
You can't publish an entire NYT news article verbatim and then claim, "I'm just reacting." The GN article is copyrighted.
Are we talking copyright or plagiarism here? GN is claiming plagiarism, not copyright infringement
Edit: spelling
I have not finished reading the article, but "Receipt 1" is just embarrassing to GN in my eyes. They claim LMG never addresses the plagierism and provides an email chain where Linus tell him what exactly LMG is going to do in response and GN responds indicating the solution is good. Where is the problem?
Specifically on publicly addressing it, Linus said they will pin a comment and Steve said that's OK. That's what happened. Is it truly unresolved? Just reading the emails provided makes it really look like an open and closed case.
I also dont get why they include the additional context in that part of their response. What does GN's recent criticism of LMG have to do with that interaction?
Sorry, on mobile and just had to type something out before I forgot, because this is a long read.
Like most internet beefs I'm guessing the truth lands somewhere in the middle.
Though as someone only sorta paying attention and I don't really care what happens I will say that Linus appears to be more upfront about his mistakes and continuing to own up to them as they come up. Not like he can own up for things that either never happened or he doesn't remember happening. He is still a human.
GN comes across more like the jealous angry kid that lashes out over text messages because they didnt get what they wanted. I can't shake the feeling that the "sudden" turn of GN against Linus has something to do with something else entirely that none of us even know about... Yet.
All that being said I have always liked Luke the most and I stopped watching LTT stuff quite a bit when Luke left. I still watch WAN because I find the information and entertainment combination the perfect background audio while I'm tinkering or whatever. I think both the GN and LTT videos generally both suck these days. GN just stands there with some paper in his hands and word vomits at the camera. Linus reminds me of the annoying orange at times.
I was similar but stopped watching the wan show when every episode became a product showcase for their merch. Real shame, I feel Luke's a weight keeping Linus somewhat grounded.
Luke is a relatively sane normal person. Linus is like the tasmanian devil. If Luke and Linuses wife weren't around who knows how canceled he would already have been lol.
Just finished reading. In summary: everyone loses here.
Linus made some silly but understandable mistakes, had some very poor word choices in private communications, and got Steve on the defensive by publicly mentioning he didn't want to sue but implied he could. LMG is also (in the youtube world) a large company and is likely always working on process improvements, and the improvement Steve seems to want to happen that they are definitely lacking in, is to update old content with corrections or omissions.
Steve poorly or never communicated what he thought were satisfactory resolutions to past comments or incidents and is upset that those resolutions didn't happen, and is only escalating the situation further by softly threatening legal action, while also hinting that they have way more evidence they are just conveniently leaving out despite their current evidence being mostly empty (specifically receipts 1 and 2).
They both run very different channels with different focuses and staff sizes and production values, and each has made mistakes. None of this spat should have been public, but it seems both parties are just bad at communicating with one another and it has only escalated due to LMG actually publicly responding to public allegations by GN.
If I had to declare a winner so far, Steve is looking worse for wear to me given the poor examples provided as receipts and the continued threat of legal escalation, but again - everyone loses here. Everyone looks worse and this should have been handled privately. Maybe LMG should appoint someone other than Linus to handle fellow media contacts, because it doesn't seem like he's the best for that job.
I checked out from all LMG videos after I found out about the treatment of Madison during the huge controversy. WTF is going on over there? I thought Linus and Steve were friends at one point, did Linus forget that Steve remembers everything?
From the article:
Sebastian’s recent calls for friendship were accompanied by serious legal allegations and claims regarding the ethics and motives behind our entire business. We believe this is a play on parasocial relationships, reinforced by Linus Media Group’s decision to re-title the LMG Clip “Can Linus & Gamers Nexus Ever be Friends Again?”, where it paints GamersNexus as a friend who just needs to make up with LTT so things can “get back to normal.” This suppresses dissenting views by pretending to be everyone’s friend, so a legitimate critique seems like a personal attack to onlooking viewers.
If they were, they emphatically AREN'T anymore.
At this stage, Linus Media Group and GamersNexus have both made statements which are extremely serious. This is far beyond presenting a front of friendliness, and I am respectfully requesting that Linus Sebastian drops that facade publicly, as well as ceases the repeated personal emails requesting as much, as it is personally making me extremely uncomfortable.
Uh I'm sorry what the fuck
I noped out of LTT after the initial reporting. What happened about the allegations of harassment and particular allegations by a former woman employee?
In summary, as confirmed by the investigation, the allegations made against the team were largely unfounded, misleading, and unfair.
Or more specifically the investigation found that:
Claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated.
Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
Any concerns that were raised were investigated. Furthermore, from reviewing our history, the investigator is confident that if any other concerns had been raised, we would have investigated them.
There was no evidence of “abuse of power” or retaliation. The individual involved may not have agreed with our decisions or performance feedback, but our actions were for legitimate work-related purposes, and our business reasons were valid.
Allegations of process errors and miscommunication while onboarding this individual were partially substantiated, but the investigator found ample documentary evidence of LMG working to rectify the errors and the individual being treated generously and respectfully. When they had questions, they were responded to and addressed.
Personally I’d wait for more people to complain. There are lots of women working at LMG, no one else has complained.
I’ve see disgruntled workers before lie about lots of stuff. If she’s telling the truth then others would also be saying something.
By memory the external firm they hired did not release documentation of the investigation but did release a statement saying LMG hadn't done the things that were claimed
Well, so much for ditching the R-slur from his vocabulary. It's like everything Linus says is in bad faith. What a douchebag. And also texting while driving, class A shit-4-brains specimen.