- cross-posted to:
- linus_tech_tips@discuss.online
- cross-posted to:
- linus_tech_tips@discuss.online
You must log in or register to comment.
Sounds convincing, however businesses don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. For me to trust and support this content again, the investigation of the allegations needs to produce conclusive evidence. The whole quality drama passed to the background after Madison showed up what really went inside LMG
Either LMG admits wrongdoing and dishes out consequences to those involved, or they present verifiable and damning evidence showing no abuse occurred. Unlike bootlickers at reddit and ltt forums, I don’t side with businesses against people. If you live in this world and not in your mom’s basement you’d understand why.
If LMG comes out with “we found nothing,” “no conclusions could be made,” or something along those lines without evidence, then fuck them. Not good enough.
I vote with my wallet (and time), and I won’t deal with more corpo BS while abusing emplpyees. Before any smartasses come here with the usual “you live in society” crap. Yeah I can’t go live in the woods like a hermit to be morally right, but I can sure as hell drop a shit tech yt channel.
EDIT: taking another look, the second half of the video was more defensive nonsense. Basically claiming they aren’t a twitter sweatshop, they are the victims, and some heavily edited parking loot footage as “proof”
And the turnover rate is at best a shaky argument, One can argue since it’s mostly guys, they’re not gonna be at the same situation to be bullied, insulted and sexually harassed until leaving. It doesn’t seem the culture will be fixed anytime soon, so I’m just gonna stop wasting more time with it.
The burden of proof works the exact opposite way. You make a claim, then you need to support verifiable and damnable evidence. Not the other way around.
This isn’t a court trial tbh, and what has come forth from Madison’s side (testimonies, recording, consistency) is more than enough for me to put the ball entirely on LMG’s side.
No reason to keep giving businesses the benefit of the doubt when in many cases they have every advantage over the situation.
Oh, sure, I mean, you are definitely free to do and think as you wish. Just pointing out how the burden of proof works, since a lot of people (not necessarily you) do not get how it works. Bertrand Russel, everyone!
This isn’t a court trial tbh
So just because it’s not a court trial means we should throw out innocent until proven guilty? The burden of proof is non-negotiable. These ideas have existed for centuries, they aren’t a purely legal framework.
what has come forth from Madison’s side
Which is, to be perfectly fair, limited to he-said-she-said which isn’t evidence. It’s just an allegation and very little can be decided from that alone.
At this point there is exactly zero useful information to actually derive any real decision from.
So just because it’s not a court trial means we should throw out innocent until proven guilty? The burden of proof is non-negotiable. These ideas have existed for centuries, they aren’t a purely legal framework.
I’m under no obligation to give LMG the benefit of the doubt, if I choose to abstain from watching their content due to the allegations, then that is my prerogative. My choosing to make a decision without proof either way doesn’t harm LMG further than the loss of ad revenue, etc.
That’s the difference.
deleted by creator
Good thing that person’s personal “court system” has no bearing on LMG’s ability to do or not do anything.
deleted by creator
How do you present evidence that it didn’t happen without uploading months of continuous security camera footage?
I think we should first wait for Madison to provide evidence that it did happen
At least there was other ex-employees who did show support to some of the stuff Madison said
ehhh, no; Colin and Taran repeatedly stated they never witnessed sexual abuse or harassment, and they can only confirm current claims are consistent with what she told them before.
I said “show support to some stuff”, not that they confirmed any of it as witnesses.
I think we’re saying the same thing but I don’t like the way you phrased it. They didn’t support any part of her story, except that it didn’t change.
Yeah I guess the wording in internet is difficult. What I meant is that they stood up for her, even if they can’t confirm the things happened.
If, hypothetically, Madison made this whole thing up due to some ulterior motive, don’t you think there would be other ex-exployees with mutual interests?
Just out of spite? Nah that’s not normal. If we were talking about some megacorp like amazon or blizzard I’m sure there were ex employees piling in with some lies too but it’s way less likely in a smaller company when we’re talking about just 2 other people known by the community chipping in.
deleted by creator
A lot better of a response, but I think Linus missed the point on toxic workplace/culture comments.
I’m sure they’re not able to comment on Madison (for good legal reason and they still need the third party firm to investigate), but Linus’ response just felt more “look at all the nice things LMG does” rather than a commitment about the long-term cultural issues. Anonymous employee surveys are really difficult to trust because a) they have a reputation of not being anonymous and b) if the culture has someone already scared to be open, it’s doubtful that there will be honest answers. It sounds like LMG did take their one-on-one meetings seriously, but time will only tell.
(Personal ancedote: I have had managers watch me fill out those anonymous surveys to make sure it was “filled out properly.”)
Yeah, it’s nice LMG gives decent Christmas bonuses and hold have all those off-hours events, but I can’t help but feel it’s designed more to keep employees trapped in the LMG bubble and when you feel trapped, it’s harder to push back and up for yourself.
I don’t want Linus/LTT to fail. Mistakes are bound to happen and I enjoy watching a tiny Canadian man put things down really fast. I honestly just don’t want to support a complete jerk that purposefully hurts other people and refuses to take accountability. If it comes out that everything with Madison is true and LMG takes no corrective action, I will have no issue hard blocking LMG content.
EDIT: Further thoughts after reading the responses:
-
It’s really none of our business what happened between Madison and LMG. The only thing that matters is hoping Madison has a good support system in place and LMG makes the necessary internal changes in response to the third-party investigation.
-
I don’t think it’s wrong that they shared their turnover numbers, but I don’t think it’s representative of the big picture. LMG’s roles feel more specialist in nature. I don’t imagine there’s a high amount of jobs in some areas that LMG offers, which means people are less likely to leave. It’s also possible that some parts of the company are shielded from what happens elsewhere. (It appears both Creator Warehouse and Floatplane weren’t as impacted)
-
It’s good to at least some companies take anonymous surveys / one-on-one feedback seriously. Rewatching the video, it appears they are taking one-on-one feedback seriously, which I hope is the case.
Although I don’t disagree, publicly announcing turnover stats that are far below average kinda blows a giant hole in the “LMG is a toxic hellhole” narrative. I’ve been in toxic hellholes, and turnover tells the real story.
This also doesn’t negate necessarily Madison’s statements and there probably have been real issues, but I think this is the part of the video where he said (paraphrased) “don’t panic about a rise in intentional turnover.” I lead a team about LMG’s size, and people often don’t realize that you can say and demonstrate your values consistently at this size, and still have someone fuck it up because some people just come to the org with the wrong learned behavior and it’s gargantuan to re-program them to a healthy state, and a smaller few are just unsalvageable assholes. See also, the Stanford Prison experiment. It would extremely not blow my mind to learn that a few people or a particular team in LMG are entirely toxic and it was missed, and also that the experience for the vast majority doesn’t match with this and they’re trying to run an ethical company. My (optimistic) assumption is that the intentional turnover comment is probably going to focus on those that Madison dealt with.
If I had to guess, I’d say the turnover stats only count full employees, and are therefore a reflection of their “trial period” hiring policy more than anything else. They avoid needing to officially “fire” people they don’t like, and anyone who isn’t comfortable with the culture can leave without needing to “resign”.
On top of that, LTT holds “dream job” status in many people’s minds, so a lower-than-average turnover is expected, and it’s impossible to distinguish that effect from the working conditions.
I’m not saying it’s necessarily a bad place to work, I’m just saying the stats they gave are inconclusive.
If I had to guess, I’d say the turnover stats only count full employees, and are therefore a reflection of their “trial period” hiring policy more than anything else.
If they were deliberately manipulating the stats, that would come out quickly with the level of scrutiny they’re facing right now. Also, wholeheartedly agree with a trial period. They’re good for the company obviously for lots of reasons, but a less obvious one is rooting out cultural fits and problem people like this. Also, I think this is better for the employee as well - it’s much better for mental health to have a clean break than it is to spend the next 6 months going through “performance improvement plans” and such.
Never said the trial period was bad, nor that they were “manipulating” the figures per se (including temp employees in the stats wouldn’t make sense at all). It just makes comparing against the national average a little silly.
Agreed, I thought mentioning those statistics was a tasteful way of addressing that conversation as best as possible in a YouTube video, and those “people will be fired” comments felt like a clear commitment to rooting out and going as far as firing anyone creating that kind of environment.
The amount of “Linus didn’t even talk about” in this thread is crazy to me, just feels like bad reading comprehension when he directly addressed most of the conversation (HR, work hours and environment, etc) and even committed to firing people in a video his staff will all be watching.
Indeed. It feels like quite a lot of commenters watched a different video.
Workers Union could solve it
I’ve always viewed off-hours events as a sort of shitty way to show you’re a “fun company” ™. For workers who are already expected to put in well above 40 hours per week in a stressful environment asking them to cut further into their free time for work events really isn’t very helpful. It’s just one more obligation to the company that you are now being pressured to fulfill
IMHO, there’s anything wrong with the occasional one-off optional event, like a bowling night or picnic. That said, I’ve always felt like events are more of a risk/liability/personality assessment - if my manager doesn’t think I’m a fun activity buddy, does that mean I’m screwed?
I guess its not just anonymous surveys though is it, its that, plus a low turnover, plus 1-1 feedback sessions and other things I’m probably forgetting. But don’t overlook the conclusion where if you read between the lines, more personnel changes are likely as a result of this.
I think your last point is highly unlikely, there is too much light on this for the issues alleged by Madison to be true, and for LMG to do nothing. But the tricky thing is that the full truth about Madison’s issues is unlikely to be made public, and equally the full action taken by LMG will not be made public. HR, and employment issues kinda require privacy - this isn’t a government or public department, its a private company with responsibilities to employees past & present mandated by law.
Agreed on your point regarding Madison/LMG - it really isn’t our business to begin with and the best to hope for is that everyone involved is able to resolve it privately.
A third issue with anonymous surveys is that barely anyone fills them in. Only a certain type of personality likes these things.
-
Significantly less cringy than the last one. I’ll give em that. (Although that bar was low)
deleted by creator
negative height
Unfortunately structural integrity of the bar was compromised due to proximity to the earth’s molten core.
Bar so low, the devil drinks there.
Even James Cameron couldn’t find it. https://media0.giphy.com/media/3o6ZtfJ5VcIvM31NKM/giphy.gif
His name is James, James Cameron The bravest pioneer No budget too steep, no sea too deep Who’s that? It’s him, James Cameron James, James Cameron explorer of the sea With a dying thirst to be the first Could it be? Yeah that’s him! James Cameron
Maybe a petty gripe, but they still couldn’t resist flashing their new screwdriver onscreen
A simple “we can’t talk about the Madison situation right now, but we will later.” would have made this video 10x better.
“Mr. Sebastien, in your video from August 26, 2023 marked as exhibit 23B you referred to “the Madison situation”. Can you explain what you meant by ‘situation’?”
You may not like it but when there’s credible accusations of harassment, constructive dismissal, and possibly up to battery you do not make public statements of any kind beyond, “We are investigating and taking the accusations seriously”, which in case you missed it the CEO of LMG already did a week ago.
I hate that we’re commenting without understanding the nuances you’ve highlighted above, and building a flawed emotional worldview based on things that are legally inadvisable for LMG to say.
Ever thought that maybe Madison doesn’t want her drama forever a part of a video update? Or do you guys just think about yourself and what you want?
expired
deleted by creator
Most people “only” worked 9-10 hour days and that’s not including commute
That’s not what was shown at all. They showed that the working hours are flexible with people allowed to arrive when they want within reason.
At my office, some people arrive at 7:30am and leave at 4:30pm. Some people, like me, arrive at 9am and leave at 5:30 (I only do 30 minute lunches usually). Some people at the office come in a 8am and work till after 6pm regularly but they are absolutely not required to. They prefer to work at a slower pace for longer and that’s their call.
“Wfh will be even rarer since people will be required to be at more in person”
That’s unfortunate
Work from home wasn’t mentioned at all in the video. They just said they would have more face to face meetings. You can have a face to face over Zoom. That’s in contrast to just sending an email or slack message with instructions that may or may not be complete or understandable.
I don’t think you know what face to face means lol.
Face to face means something completely different in 2023 than it did in 2019.
Removed by mod
… Lol nah it doesn’t but keep doing your thing I guess.
That bit at the start about addressing the people who want to see them fail… ehhh
I mean, people who actively want to see you fail just because shouldn’t really be engaged with at all tbfh, and if he’s referrring to who I think he’s referring to, then bleah
Otherwise at least they’re back, let’s see how they improve
That’s this community though. This place is still just actively hating. If you are unhappy with LMG and aren’t willing to see how they improve moving forward, then just… move on to another channel.
I guess unsubing from this community wasn’t enough, gotta actually block it.
Who’s he referring to? What the hell did I miss?
Apparently the guy from Gamers Network is just a hater, and him bringing up all this stuff that they have to “introspect” over was just him being a dick. I mean, the fans figured he was right enough to throw a shitfit, but he should know better than to criticize Linus. After all, Linux is infallible except when he’s not.
That’s a really big stretch.
And also, A lot of people want to see him fail because he’s simply refusing to fix the years of misogynistic and hustle culture to the point of sexual harassment and a lack of journalistic integrity
Listening to it, there is a lot of focus on saying things alluding to “we were already in the process of fixing this” rather than “we fucked up and this will be fixed”.
I’m also a little concerned to see that gender affirming healthcare isn’t listed on their health plan when they have trans members of staff. I completely understand why Emily doesn’t want to be in the public eye but she is by far my favourite host and I’d love to see her back and producing high quality, well thought out videos where she is given the creative time she needs. The people pressuring her (as well as others) to comment on everything were completely out of order though.
I think the culture of misogyny is demonstrated by the number of male hosts compared to women. Part of the reason people wanted Madison on board was because she would have fit the role perfectly and they just dumped her in the corner on socials. YouTube is a new industry and its disappointing that it is still as male dominated as the tech journo industry that came before it.
What I think is needed is for the staff to unionize and for the company to stop micromanaging and pushing performance because the “fun” doesn’t feel like real fun, it feels like corporate forced fun. McDonalds does a christmas party for their staff and you don’t hear people praise them for their workplace culture.
We’re a fun company! See the ping pong table? That’s how you know you’re going to love it here. Now get back to work, slut.
I am so pissed about what they did to Madison, she was my favorite host hefore she even was an employee. To see that get dumpstered and spat on really hurt their reputation permanently for me
Brilliantly said.
Asking for clarification on paragraph 3. Are you saying that the lack of female hosts is solely indicative of misogyny or are you saying that it’s a sign or some other option. I wouldn’t want people to make the assumption that there will always be an even spread of men and women everyone in every role. (There’s ways to look at these statistics on a per industry basis IIRC)
Overall, I agree with all of your points (I think) but just wanted to make sure we weren’t jumping to any conclusions. The Tech industry in large part has been sexist, misogynistic, etc towards women specifically (trans-women too) - sometimes I wonder how bad it is when compared to other industries, mostly because I know it’s hard to get people into Tech to begin with due to other stereotypes of technical people. Sometimes I think tech bros are just projecting and reflecting all that hate they’ve gotten onto women/new kids on the block.
I hope this new generation continues to foster more and more inclusivity and self reflection. Support your local Girls Who Code!
Linus himself has said on the WAN show that they want to employ more women but they still haven’t had any real growth or development in that area since. I mean that even if Linus wants there to be women in the roles there are reasons that there aren’t.
First off, it sucks to be the only woman in a room. You don’t want to feel tokenized but you often will. After being on the receiving end of sexism, you probably will be the one who has to speak out about it the most. Just like how Maddison was called a tattle tale, I’ve been called removed and a professional victim myself for that very reason and that has included in workplaces that are built to be feminist from the ground up.
To properly fight the patriarchal workplace environment means that men should be identifying each other’s behaviour as a problem and nipping it in the bud before women have to put up with it. The fact that the inappropriate joke landed in their apology video shows they don’t do the due diligence of making those checks. People often meme on the phrase “check your privilege” but I’d say that is what it actually means in practice; unfortunately people tend not to explain that too well.
What a kick ass fuckin response, thanks for reachin back out!
A lot of these problems we face are entirely social and then bleed into the workplace sadly. I hadn’t always understood the purpose of “forced diversity” but you know I think I can feel its use now.
For example, a lot of women ended up working due to the war where there wasn’t a choice and they flooded into the workplace. Proved themselves, held it down, looked out for each other and some men supported them in that battle (not that it’s needed, but classes in power helping the revolutionist never hurt anybody)
Now, to be fair, factory lines are a bit different from writing code but that’s not to say they can’t be learned and that’s not to say that being on a tv show is writing code. There’s no reason not to start here and encourage more young girls (or teens, young adults, women in general) to get into this fucking sick ass cybersphere. Thanks again!
Tek Syndicate surprisingly came out with one of the best takes I’ve seen on this situation. This could be a real damaging moment for LTT, but getting an employee union could address the criticism perfectly.
huh, I’ve never run across this channel. Seems cool.
They’re good, old techtuber. Used to be a really big company until one of the guys they hired to help expand just fucked up everything. Very well informed but he’s still an entertainer
Yeah they haven’t been relevant since they tried to screw Wendell. Now Wendell has his own successful channel.
Reading the Reddit thread on this, I find it fascinating that, at the beginning of the incident, Lemmy had more balanced conversations vs the crazies on Reddit calling for LTT disbandment. Now after the latest video, it seems like Reddit seems more reasonable and receptive with Linus’ plans vs Lemmy being the LTT doomsayers.
deleted by creator
Addressed in the latest video? They literally and legally can’t.
What we want, and what is legally required, do not coincide.
Refer to: https://lemmy.world/comment/2825024
deleted by creator
Are you kidding me? Have we not watched the same video? The man put out numbers detailing the employee turnover rate, benefits package, and even security footage detailing that his employees are not being overworked. Did you not watch the video?
His turnover rate is BELOW Canadian average, meaning his employees haven’t quit at the rate Canadian employees have on average. His benefits packages for his employees are ABOVE MANY Fortune 500 companies. His employees are not being forced to work overtime.
Your premise has no weight, with the currently available evidence (the investigations may change that, but we don’t know for a fact currently). Refute the evidence put forth with actual evidence, not more guesses and claims.
Can you explain why you think his staff’s well-being is in jeopardy or in which ways his employees’ working conditions need to be improved?
Lemmy somehow went into a deranged rambeling mode after some time. I do not understand why, but I mostly switched over to Reddit after that.
You are a stronger person than I. I still refuse to go back to Reddit after the bs they tried to pull lol. I’ve been looking at other ltt communities, but this is still the biggest community…
Yeah, this is the only big LTT sub. I also frequent reddit for /r/rabbits.Not everything can be replaced with lemmy and that is to be expected. Tho, I am normally not logged into my reddit account.
You mean literally only calling out Linus repeatedly dodging the waterblock issue and stating that Unionisation would resolve most of the other employee dissatisfaction issues?
How deranged. Much Ramble.
Open source people are also open bar people
deleted by creator
The plan is solid, but forgive me if I give it a few years of “wait and see” how well they keep their word and more importantly handle work place allegations and changes before I re-subscribe to the channel. Still a good plan and I hope it’s a sincere one.
Why would we forgive you, that’s a perfectly acceptable decision? /J
I am still not very impressed with the response from Linus and company. It is quite clear that they decided to slave themselves to the YouTube algorithm without regard for the humans involved. So many of their videos devolve into an unintentional Abbott and Costello comedy routine because they clearly did not decide to spend the time preparing properly or realizing they missed something and starting again. They just plow through without regard for the quality of people involved.
Sometimes this is entertaining, but more often than not, it is just low quality and a waste of their time.
I want entertaining tech content, but not at the expense of the people involved. Honestly, it is fascinating to see the sausage being made. I would love for them to show the difficult process of making a high quality video and getting the process corrected. Then have the final produced video. Full transparency, warts and all.
Alternative take - playing up to the YouTube algorithm is what has allowed LMG to expand to the point where it provides jobs for over 100 (is it near 200 now?) people. Those people work hard, yet the majority seem to stay with the company which suggests any alternative employment isn’t attractive enough to motivate them to leave their current work conditions.
Work conditions suck just about everywhere these days. I wouldn’t consider what I have seen from employee interviews to be ringing endorsements nor total loathing. It is probably worse than you think and better than I expect. I still think they are chasing the wrong metrics regardless of whether it is a good place to work. The fact that Linus burned himself out gives you more than a hint of what it is like for others working there.
I am glad that they plan to improve and made steps towards it, but i still have a sour taste in my mouth:
- I was expecting a formal apology for the monoblock and mouse skates film issue. Both of these were instances where LTT threw another smaller company under the bus. Them not addressing it further gives the assumption that they can, and will keep getting away with stuff like this.
- Their new guidelines for correction policy are flawed; even the low-severity ones are thing that really shouldn’t be tolerated with no corrective action, and all factual mistakes should be re-shot or voiced over instead of on-screen corrections.
- They hardly touched upon the whole Madison situation, except for some boasting about employee benefits.
- In the whole situation, I felt like they failed to really admit that they were sorry for what hapened, and were taking the role of the victims.
- “We are people too” and a whole segment in this video of emails from fans hoping they will get better soon and “survive this difficult shitstorm”. LMG was merely getting away with this stuff for a long time and just now have been called out. They don’t deserve any harassment, however, they also don’t deserve any “Get better soon” emails from fans.
TL;DR: I will most likely continue to watch Linus tech tips for entertainment purposes, but will no longer trust them on any technical details, and would go to other channels for tutorials on how to build a pc and such.
They hardly touched upon the whole Madison situation, except for some boasting about employee benefits.
My impression was that they were trying to keep that and the testing and workload issues mostly separate. They hired an independent firm to investigate them, and I doubt the results are in yet. So I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a separate update later on.
But they did mention their turn over rate might increase in the short term. I took that as meaning they would fire the people guilty in the allegations, but we don’t know for sure yet.
Sad some else mentioned, the issue with the Madison situation is that it’s become an hr/legal issue and they can’t openly discuss stuff like that.
Also new CEO isn’t working…
“As happy as I am that Terren is here, he can’t make these changes alone [… many paragraphs later …] That’s also why we brought in an experienced manager, Terren who is offsite this week or I would have brought him in to chat with you guys as well”
So “all hands” in “crisis time”… And the CEO isn’t there and hasn’t been for the whole week? This is literally where a good CEO should be in house looking at EVERYTHING. Not away on a golf trip or whatever the fuck he’s doing.
I think I’m on the same TL;DR… I might find a video interesting enough to watch for entertainment here and there… But at this point I will no longer treat anything I hear from them as actually data. And if the Madison thing turns out to be true, will simply hard block their channel.
I don’t think anyone’s dumb enough to go on a golf trip during a crisis. Linus wouldn’t have defended that and would have fired anyone who would’ve gone on a golf trip while the rest of the company works their asses off to get LMG back in shape.
I would prefer to assume good faith. Maybe a family member is in critical care? Maybe collaboration with investigators? Maybe legal consultation? All of those are pretty good reasons not to be in the video.
All of those are pretty good reasons not to be in the video.
That’s not what I said… Nor what was communicated in the video. I quoted specifically what was stated.
Terren who is offsite this weekThis week != this video. Nor did I pass judgement on him not being in the video (he’s a CEO after all… not talent.). I made my judgement based on what was communicated. Not on some wild ass assumption.You can assume good faith all you want. You certainly didn’t bother to read what I wrote in good faith.
When do you think they made the video if not this week?
If you think that video took them a week to produce then you’re delusional. That likely took them literally a couple hours total that morning.
Right? So the CEO is offsite this week. A week runs Mon-Sun. They shot the video probably on Friday.
Right… What’s your point? Why is the CEO offsite for a crisis event for his company? His lack of presence in the the video is irrelevant, I’m not sure why you keep bringing it up.
They had 9 days outage… 9 days of effectively no income or work. CEO is not present.
Quid pro quo it would appear.
I feel like every company is basically fucked. It’s built into how America works.
I don’t disagree, but they’re Canadian…
Whoops haha.
still technically America to be fair!
I mean, they fucked themselves by being bad journalists and having a shitty, workaholic, misogynistic culture. Those things weren’t fated to happen.
Haven’t watched it yet, but it’ll be a while before I’ll be willing to give LTT my views again
He really needs to take a step back and let Teran do his what they hired him to do. He has stated multiple times that he is no a CEO. he has no actual training or education and it has been showing for years now. Every talking head episode he pushes out like this just seems to dig his legacy further into this hole.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this whole “plan” was concocted and deployed by the entire leadership team, with Reran giving the final approval. Linus is still the face of the company, so it’s no surprise he is the one telling us about this plan.
And LMG would likely be blasted if it wasn’t Linus presenting it as well. Damned if you do / don’t.
