My personal thoughts
At first it came off a bit whiney, but I watched the entire thing and I’m glad I did. It shows a pattern of carelessness and in some cases complete douchebaggery of LMG.
What they did to Billet Labs is absolutely un-fucking excusable. LMG and Linus, in particular, needs to be mercilessly shamed for that until Billet Labs gets a clear and unequivocal apology and paid restitution for damages. Fucking shameful. What a bunch of pricks.
Video Description
This video is not monetized. This video covers our serious concerns regarding the data accuracy of Linus Media Group, including Linus Tech Tips, ShortCircuit, and TechQuickie, particularly as it relates to rushing content out the door to favor – by staff’s own admission – quantity over quality. As the company continues to expand into its LTT Labs direction, the importance of accurate data increases; however, even as ‘only’ entertainment, there are still certain responsibilities to the consumer and the manufacturers to report fairly (and to have defined corrections processes in place). We tried to approach this as objectively as possible and hope that viewers are able to listen to the evidence we present, particularly as it relates to significant and frequent data errors that now present in nearly every technical review video.
Linus’ response is here: https://linustechtips.com/topic/1526180-gamers-nexus-alleges-lmg-has-insufficient-ethics-and-integrity/page/16/#comment-16078641
This is one of the main justification’s Linus uses for claiming the journalistic moral high ground in that reply. First of all, correct me if I’m wrong, but the video in question didn’t once claim that the cooler was “sold” - rather that it was “put up for auction”. Which doesn’t contradict or even misrepresent anything that actually happened. Secondly, a debate over whether it was sold for profit or auctioned off for charity is largely irrelevant anyway because the actual problem here is that LMG attempted to offload the product to a third party after receiving requests to return it to the manufacturer (and promising multiple times to do so). Linus is trying to use the charity angle to frame himself as the benevolent and misrepresented good guy just trying to do the right thing, but in the process is lying about what was actually said and is displaying a complete lack of awareness over what the actual problem here is. Signing off with this just makes him look even worse:
He’s pretending he has the moral high ground, whilst continuing to take snipes and potshots, in a poorly worded apology where he admits he is in the wrong. The dude just sounds salty that someone dared to call him out. His ego can’t handle it and now he’s desperately floundering around attempting to find some way to damage the credibility of the other person.
Eh, I’d say the difference between selling it for themselves and for charity is meaningful. One seems like a play for dollars taking advantage of their connections while the other just sounds like a communication fuckup where the ones taking care of the block weren’t in contact with the ones making promises to return it. Neither is good, of course, but to someone outside the situation they do impact my view of the company differently.
Regardless, the main issue is their absurd pace and he doesn’t address that at all. I hope their new CEO is more willing to budge on that than Linus has been, but it’s too early to tell.
Which is probably the intended tactic here. Pretend you’ve been misrepresented as having sold something that isn’t yours for profit, then clarify that it was actually just a mix-up and you were trying to do the right thing. People focus on the ethical difference between the strawman scenario you created and what actually happened and think “hey, that’s not so bad actually”, so you get some forgiveness without ever properly acknowledging the real problem - that you attempted to redistribute something that wasn’t yours, without permission from the real owner. Despite Linus’s claims, he really doesn’t address that at all in his “apology”. It’s mostly just fake moral grandstanding over “journalistic practices”, portraying the person who is reporting on this issue as the true villain.
I don’t know why you say “pretend” there. Having seen the GN video first, the tone and lack of specificity definitely led me to believe it was being sold for profit (I was surprised when I found out it was for charity), and I would totally want to clear that up if I were in Linus’ position.
I dunno, I don’t really care that much about a company screwing over another company and then paying them back once it’s publicized. Both options come off to me as the kinds of minor transgressions that I assume happen regularly and aren’t really the kind of thing people who aren’t personally involved should care much about. For me, the big problems are the slipping quality of their test results and other issues caused by their release schedule and I wish GN didn’t even bother bringing up the auction in the first place. Doing it for profit impacts my view differently from doing it for charity, but it’s all just peanuts in the end.
Because Linus put sell in quotation marks, implying GN misdirected viewers on this point when in fact no such thing happened. GN literally said the item was “put up for auction at [LMG’s] Extra Life auction event”. Extra Life is a very well-known charity and the fact that you weren’t aware of that is definitely not evidence of a lack of “proper journalistic practices” as claimed by Linus.
I dunno, I’d expect journalists to provide that information instead of assuming you’re familiar with a charity which has a name that sounds like any ol gaming event. I don’t think it was done out of malice but I do think it’s your job as a journalist to recognize how that will sound to people unfamiliar with the charity and to inform them in turn. Leaving that ambiguity makes GN’s argument’s sound stronger to those uninformed and I think most writers are familiar with that effect. You aren’t saying anything untrue or even really lying by omission, but you are making use of people’s ignorance.
My point isn’t that that was some major deception or a massive problem, just that if I was on the other end of that I would want it to be very clear what that auction was being run for, as it can impact if people think you’re being malicious or if you’re just incompetent. God knows LTT makes bigger mistakes regularly nowadays.
(and yes, I do think Linus pinpointed the issue about the block because it’s the easiest to address without changing anything or addressing any real problems)
It’s a perfectly valid assumption to make, considering Extra Life is the most well-known gaming related fundraising event (not a charity, that was a mistake on my part) and GN is a channel dedicated to PC gaming. Ultimately not every piece of content on the internet is going be be perfectly understandable for you. That is not necessarily an indication of a problem with the content itself.
But that is what Linus himself suggested. The very first point he makes is that this video is a case of poor “journalistic practices” and that it was not made in good faith. The crux of this argument is that GN misled viewers over the sale of the item, which is a complete fabrication on Linus’s part.
He did say in the video it was being auctioned off for Extra-Life.
To me attempts to play up the charity angle in a mishap just comes off as emotionally manipulative, which is generally never going to be a good look for someone who isn’t a fan willing to give the benefit of the doubt. It doesn’t matter who it is from or what company.
He needs a PR team.
It doesn’t matter if they auctioned it for profit or charity. They still do it for profit (that they do get), just not monetary. The value they gain by such an event is much higher than any price they could have auctioned it for.
Making it an excuse is an extremely bad take, not to mention that GN did say it was an auction, and Linus probably doesn’t even know that because he didn’t watch the video, he only read the comments…
Ahaha. He managed to write all that and say nothing, he really needs professional advice before making public statements, he can’t help but jump in with his first thoughts. Classic linus though just deflecting “we got some really big things coming up guys! forget about this!”
He wrote an entire article but still thinks his video cadence is good. Reminds me of my current CEO, as the sand empire he built for the past 4 years starts to crumble beneath him
Dam that response sucked.
This response at least answers the most important question. They are paying Billet for the prototype. Personally I think they should do more than cover the raw cost, but at least they have done something.
Linus commented on this later in the thread saying “Billet sent us a quote. I don’t know or care how they arrived at the value. If they’re good, I’m good.” So hopefully that was all taken into account.
Thanks for the update!
They should cover R&D costs too, not just the cost of manufacture and materials.