Last night, at approximately 2AM ET, a former employee, Madison Reeve, posted a thread on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, accusing Linus Media Group of cultivating a toxic work environment and encouraging a work culture that was detrimental to her health as well as sexual harassment directed at her by Linus Media Group employees.
“I chose to quit my role at LTT because it, and the working environment I was facing, were ruining my mental health,” her statement begins. “My work was called ‘dogshit’ I was called ‘incompetent’. When I would reach out to managers and try to get help with these situations, I would be told to ‘put on my big girl pants’ and be ‘more assertive’.”
Reeve went on to accuse the company of barring her from videos after she reported being “grabbed multiple times in the office” and being told to “calm my tits” and “stop being such a bitch.”
Madisons’ thread: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1691693740254228741.html
(Content warning: self harm)
…anyway
“on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter”
I’m sick and tired of reading this sentence…
LTT produced some rather entertaining videos over the years, but for a long time it’s been just that without any substance. I’ll be okay without their videos showing up in my YT recommendations.
I really hope Elon starts complaining about his baby being deadnamed in the media.
The artist formerly known as twitter
I’m sick and tired of reading this sentence…
Me too, but when I think about it, I realize its necessity
I think it would be better if everyone just yeeted to Mastodon, but maybe it is.
Already there agha
I was willing to watch along and hope they do better with the initial stuff from GN since it was ultimately junk food entertainment for me, but at this point fuck them and I hope the innocent people there get away and end up okay.
Here’s a video from an all-hands meeting the day after she quit. (Reddit, sorry.)
The following is a transcript if you’d rather avoid Reddit:
(speaker 1, Linus) So we called this meeting because it’s come to our attention that we need to have a quick chat about the best way to handle HR related feedback and rumors. We won’t be giving any names for what I hope are extraordinarily obvious reasons, but what we can do is give you the following guidelines for problem solving and conflict resolution.
Sorry that this is all boring and corporate, but here we are. Number one, always stand up for what’s right. We’re only a team as long as we’re all working together and working for each other. That’s the most important one. Number two, always reflect on your own personal experiences and use your common sense. Few things in life are truly black and white. Number three, always wait to hear both sides of a story before passing your own judgment. Be cautious when you know that one side is bound by legal and ethical disclosure guidelines, when the other is not. Carefully consider what it says about the character of someone who would engage in that type of gossip against someone who has no power to defend themselves.
Number four, always encourage openness and transparency. If you have a problem, you need to speak up. We want to fix it. If you receive feedback about somebody else at this company, the first response is, have you spoken with this person? Followed closely by, you need to speak with this person. We don’t solve interpersonal issues here, or really anywhere in your life, if you wish to live in a drama free zone, by engaging in water cooler politicking. So, if for any reason that individual is not comfortable approaching the person they’re having a conflict with, we have a chain that they’re supposed to follow.
So first, you advise them to take the problem to their manager. Followed by me or Yvonne, followed by our third party HR firm. I hope that you all trust that we’re here to make this a safe, fun, and productive workplace, and we won’t tolerate mistreatment of any of our team members.
If you have any reason to believe otherwise, then I refer you again to point number four, which is to address the issue with the individual directly, or bring it to me or Yvonne, or bring it to our third party HR firm. Since I’m not at liberty to share any details about what occurred, uh, all I can do is ask that you trust me and Yvonne.
Um, some of you know us very well, I’ve been here a very long time, um, some of you have not been here for as long, but I like to think that whether you’ve been here for nine years or nine days, you’re here for a reason and you believe that we are utmost to run this company with integrity and compassion.
Um, We can’t solve problems we don’t know about though, so on that note, I’d like to invite anyone who has concerns about a fellow team member or about a manager to submit their feedback either by speaking with their manager, me or Yvonne directly, or if you would prefer to provide your feedback anonymously, we have an option for that as well.
It’s the manager and co-worker feedback form. Uh, Yvonne, if you’re not aware of it - show of hands who is not aware of it? Hey, a lot of people aren’t aware of it. Good, so now we all know. There’s an anonymous form, if for whatever reason you’re not comfortable either talking to me me or Yvonne directly about it - and that’s okay, that’s fine, we understand, that’s why we have these options - Yvonne’s gonna post it in the general chat.
It’s a safe space to provide us ideas for improvement, or if you’re consumed by the holiday spirit and you want to say nice things, you can do that too. Does anybody else have any questions?
Not a single question? Wow, that must have been a really good speech.
(speaker 2, James) You gonna dance on that table, or just stand on it?
(speaker 1, Linus) That’s it! So, um, Yvonne, did you have anything you wanted to add?
(speaker 3, Yvonne) (inaudible) Somebody said (inaudible) if you guys want to sanitize your hands, help yourself with free (inaudible)?
(speaker 1, Linus) Yeah, that was actually just totally random timing. It came up the stairs a moment ago. Dennis is on it. Alright. Thank you everyone. Have a wonderful and, uh, productive rest of your day. And weekend.
And for those that prefer old reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15t1mzn/mandatory_meeting_the_after_madisons_departure/?rdt=35142
I was only vaguely aware of this guy. When he released his ratcheting driver gadget a while back, it popped up on a YT review channel that I do watch. Out of curiosity I looked into it.
This Linus guy immediately struck me as a weasel and a d-bag. I don’t have any super powers of observation. People should trust their instincts better. Human instincts are bad compared to animals, but one thing we’re all pretty naturally good at is detecting scumbags. Listen to your instincts, folks. His “charm” is as real as CheezWhiz.
It is clear that you formed an initial negative impression of this individual based on your perception of their character. However, it is important to note that relying solely on instincts and subjective judgments may not provide an accurate assessment of someone’s true character. To assess a person objectively, it would be preferable to observe their actions and gather sufficient evidence before drawing any conclusions. Engaging in a fair and logical evaluation can lead to a more balanced understanding of an individual’s nature.
This reads like it was AI generated.
I firmly disagree with this post. People should not just “rely on their instincts,” which have proven time and again to be highly inaccurate and subject to bias. This is starting to look like what those “body language experts” do, and those people have lower accuracy than a coin toss in controlled experiments.
The only reliable way to tell if someone is lying is through actual evidence. What we know so far certainly paints LMG in a bad light, but I will continue to wait for more information to come out.
I agree, I always feel like the “I always knew X was a bad person” discourse that always pops up in the wake of this stuff indicates that like. Somehow you had more knowledge than anyone else about this. It’s basically just fueling your own ego as a result of a situation like this. You don’t know these people, what makes people feel like a gut instinct suffices as sufficiently damning evidence? Like, it’s fine to not like someone and abstain from engaging with them accordingly. That’s okay. But going “I always knew that he was bad” does no good.
Obviously listen to Madison, trust victims and support them (do note that this doesn’t mean not to listen to further developments and adjust your moral judgment accordingly, come what may) but that doesn’t mean to indulge yourself and over-justify your ability to judge someone you’ve never had an interaction with based on vibes alone, that’s a pretty unhealthy pattern to fall into in my opinion that has negative effects long term that don’t benefit anybody.
As I said, I have no super powers of observation and that everyone is born with good instincts on this. It’s taught in classes on protecting yourself from predators: believe your instincts.
I counter your argument with this: some people get heavily invested in internet celebs and in order to protect their own egos will gaslight themselves in to believing “nah, he’s a good guy”.
You’re not wrong that people will tie their sense of self up with internet celebrities and refrain from criticizing them accordingly but that doesn’t mean that instincts for someone whom you have ever met justify showing up to vindicate yourself in a thread like this. If you were a victim in a position like this, do you think seeing people say “oh I always knew he was bad” makes you feel any better for putting your faith in someone like this? Do you think that Linus, if he were innocent (not saying he is or isn’t I’m using it to illustrate a hypothetical) wants to see people saying they always thought he was a horrible person if this all shakes out in a way that absolves him of Madison’s abuse with LMG? Who does it benefit to say that you always knew someone was bad?
Trust your instincts, absolutely. You don’t need to engage with someone if you don’t think they’re good people. But saying “I KNEW” implies you had perfect information, it implies that you’re smarter than dozens of other people about how a situation like this would eventually resolve. That doesn’t benefit anybody, it’s better and more productive to go to the victims, support them, listen to them, and let them speak their piece because ultimately situations like this have to be about them, not about you and how you got a bad vibe from someone on a YouTube video or a Livestream or a few tweets.
You keep making this about ego or me trying to “sound smart” and it’s utterly exhausting because I’m trying to encourage others, not prop up myself. It’s simply not about my ego or self-esteem (no matter how badly you want that straw man to stand up). My entire point is that people should trust their instincts more than they do. And no, I’m not absolving him of any crimes by doing this (that’s more straw man).
Since you insist on projection, I’m going to indulge in some here. It sounds like you just want to engage in a virtue competition here, and you’re reading a lot of consequences and implications into what I said that, in my view, are simply not there. It’s not that I think everything you’re saying is wrong. It’s not. It’s just so twisted out of context and I have to ask myself why. Is Pixel arguing in bad faith in order to do what Pixel is accusing me of? Which is to look smart (or virtuous) on the internet? I don’t know, but the optics are pretty bad at this point.
I want to be clear I’m not blaming you specifically here, or I’m not trying to paint you as a bad actor intentionally. I’m saying that this trend of behavior is common around drama discourse, and I think it’s to the detriment of the situation overall. You’re free to act as you please, you’re free to think I’m virtue signaling, that’s fine and I’m not going to push on that. I’m just trying to use this as an illustration of something that I, as my own individual person, see as an issue surrounding this type of discourse and I wanted to make a point about it accordingly
It’s basically just fueling your own ego as a result of a situation like this.
Every pitchfork mob situation is about ego stroking ultimately. It’'s outgrouping, them vs us. And people with prejudices find it just so perfect to spew their bullshit and get some validation. It’s why racists love yellow media.
I don’t know the truth in this situation and for all I know this guy (and his entire crew for that matter) could be horrible people. But to base that off of prejudice is childish, and I’m sad that it’s infecting beehaw.
Evidence is better than instinct, no argument there. But you don’t always have access to evidence, and ignoring your instincts to jump on a fan bandwagon is ill advised.
You should see the WAN Show, their podcast. His co-host always looks nervous to say anything out of turn, they basically just read the next topic that Linus wants to talk about.
Or the time where Linus almost took Jake’s fingers out with a hole saw trying to drill holes in a RUNNING PC. Man’s a workplace hazard in more ways than one.
Trust me, you weren’t missing much.
As someone who watches the WAN show semi-regularly, I do not get the same vibe from their relationship as you do
I am a semi-frequent WAN show watcher and I definitely get that vibe. Some people will say that Luke stands up to Linus, but from what I’ve seen it’s only superficial. I have never seen him push Linus enough that it becomes a real disagreement–not on an actual controversy like this, at least. The WAN show where they discussed the Billet Labs review is a perfect example: Luke says “well, maybe we should have re-tested” but then Linus goes off on his “$500 of employee time” tangent and Luke doesn’t call that out as completely ridiculous and hypocritical.
He does voice his disagreement, but not in a way that is going to change anything.
I wasn’t just talking about Luke, sometimes other folks stand in. Though yes Luke is most often the co-host, the show is structured such that Linus does a vast majority of the talking regardless of who else is there. Even Dan in the audio booth just curates and reads questions from chat.
Luke is always tossing him looks on the WAN show. I’m not sure how he hasn’t taken the hint by now.
Dang, what a menace! People will tolerate all kinds of abuse if they have an otherwise cool job. You see it all the time in sports and entertainment.
They have a live stream of clips from older videos on their channel right now. Just another damage control measure.
That stream has been going for quite some time and especially before the GN vid
What they’ve done is reprehensible but this is simply misinformation, that livestream has been up for weeks.
Oooooohhhhhhh snap!
I knew this day would come
Sorry to hear that Madison was forced out by such shitty behavior. If these accusations are true there should be consequences for those involved.
It is crazy that Madison held on to all that for 2 years!
I hope a real independent party looks into all the accusations, while also having the local labor dept. and the like involved in audits. While also looking into other employee complaints.
We shall see what comes of the final investagations, it may take years…
All good things must come to an end.
And also Linus Tech Tips.
I really don’t understand how people have gone this long without realising that Linus and the company lost any morals they had (if any) a long time ago for the sake of profit. In my opinion Linus is just another greedy capitalist who treats his employees like shit and only cares about profit.
I would’ve expected more people to have at least noticed that the videos are pretty low-quality in terms of actual substance when you look past the professional coat of paint, and it’s been that way for a loooong time.
I think it is in the similar way where we and the people idolize politicians. We don’t see it until it is way too late.
I have watched may be 2 of his videos before this, despite youtube recommending them all the time. Somehow, those videos that I did see didn’t give me the impression that they were genuine or decent. How do I know that? I don’t know - it’s like a feeling. I have seen other youtubers with less followers, whose videos exude hard work and passion. They are enough to get you hooked on subjects you weren’t even interested in the first place. When did people lose the ability to feel the character of the people they see?
Because most people, like myself, probably just watch a few of the entertaining videos and leave it at that.
How is that hard to understand?Not that i will ever watch any LMG media again.
Half joking half not but we all have attention gobbled up by our own matters and mobile phone games to care about what’s happening at LMG.
50% of the entire world has lower than average intelligence. If just 1% of those idiots gravitate towards a single person, that’s 40m people.
I think 90% of his following is in the age range of 12-16. Which might also explain how he made a screwdriver into a “thing.”
50% of the entire world has lower than average intelligence
that’s the median which doesn’t always equate the average.
I don’t think they will end.
I do hope to LMG to unionize as a minimum and that the CEO does a lot of changes in the culture of the company.
There is the new ceo and he has only been there about 2 months. I do feel a little bad for him inheriting such a dumpster fire of Linus’ making.
This was all probably brewing under the surface and why Linus knew he had to step down. We don’t know the ultimate motives, and I’m definitely not defending him, but it does paint a whole picture for sure
Yes, dumpster fire, but that is why the CEO’s “deserve” the big bucks.
Would be even better if LMG become a Co-op where the workers own part of the company…
Would be huge news in the tech world for a know youtuber to be forced by the workers to unionize or become a co-op.
If you read that full thread it sounds like someone who was let go from a place I worked years ago and just rings of serious mental health concerns. Slicing open your leg so you go to the ER to avoid going to work is not a sign that someone is of sound mind. All accusations need to be taken seriously and explored regardless given their severity, but I also seriously hope she can get help.
To be honest, I had a similar experience in a workplace, and I definitely did not have the guts to post it before reading your comment.
It is important to take all accusations seriously, but it is also important to verify.
I have seen baseless accusations getting reported and shared on my previous workplace. It was made to sound like a living hell, and frankly you would have needed to be on a psychotic break to experience it like this. This same employee had pledged on their first day of work to print a chart of conduct and equality that would bind us all. It was very weird to be honest. Unfortunately some people saw the articles and believed every words and felt “betrayed” by my old bosses.
Anyway, here’s a disclaimer because everytime I post an anecdote encouraging to be diligent I get replies telling me I am assuming this or that. Let me be clear, I believe Madisson and I would be very surprised if she wasn’t abused considering everything. But still, I like to verify, we must always verify. In this case, it means waiting for further development. You can encourage and support the supposed victim while simultaneously not jump to the throat of the accused.
Good for you to delete that trashy comment on kbin here. For the record this user, https://kbin.social/u/EnderWi99in , went straight for victim blaming. Users like this run
kbin.socialat risk of being defederated from the rest of lemmy, your behavior is not tolerated.It’s a valid comment. And to immediately attack them for having a reasonable perspective discourages open discussion. It’s chilling effect. Its gatekeeping.
Ya, I’ve noticed pretty consistently that kbin.social’s userbase is pretty hardcore dog-shit. Far worse than even the general riffraff of lemmy.world.
I agree, thank you for putting into words what most people keep silent
I appreciate their narrative, and I’m glad they’ve detailed everything as experienced. But given the totality of their recollection, and the reactions, and the responses, they’re clearly somebody who takes too extremes.
A full investigation must be done, and the report probably won’t be fully published but whatever is available should be published.
In these public discourses, where one side legally cannot respond at all, we will get a skewed view of things. So we have to take those secondary indicators into account when interpreting. What was the intent behind the messaging, what was the effect of the messaging, what was the timing of the messaging, what are the incentives of the parties at play.
Bad things happen to good people. Bad things can happen to dramatic people. Bad things can happen to good dramatic people.
Honestly, I don’t care if people love or hate LTT. It’s just a tech entertainment channel. I would love more people to have the critical thinking tools available to them, to interpret future events, more reasonably, without leaping to conclusions
Doubt you’d be saying this if you had ever personally been subjected to workplace harassment of the same endurance and severity.
You’re mixing up chicken and egg here. Victim blaming is a core component of the fucking nightmare of workplace harassment.
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As if everyone is just going around wearing a wire. With people like you existing maybe I should.
Doubt you’d be saying this if you had ever personally been subjected to workplace harassment of the same endurance and severity.
You’re mixing up chicken and egg here. Victim blaming is a core component of the fucking nightmare of workplace harassment.
Yeah, while I sympathize with her, something is really fishy about the situation. This isn’t as cut and dry as everyone’s making it out to be and there’s probably more too this.
I don’t think this take is accurate at all. Her actions in that thread appear (to me) entirely as a result of her environment, and honestly there is no basis for the idea she is not of sound mind. The victim blaming is really offputting.
If they’re true, it’s more than likely this kind of abuse was happening throughout the organization and continued up until these allegations, so I’m glad she came out with them.
Taking concern for someone’s well being when it is quite clearly not in a good place has very little to do with the accusations being levied. I hope the right people are at least aware of that and are reaching out to her. I said in my reply the accusations need to be explored.
Madison said she got in trouble for using sick days. I don’t know why the dots are so hard to connect for some people.
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This whole thing was new to me. But it is sort of notable that a big company did/tolerated these things. Even if it’s some dumb new media YouTube shit.
Awesome to hear that they are doing something aside from the PR politician like sorry video.
This would be a great time for the LMG employee to have a vote to unionize!
The problem is that the video where they explain they are going to work to fix errors has… errors… >.> Then you get things like that video being monetised until they had enough backlash to make them go “oh okay. We wont monetize it then” or something. It’s a big mess and it’s clearly showing that LTT has serious problems.
I thought they made a big point about not monetizing the video during the video. With the whole “and now our sponsor…”, “Just kidding” stuff. Was it actually set for YouTube monetization?
Okay. So I’ve gotta find a feature recommendation thing. The ability to block certain words.
5 days ago I had no idea who the hell Linus was. Now my front page is filled with a bunch of random communities all talking about him.
This is fucking exhausting. I’m tired of the endless bickering over internet drama. Is this a problem? Yes. Should they be held responsible? Yes. Does every fucking community that is tangentially related need to be talking about it? No.
I mean lemmy is, like the early days of reddit and digg before it, full of tech enthusiasts.
Linus was one of if not the most successful tech YouTuber. He went from a YouTuber to a tech media empire. I don’t know why you’d be surprised that a site that is basically full of his target audience is interested in it.
And honestly this is some awful stuff.
I mean I’m fucking sick of being reminded Trump is a real person, but I’m not surprised by all the coverage of his arrests.
He used to be one of the most successful tech help youtubers (had whole series on how to fix computer issues and build PC’s) and now he runs a company that reviews, tests, and fucks around with tech.
Lemmy is filled with tech enthusiasts. How many people have you met on here that profess they’re a “senior dev” or talk about gibberish involving linux? I’m personally surprised there isn’t more talk about Linus.
mean lemmy is, like the early days of reddit and digg before it, full of tech enthusiasts.
Linus was one of if not the most successful tech YouTuber. He went from a YouTuber to a tech media empire. I don’t know why you’d be surprised that a site that is basically full of his target audience is interested in it.
And honestly this is some awful stuff.
I mean I’m fucking sick of being reminded Trump is a real person, but I’m not surprised by all the coverage of his arrests.
And to add, he held such away with the tech enthusiast community that, if during the reddit fallout, he had come out and talked shit about lemmy under the guise of some list of reasons and pushed for kbin or even some other service entirely then we would likely see a drastic difference in the number of people that joined here.
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summary
The company has currently paused all production to improve its review processes, and CEO Terren Tong tells The Verge an outside investigator will be hired to examine the harassment allegations.
“We’ve been seeing an alarming amount of conflicts from Linus Tech Tips as it relates to their corporate connections, their flow of money, and the potential bias as a result of those things,” said Gamers Nexus host Steve Burke.
According to Gamers Nexus, Linus Tech Tips reviewed a copper cooling block from Billet Labs on the wrong GPU, then auctioned it off at a recent fan event without the company’s permission.
The afternoon after Gamers Nexus posted its video, Sebastian began responding to concerned fans in the Linus Tech Tips forums.
Reeve went on to accuse the company of barring her from videos after she reported being “grabbed multiple times in the office” and being told to “calm my tits” and “stop being such a bitch.”
He went on to note that “as part of this process, beyond an internal review we will also be hiring an outside investigator to look into the allegations and will commit to publish the findings and implementing any corrective actions that may arise because of this.”
Are there two autotldr boys and this is the worse one, or am I going crazy? I think the other one has a semicolon in the username.
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Weird! Memmy seems to remove it.
It looks like maybe is showing the username as opposed to the display name. The username is “@autotldr@lemmings.world” and then the display name is “AutoTL;DR”, so I think you’re seeing it correctly you’re just seeing a different thing.
I already created the summary. You can find it at https://lemmings.world/comment/1272374. (I tried to create the link for your instance but I failed miserably, for which I’m very sorry).
Both the same bot, just that some communities have asked that the TLDRs be put into spoilers, for some unknown reason
