There were a series of accusations about our company last August from a former employee. Immediately following these accusations, LMG hired Roper Greyell - a large Vancouver-based law firm specializing in labor and employment law, to conduct a third-party investigation. Their website describes them as “one of the largest employment and labour law firms in Western Canada.” They work with both private and public sector employers.
To ensure a fair investigation, LMG did not comment or publicly release any data and asked our team members to do the same. Now that the investigation is complete, we’re able to provide a summary of the findings.
The investigation found that:
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Claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated.
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Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
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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.
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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.
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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.
In summary, as confirmed by the investigation, the allegations made against the team were largely unfounded, misleading, and unfair.
With all of that said, in the spirit of ongoing improvement, the investigator shared their general recommendation that fast-growing workplaces should invest in continuing professional development. The investigator encouraged us to provide further training to our team about how to raise concerns to reinforce our existing workplace policies.
Prior to receiving this report, LMG solicited anonymous feedback from the team in an effort to ensure there was no unreported bullying and harassment and hosted a training session which reiterated our workplace policies and reinforced our reporting structure. LMG will continue to assess ongoing continuing education for our team.
At this time, we feel our case for a defamation suit would be very strong; however, our deepest wish is to simply put all of this behind us. We hope that will be the case, given the investigator’s clear findings that the allegations made online were misrepresentations of what actually occurred. We will continue to assess if there is persistent reputational damage or further defamation.
This doesn’t mean our company is perfect and our journey is over. We are continuously learning and trying to do better. Thank you all for being part of our community.
That changes my perspective on them a lot. Well, another lesson taken - don’t jump too quickly onto conclusions.
It’s SOOOO easy to jump on the mob hate bandwagon. Especially for content creators that have so much content going back so long. People can pull all the worst bits from a decade up and draw all sorts of conclusions that seem totally plausible if you consider that information in a vacuum. Also it’s just cathartic, Linus can be really annoying sometimes. His videos are everywhere. He’s making tons of money. It feels GOOD to shit on him. Then when the dust clears you realize you were the one being the asshole off the basis of shakey hear-say and anonymous opinions online. Feels bad man. Those are the times in life we really have to remind ourselves of our morals and ethics and only act on what we really know. But it’s hard.
Thats well said. In a climate where we not only get our information dramatized we also get our reactions performed to us from media outlets as well. And it did feel good to think about the downfall. But that is because of my opinion of Linus. I learned that I just don’t like his personality. That is separate from the accusations against his company and even after the dust settles and no wrongdoing was found, I still think the guy is a dick. And that is ok, but worth recognizing and separating fact from my own opinion.
I really key in on the language of these types of releases. First is,
To ensure a fair investigation, LMG did not comment or publicly release any data and asked our team members to do the same.
So… keeping yo mouth shut is not ensuring a “fair investigation.” It’s protecting yourself.
Next, phrases like,
Claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated.
Is not proof of anything- other than there was no proof. That’s why you hire a third party to speak for you. Instead of you saying, “I didn’t do it,” (which of course almost anyone would - true or not) the “independent” investigator can say, “I didn’t find any proof.”
The strongest language here,
Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
…is interesting. I guess it depends on what they mean by “addressed.” If I slapped a colleague on the back and said, “That was hilarious!”, I hardly ignored it. You could even say I addressed it.
I’m not saying I believe I’ve way or the other. All I’m pointing out is this means basically nothing.
Is not proof of anything
You’ll be waiting a while then. You can’t prove a negative. If LMG says they didn’t do a thing, and an investigation concluded that there was no substantial evidence that they did that thing, what more do you want?
LMG says they didn’t do a thing
Yes, please show me this language.
And I never said I was waiting for proof, thanks. Feel free to read the whole thing.
Yup. The weasel words are very telling (for those with eyes to see).
“We’ve thoroughly investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong”
Is anyone shocked?
We’ve thoroughly investigated ourselves
but that’s the point… they didn’t
They paid someone with incentive not to find anything, to investigate what LTT decided to share. Yeah, no, I’m not resubscribing. But I guess consultants recommended more trainings so at least there’s some competition for least surprising outcomes.
so now it’s just shit you made up… (i cannot believe i’m defending lmg)
I think you’re forgetting initial responses from LMG to this whole fiasco. They didn’t appear to be acting in good faith then and now I’m setting a bar for trust higher than I would otherwise.
i think they did act in good faith, but since linus can’t handle any form of criticism and most of them are inexperienced with stuff like this they made a metric fuckton of mistakes… however, this has nothing to do with the outcome of the investigation. “setting a bar for trust higher” does not mean “the outcome is invalid because i think they paid the investigators hush money”
The outcome of the investigation is a statement by a third party which can’t present proof so ultimately this is still about trust.
I get it’s fun to dunk on them with a meme comment, but that’s literally the exact opposite of what they did.
We’ve thoroughly investigated ourselves
They didn’t though?
I’m sure you have sources on how an independent, third-party wasn’t engaged to investigate this, right?
What?
How would you suggest a firm to investigate wrongdoings other than asking a third party to do it?
Release an actual report of the investigation by the third party rather than a statement.
What claim was investigated, what proof did they find if any, what evidence did they have access to etc.
Finding no proof of wrongdoing or proof of no wrongdoing is a big difference.
You can’t have “proof of no wrong doing,” because you can’t prove a negative.
Good point, thank you for pointing it out.
Maybe a better way to phrase it is that a report from the investigator could qualify what they considered/found when they said the claims were false, baseless etc, and any evidence they found/data they had access to. (E.g. if they could look at all internal communication but their data retention policy is 6 months and this happened 7 months ago, its not the same as not finding anything)
For example, “allegations of sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed” is a wide range. It could be there were no allegations recorded from the employee (as in, they weren’t reported), or they were addressed by a slap on the wrist or a “just don’t do that again” to introducing workplace behaviour training, forcing the perpetrator to go through it, suspending them without pay and so on.
You are right it’s not proof of no wrongdoing, but it would serve as proof that they handled things in a generally suitable manner, rather than that they managed to twist things around to check a box for the investigator.
Release your proof of a negative! Square your circle! Invent a perpetual motion machine!
IDK how these typically work. Does the law firm release a summary of their findings? Or sign off on LTTs statement? Otherwise, it’s still just a statement they could have made with or without a successful investigation.
Also, I read the “we have a strong case for defamation” as a bit threatening. That didn’t need to be aired as a public statement.
Recommendation for better onboarding… very believable, that’s been most companies I’ve worked for.
Weren’t there a few (ex?) employees that came forward shortly after the initial accusations surfaced and confirmed it was true?
I could be misremembering things but I also vaguely recall the initial accusations being backed up with receipts. Wasn’t there an Imgur album with a whole bunch of screenshots of conversations proving the accusations weren’t made up? Or am I confusing two completely different situations together?
I didn’t follow the situation super closely, and moved on and forgot about it until I saw this post.
If you’re referring to APrime, he did release an updated statement on Twitter/X.
Last year, I made the decision to leave LMG influenced by a series of negative emotions that clouded my judgement. So over the past few months, I’ve taken the time to apologize privately to Linus, Yvonne, and others on the team because my actions and words were unfair to them.
Throughout my five years of employment there, they’ve shown nothing but kindness and forgiveness. We’ve had our differences, but none of them justified the comments I made or the disturbances I caused after my departure.
My decision to leave was unfortunately precipitated by a challenging period in my personal life, which I felt was affecting my work. The “drama” unfolded while I was on vacation, a time when I was hoping to recharge. Instead, I returned feeling more frustrated & immediately quit.
Since then, I’ve continued with therapy, which I had started in the Spring under the company health plan, and this eventually led to a diagnosis of certain mental health conditions. I’m grateful for the support I received, as it helped me understand and address these issues.
I genuinely miss the people at LMG (though the feeling may not be mutual) & feel my motives for leaving were misguided.
However, I’ve been fortunate to work with some incredibly talented and wonderful people since, & I’m excited about the prospect having more in the future. :)
I didn’t follow it closely either, in fact this is the first I’ve heard about ex employees confirming and an album of screen shots.
However, I am hesitant to accept screenshots as proof of anything - this is a company of artistic tech nerds, I’m sure 70% of the staff could make a convincing screenshot and 30% of them will know to make the metadata match.
As for ex employees speaking up, it’s all hearsay. It could be true, but it could also not. There’s no reliable way to determine that with out substantial evidence backing them.
I would accept it if someone took them to the courts and won - unfortually thats a huge finaical burdern for an individual, so that’s unlikely to happen.
Alternatively if the labor board started issuing fines for crimes, that’d be a clear indicator something bad was happening.
In this case, I am sticking with inoocent until proven guilty.
Yeah, I was trying not to be biased and immediately think this was all BS. Then I read the part about a case for defamation and just immediately went back to “fuck these guys”.
Just came across as the bully playing the victim trying to show how reasonable and nice they’re being by not “retaliating” by bullying any further.
I agree with you, it reads that way to me as well. Playing devil’s advocate, if the accused company really was innocent of these charges and it was a disgruntled / vindictive employee…I can understand them wanting to put that out there. However, considering the power imbalance here, I think it was a dumb move. They should have taken the high ground this time and held that idea in reserve. I don’t think LTT is innocent here, BTW. I don’t know how guilty or not guilty they are. The place has a bad smell to it, though.
Linus himself just seems to give off that “nice guy on camera, exact opposite behind the scenes” kind of vibe. I’ve seen him get a bit riled up on podcast videos and it really comes off like he’s holding back. Perhaps the employee’s story was all too believable from others who get that perception of him. So I could see how the defamation threat would be like him/the company to try to show “we’re really angry and could do more but we’re gonna hold our temper”.
Completely agree. His creepiness is obvious to me. Unfortunately half this community will rally behind their boy no matter what he does. It’s disappointing but not surprising. It’s never been a serious / professionally operated channel, but it’s popular with a certain demographic.
I kinda get that vibe too. But without knowing more about him, I imagine what I perceive might also just be someone who’s very confident in themselves who doesn’t necessarily care very much what others think about him. Which, Linus has built his own company from the ground up, and it has made him very wealthy, so, he has some legitimate reason for that confidence, in his competence and his f you money. I suppose that might also co-occur with easily overlooking other people’s problems, or being narcissistic though. Which is bad for a boss (e.g. Elon). Still, hard to just summarily judge without more information
Appreciate the nuanced take and you make some great points. I question his actual competence, though. I think he’s good at faking it. The channel has always lacked rigor.
The channel has always lacked rigor.
Then again, they’re doing 10-15 minuite videos on what is essentially an entertainment platform, not multiple hour PHD dissertations.
Then again, they do reviews and give tech recommendations all the time. It’s even in the name.
I feel like the fact they paid the same party that investigated them is an obvious enough conflict of interest to dismiss this out of hand. Whether the report is actually trustworthy or not, there is an incentive to come to a conclusion that aligns with whomever paid them and that alone should make people question the conclusions being made.
Yeah, but who pays for it then?
The point of these firms are to be an imperial 3rd party. You pay your notary to confirm that you signed a document. But if they just lied for whoever paid them they wouldn’t be trusted to provide that service.
So they just have to sit around and hope that another company does the investigation then for free? I really don’t know what you want, I understand your point, but there’s literally no solution to that problem.
They sue for defamation or don’t
These firms get paid before they release their findings. They have no incentive to make their clients look good, and it would tarnish their reputation as a neutral third party
ROFL, their incentive is the next job. Companies aren’t going to higher a company that finds against its clients…
Okay. So what should LTT have done?
Ignore it completely and not respond?
Not be involved at all with the investigation.
Okay. So you didn’t want LTT to do anything, and just wait for the courts?
The courts who, almost certainly, are not going to get involved in adjudicating a social media post accusation
If the accusations are as serious as they seem to be, there’s going to be a court case. In which case, people can wait until that investigation concludes to decide one way or the other.
Great. A court case would satisfy a lot of the people in this comment section. It would be a third party. It definitely wouldn’t be paid for by Linus tech tips.
However, on the balance of data we have, there will be no court case. The complainant specified they were not going to file with the labor board. Without an official attestation a labor board will not investigate.
As far as a criminal prosecution goes, almost certainly the original complainant would have to testify as well.
In either circumstance, I don’t see any government action, without somebody going on the record and officially complaining under penalty of perjury.
Why would there be an automatic court case?
Could someone just give us a quick summary of what LTT is accused of?
Do we know if there is a court case about it? As this would be more interesting than just a release from the company auditing them?
Personally, I clearly don’t know so much about LTT, but I love their videos.
Here is a good writeup of how it started: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamers-nexus-vs-linus-tech-tips-billet-labs-review-controversy
Relevant part is this:
On August 16th, 2023, ex-LTT employee Madison Suop posted a thread on X explaining her reasons for leaving Linus Tech Tips and the kind of workplace misconduct she purportedly experienced during her time there: https://x.com/suuuoppp/status/1691693740254228741
Here is a good writeup how it started: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamers-nexus-vs-linus-tech-tips-billet-labs-review-controversy
Relevant part is this:
On August 16th, 2023, ex-LTT employee Madison Suop posted a thread on X explaining her reasons for leaving Linus Tech Tips and the kind of workplace misconduct she purportedly experienced during her time there: https://x.com/suuuoppp/status/1691693740254228741
It’s important to talk about the timing. This person waited until there was already drama with Linus tech tips and they’re very unfavorable review of the liquid cooler they put on the wrong device. Which is a f***** up review.
The dogpiled on, did not involve the labor board, made the accusations and then said I don’t want to be involved and walk away. So the investigation is not about the water cooler review, which was the initial trigger for all the media, but about the accusations that were basically dropped drive-by-style
Here’s an overview by The Verge
But basically it started when Gamers Nexus called out some issues LTT had with testing methodology and also an incident where LTT accidentally auctioned off another companies products that they had reviewed poorly.
Then Linus responded pretty poorly (and ended up stepping down as CEO and is now a chief creative something or other iirc)
Then a former employee tweeted about why she left LTT and accused LTT of having a toxic workplace environment. And specifically said she had been sexually harassed by a coworker but not taken seriously.
There’s no court case, LTT just did this to clear their name basically.
Ok thanks for the explanation.
Then Linus responded pretty poorly (and ended up stepping down as CEO and is now a chief creative something or other iirc)
Linus didn’t step down in response to this. I don’t remember the exact timelines, but he either stepped down before this, or was in already in the process of transitioning to the new CEO when this happened.
Oh yeah, I think I do remember that announcement being before everything else went down, my bad for misrepresenting that
Okay, they’ve found themselves to have do nothing wrong and are threatening a defamation suit. Another great, “Trust me Bro.” moment here.
Maybe they should focus more on doing reviews and testing methodologies that don’t suck.
What part about “third party” do you not understand?
There’s a million different ways “third party” can go. Sometimes they take the job seriously and have enough mandate to get it done, sometimes they don’t. The latter is especially risky and problematic when they’re hired by the party accused.
The only way to ensure you get the former is to let somebody not involved in the accusations make the choice of which auditors to hire
What part of I don’t have any trust in that company don’t you understand. I bet you’re a huge fan of “third party” arbitration too.
Then move on with your life. There’s literally nothing that could ever change your mind, so arguing with you is even more fruitless than usual.
I certainly didn’t ask your your opinion on a public forum.
You kinda inherently do when you post on a public forum, the other guy’s being a bit of a dick, but you can’t just expect a circlejerk whenever you post your opinion
To be fair, there were lots of words to read
What part of “we paid these guys and they said we’re fine” do you not? Why would they choose and pay and release the results from a company they didn’t trust to clear them?
I’m not saying it’s rotten, but the fact that the third party was unilaterally chosen by and paid for LMG makes all the results pretty questionable.
I think part of it was the stress of the grindset that Linus running the show was getting all the staff into. Pushing out content at a regular schedule, getting sponsorships and all of that.
The whole GN saga with data accuracy and the donated cooler that made LMG look inward for a bit and improve their process was for the best I think.
The investigation to me is just one element making sure LMG weren’t getting off on the wrong foot.
I think the complainant wasn’t wrong or defamatory at all to bring up concerns because even in LTT’s channel there was a video where the front and center stars of the team comment on how stressful things can be. When there’s an implicit hierarchy imbalance (Linus can say “we’re all equals here” all he wants) but fact is there’s a leadership structure in one way or another, which can cause one to take certain treatment in different ways.
So basically they hired a law firm that gets paid by corporations to dissolve evidence and destroy lawsuits and they “didn’t find anything”
Right, another day in capitalist heaven
Yea idk.
After having dealt with some audits (although not this exact topic), in general they followed the same format. “Assert that we do the thing we claim to be doing”. So if the thing they claim to be doing is a low bar, the audit means nothing. If they dont release any evidence, or a report of what they were ascertaining it means very little IMO.
I can’t remember if the employee released any evidence with her claims either though, but in general I’d prefer my odds with assuming her story is closer to the truth against a company which has had other mishaps recently, underpinned by evidence. All of which they tried to brush under the carpet.
So yeah. I’m pressing X for doubt.
I’m pressing X for doubt.
I see what you did there!
If you’re one of the people in this thread insisting this does nothing to exonerate LTT, what would you accept as evidence that they’re innocent? I don’t follow YouTube drama much at all, I just think it’s wild when people form an opinion based on on set of statements and then are never open to learning more facts about the case ever again.
Welcome to the Internet. You must be new here.
Just because we’re still astonished by people’s stupidity doesn’t mean we’re not veterans of it. People/humanity still disappoint(s) me, even though I’ve watched them/it fail each other/itself for decades now.
Receipts. The actual data used to come to these conclusions. I have worked with attorneys in corporate law firms in some capacity for almost 20 years and while I am not a lawyer I can confidently say they don’t take these engagements to find the truth. They do it to prep for a case and to build a chain of events that show they are acting in good faith increasing their chances filing a motion to dismiss while identifying liability and building a defense. The one point they conceded regarding her claims that they lied in onboarding the attorneys are basically saying if that case gets filed there is a high chance a judge will find it has merit and move it forward. Idk of Canada court system is the same but in America thats corporate lawyer for youd probably pay a settlement or damages on this point.
What if that standard were to be applied to the people making the assertions? Shouldn’t the burden of proof be on the accuser, not the accused? Seems kinda backwards the way you described it, someone can just say some things about you and now you are obligated to release internal documents/chat logs/emails or whatever else to prove their assertions wrong?
No they’re not obligated to release anything, and neither is she. In a situation like this its up to the observer to form their own opinions. People will take each parties past and future actions in account as well. It is very believable to me that LTT has a toxic culture based purely on the upload schedule and past conflict with other reviewers and product startups. I think most of the claims were descriptive enough to be believable although some may have been exaggerated and painted by the whistleblowers past experience such as the bait and switch onboarding. My opinion doesn’t really matter though, im just going to stop interacting with LTT based on how theyve reacted and conducted themselves over multiple public incidents.
Generally speaking, the employer has all the power and own the records which would prove the whistleblower right or wrong and it is much more difficult to retain that information as an employee. The power imbalance in the relationship and the role of the company as custodian of records here is what changes the expectation. Power imbalance is what has caused high profile people with money and fame to get away with bad behavior for thousands of years so society is working to address that now. Not going to be perfect at first but its a good start
Nothing will. They want to see LTT fail because they made a few bad mistakes. These are the same people on the relationship forms who say “break up” at the slightest negative.
Assume for a moment the investigators were acting in good faith and knew what they were doing. They are still only able to find what they are given access to, and evidence that wasn’t destroyed. LTT is not the most technically competent staff in the world, but I bet if those guys know how to do anything technical, covering their tracks is probably high on that list.
I’m not skeptical of the firm that was hired. I’m skeptical that LTT and gang didn’t scrub everything before handing over the keys. We know LTT aren’t dumb, and we know they are unethical.
I understand my argument falls into “can’t prove a negative” territory. I’m going on instincts. The main dude has techbro-creep energy. Reminds me of a Blizzard executive. The whole thing stinks of a South Park apology episode to me.
I understand you can’t put someone in jail over instincts. I wouldn’t want that, either. That’s not how the system should work.
But it’s 100% OK to stop following some dumbass YouTuber because you trust your instincts.
I’d rather get my tech infotainment elsewhere. It’s a big wide world out there on the internet. LTT isn’t the only game in town. And honestly, they were never that great to begin with. Their methodologies are lousy.
Fair, but you used a of words to just say…
Guilty or not, I don’t like them.
I don’t understand why LTT wouldn’t negotiate a settlement first with the accuser in exchange for a nondisclosure and non-disparagement agreement before releasing any statement. You could view their posturing as defiance.
The problem is the repuational damage, and subsequently financial damage to the brand. A not ingsificant number of people unsubscribed and stoped watch watching their videos. More importantly sponsors could stop sponsoring them because they don’t the association - just as we’ve seen LMG drop sponsors over the years.
If they just settled this quietly, the assumption would be the settlement was an admittion of guilt.
Assuming the allagations are false, the defimation suit is a legimate response - for a business model that relys on sponsors and reputation, having that damaged is a big deal financially.
In realty, there is nothing to gain to from pursing the case - a business going after an individual is a horrible idea for PR and the individual isn’t going to have the money to make up the cost anyways.
And that’s of course they actually didn’t do anything and the accusations are entirely false in which case why would they settle with someone trying to just get money out of them?
Because it’s simpler than dealing with the courts/media
As with corporate mediators though, wouldn’t such investigation companies have a financial incentive to favor their clients, so as to improve the odds of being rehired?
Yes and no. The reason companies are hiring them is for the image of impartiality they bring. If your firm gets a reputation for just always siding with the company, regardless of what actually happened, that image gets destroyed.
Plus, I’m willing to bet that there’s not a whole lot of recurring business from individual companies for this type of service. That would kind of defeat the purpose of being the “neutral third party”.
As someone who used to work in a job that involved giving companies reports they paid for, I gotta say while large auditing firms will likely defend their reputation before the company that hired them, mid and small companies will just follow the paycheck. Doesn’t look that big to me.
