@suuuoppp: To stop the speculation and DM's I am receiving. I chose to quit my role at LTT because it, and the working environment I was facing, were ruining my mental health. The number of daily items...…
I have been in the tech industry for almost 30 years. These things she talks about are not new and will keep happening unless more people talk about them. I gave that Linus guy a listen once or twice, was never impressed. His fans are delusional, this thread contains a few of them!
Agreed. However, I still want to see facts, because it is possible that she’s exaggerating. Until I see facts, I’m going to believe Madison.
That said, I rarely watch LTT or any related channels. I find them to be shallow, often click-bait, and their merch advertising is incredibly annoying. I get my tech news and entertainment from other channels, such as Gamer’s Nexus, Level1Techs, Louis Rossmann, OptimumTech, Tech Ingredients, and SomeOrdinaryGamers.
I don’t understand the rabid following LMG has, but I do try to be objective in my criticism. I think GN’s coverage recently was pretty revealing (the one about testing quality), especially when paired with this article.
I don’t know, that’s why I want to see more facts about the situation.
So that’s why I’m defaulting to believing the victim until I have evidence to the contrary. She has provided her side, I’m waiting for LMG to provide theirs.
I have never felt the need to use YouTube for anything aside from classic comedy clips, music, gameplay clips and trailers. So, YouTube personalities like these pass me by. I’m one of those types who instantly closes a video if I hear commentary or talking over it. I don’t want to hear that shite.
Maybe it’s because I grew up without YouTube, unlike my daughter. She watches so much utter shit on there, unfortunately.
However, I have watched one LTT video before when doing some electronic engineering classes, and we were shown one to explain some thing I can’t remember. I do remember saying the guy seemed like a right prick, to the chagrin of others in my class. A smug, know-it all prick.
I’m like you, grown up without YT and I rarely watch it, for some video clip, or when I need to check how to disassemble my laptop or washing machine. I never watched a “YouTuber” or never ever went to twitch
Madison was a person chosen for ROG reboot (Asus sponsored LMG to make PCs with people after they made a video explaining why they should get one) and her video was really popular (5th most viewed on LTT channel with 12mil views) and people enjoyed her personality/dynamic. Later, there was a job offering posted for social media manager/coordinator and she ended up getting the job, after that you can read what she says happened (not saying it did, not saying it didn’t, just saying what we do know). She also posted about some of this stuff before I’m pretty sure, but I don’t remember exactly what she said (it was in the same vein as this, but I’m pretty sure this is more in detail though).
Linus “spoke out” against unionizing by saying that he couldn’t legally do anything to stand in the way of his employees unionizing and wouldn’t want to stand in their way if they ever decided to. But he wants to make a workplace where people don’t feel the need to and if they did then he would see it as a personal failure.
There’s plenty to criticize Linus for right now, but I don’t think that his “anti-union” stance is one of them
Edit: in the context of these allegations, then yes, his employees certainly should unionize if the actual criminal crimes in this thread are even partially true. And if that happens then I will be singing Solidarity Forever for the LMG employees, but until that happens and we see how Linus responds to that this is just not a good read on Linus’ stance towards unions.
Edit2: it feels weird to have posted what could be seen as a defense of Linus under this particular post. I’m not a Linus Stan, Just a union advocate that wants criticism to be levied where it’s actually called for and this doesn’t seem like it is
I have two uncles who worked for the same company, in different departments but in similar roles. Both were engineers, one was a CAE, and the other an ME. The CAE was not part of a union, and the ME was. They had a comparable lifestyle, so I assume they made a comparable salary (they live about a mile from each other, in a similarly sized house, drive similar cars, take similar amounts of vacations, etc).
Here’s the work history of my unionized uncle:
multiple unpaid strikes, where the main output was a marginal benefit to employees (from tertiary sources, it wasn’t worth the strike)
layoff (maybe 2? I don’t recall), and later rehire in a separate department (was laid off for months); this resulted in complications with the company pension (I think the pension got rolled into the 401k because the new group hadn’t negotiated a pension)
consistent work location - always worked at the same plant, except for a handful of visits to others
And here’s the work history of my non-unionized uncle:
no layoffs, and optional participation in strikes
inconsistent work location, but had some WFH flexibility in the last 15-ish years of employment (i.e. could work 9/80s, WFH one day/week, etc)
maintained control over retirement benefits, so retired with a pension and a 401k
This is obviously a very small sample, so it’s hardly enough evidence to say whether unions are a net positive or net negative. So whether a union is better for you depends on a lot of factors, such as:
role - white collar jobs benefit less from unions vs blue collar jobs
unions can suck, and non-unionized employers can rock; the latter can change overnight, whereas the former likely won’t
your best tool is your own personal skillset; regardless of whether you’re in a union, ensure your skills are up-to-date so you have a good chance of getting a new job should you lose yours
But one thing that should be universally true is that openly anti-union employers should be avoided.
unwanted strikes - if your union goes on strike, you are not allowed to work
special treatment - unions try to equalize, so higher performers may not be fairly compensated
An awesome employer shouldn’t discourage unionization, and ideally they’d encourage attempts to unionize, but they wouldn’t recommend unionization, assuming the employer intended to maintain control and monitor managers throughout the chain. If the employer can provide all of the benefits employees would get through unionization, unionizing merely adds extra BS that employees and employers need to deal with.
What does the employer have to go through the union for?
unwanted strikes - if your union goes on strike, you are not allowed to work
If the employer is rocking, why would union members vote to strike?
special treatment - unions try to equalize, so higher performers may not be fairly compensated
This doesn’t feel right but I can’t quite put my finger on why so I’ll reserve judgement for now. 😄
I can see the extra layer of overhead in the case when everything is perfect, but given the incentives in traditional for-profit corporations I can’t see that case ever being realistic. In addition, even if a company is perfect today, the way corporations are structured makes it incredibly easy for that to change especially if there’s no worker-controlled counterbalance to such change. So just on the basis of that, if I’m an awesome, perfect employer, and I presumably want this to go on, because that really is part of being awesome, I should want to create this counterbalance against change for the worse. Assuming a for-profit, not-a-co-op corporation that is. It looks to me like this overhead is the price of preserving this perfect environment over the long term. Doesn’t that make sense?
What does the employer have to go through the union for?
Benefits, and depending on the union’s rules, salary adjustments. Some unions also require informing them of schedule changes.
The reverse is also true, employees may need to go through the union depending on the union’s rules.
If the employer is rocking, why would union members vote to strike?
Idk, perhaps communication issues w/ management? Over-zealous union leadership?
The point is, the employee isn’t empowered here, they’re subject to whatever the union agrees to do.
My uncle went through multiple strikes, few (if any) he actually agreed with, but had to deal with being out of work. He wished he wasn’t union so he could just continue working.
the way corporations are structured makes it incredibly easy for that to change
Sure, which is why it absolutely depends on the type of organization. Something owner-operated has a much lower risk of unexpected awful changes than something publicly traded.
A lot of owner-operated businesses don’t intend to sell to someone else, the owner will just shut it down when they’re done operating it. So “long term” in this sense is until the owner retires. And if they do intend to sell, they could at that point encourage the employees to make any employment adjustments needed.
If I ever start a corporation and if for some reason it isn’t a workers co-op, I will make the employees unionize. I see little reason other than absolute profit maximization to not treat your employees as a great asset, assuming they’re doing reasonably well. But I’m a dirty socialist so…
Dirty? Nah, you’re fresh as hell, comrade. Workers co-ops are great
I guess I have my own special version of pessimism where if I see an employer not actively hiring Pinkertons I think if it add a little w for workers these days
True. If he said that line in response to a statement about wages. I can’t say that I exactly remember the context in which he made that statement, but I believe that it (ironically, given this post) had more to do with workplace culture than wages.
Yeah the whole “I love unions, but we at this company are a family so we don’t need that”, is peak anti-union talk. Throughout history it’s been used by people who are horrible to their employees.
Exactly. If I was really concerned about my employees etc. I would want them to have a union with power that could match mine to argue their needs and concerns. If he had a union a lot of these problems and mistakes that he’s having likely wouldn’t have occurred.
That and the “We don’t discuss wages.” remark. Screw that mentality. And from what Madison wrote, If promissory estoppel is a thing in Canada, then it sounds like she had a strong case. Especially if there was any paperwork.
There’s tons of shit they could get LMG for. But it seems that they intentionally hired people that don’t know any better, and it’s no real fault of their own since they just are appearing to use predatory hiring processes. It’s ridiculous to think everyone young should know employment law.
“Honestly, my stance on this isn’t gonna change. If people felt like we weren’t taking care of them, yeah, I would feel like we failed. If you wanna interpret that as a bad thing, you can, but you’re reaching pretty hard.”
Yeah, I’d say it’s about time for LTT staff to unionise.
I think that “taking care of people” smacks of the same rhetoric as “we’re like a family” and “I like to think that all staff are considered equals here” and just about any other lie I’ve heard from exploitative upper management types.
It was a wan show a while back if I remember right (not op), but basically trashed unions and said businesses should do better and vaguely acted like all the employees of the world could just quit and find something better on a whim if things were actually bad where they worked.
Which is all fine. His position was literally “I can’t and won’t do anything to stop it except for treating everyone to enough money that they won’t bother to do it”
That’s about as inoffensive as you can get. You’re twisting it into being some anti union thing.
Unions are not just for getting higher wages. They’re not even just for when conditions start to get worse. Unions should be there for the best as well as the worst working conditions. Unions serve to maintain good and improve bad conditions, it’s not about going against the “boss”, it’s about actively or passively defending the workers’ conditions.
Would you trust your boss’ lawyer saying “the trial will be fair, you won’t need a lawyer”?
This is the leat surprising information anyone could have told me about working for LTT/LMG.
Time and time again, tech jobs and game dev jobs in workplaces run by “old internet edgelords” always (always) results in shit like this.
Understatement of the fucking century. I mean I know they got some data wrong but this is Blizzard level of workplace harassment.
With the assault and shit that’s straight up criminally illegal.
I’m so sorry for her; she probably gets the love she deserves now but it shouldn’t have taken so long and it’s time to start from scratch with this company.
Edit: See my other comment below, looks like in Canada the legal system can fuck you over with legal costs in these matters https://lemmy.zip/comment/1760082
With the assault and shit that’s straight up criminally illegal.
It is. So where is the police report? She said she was groped on several occasions (which is sexual assault) and quit the job by her own decision, so why not throw the men who groped her under the bus?
I 100% get the fear of a witch hunt from LTT fans (which are overall dumb and rabid most of the time, just read the YouTube comments), but now that she openly accuses them she should file a police report.
Otherwise this is just throwing accusations around at an opportune time, I’d much rather have this proven in court and the men punished (which would also uncover more systemic problems inside of LTT).
Linus did say a year ago:
For obvious reasons, there won’t be an official statement disclosing private details about my dealings with any of our current or former staff. You (and Reddit) can stop asking.
On a separate note, no NDA or other agreement can prevent a Canadian from reporting workplace mistreatment including (but not limited to) harassment, discrimination or unlawful termination. They can post it publicly, submit a statement to the authorities, or do both for good measure. As long as it was true it wouldn’t be defamatory.
If I’m ever actually accused of a crime or other misdemeanor - including any violation of employment law - I’m sure you’ll be able to read all about it on Dexerto. For now, it appears that we are in the clear.
Now that she openly accuses them I’d expect some action there to go with.
She will almost certainly find it very, very hard to prove the offence. Police and courts are usually reluctant to prosecute something on a ‘he said, she said’ basis. I can see why she’d not go down the police route with that, without even taking into account the massive power imbalance in terms of wealth / influence
So it seems 100% legal to record yourself even at work. Both audio and video? Which would make it rather easy to provide at least some proof (verbal abuse mostly, but if someone groped her at her desk then filming that might have worked too).
She also wrote:
I had co-workers come to me saying "I didn't like how you were treated, glad you got out." And only then did I realize it wasn't me.
So that would mean there might be additional witnesses? I’m really hoping several of them actually come forward and talk about this then.
It is. So where is the police report? She said she was groped on several occasions (which is sexual assault) and quit the job by her own decision, so why not throw the men who groped her under the bus?
I am tired of reading these things. I am absolutely aware these are done in good faith to have some neutral instance to deal with this, but it not the reality. If you are low on money, you are right out or a bit later, if you are an “undesirable” person, you will lose, and if you lack time, energy and mental health going through the paperwork will break the last bit you had and money too.
In Austria and Germany (as far as I’m aware, I’m not a lawyer) when it’s criminal charges the state sues. So you report it to the police and then it’s out of your hand pretty much (besides being a witness). If you want extra compensation you can go the civil case route afterwards as a victim.
Similar to if you stab me and the police notices then they don’t ask me if I want to sue you. They’ll charge you all on their own as it’s a criminal matter, not a civil one.
In Austria and Germany (as far as I’m aware, I’m not a lawyer) when it’s criminal charges the state sues
To follow on from my previous comment… I’m sure you’ve seen multiple cases in your own country where the police / courts decline to charge or prosecute someone based on lack of physical evidence
True, we also have the whole Rammstein issue at the moment (But that’s even more complicated, as the girls were all adults and consented to it at first).
I’m not sure what the recording laws in Canada are, LTT has a hundred cameras around every day and Madison wrote she got regularly assaulted. If it’s legal there I’d film myself to have proof.
Overall I just don’t like the timing, the drama was a year ago and now that other (more objective drama) gets brought up Madison unpacks everything and piles it on top? She was already in public back then and it’s bullshit that she believes the employer handbook would be an NDA covering sexual assault allegations (like Linus himself wrote back then, no NDA can do that in Canada). The other stuff in the post? Totally fine, that’s criticizing internal processes. But mixed right in there are serious criminal allegations.
Yeah, the whole “it didn’t happen if it wasn’t reported to the police” thing is shit. There is unfortunately too long of a list of reasons as to why someone would be unable or unwilling to report these types of things and the attitude of the OP you’re replying to is on the list.
You would think after watching the droves of men and women coming forward during the me too movement would show people that coming forward at the time is extremely difficult and often not possible.
And psychologists will probably tell you that after the assault there is shame, embarrassment, fear of repercussions due to power dynamics and anxiety about what will happen. Of course this doesn’t mean our society is dysfunctional, as we already managed to get a lot of systems in place to drive up this figure, but they’re all far from perfect, and we need more studies and more improvements to do victims of SA better justice.
We shouldn’t witch hunt but this should be taken very seriously.
As for history of the victim lying… Never fall into this toxic mindset, even if it does happen you should never rush to this conclusion either. It’s disgusting
My attitude of WAITING FOR BOTH SIDES TO SPEAK BECAUSE THERE’S A HISTORY OF VICTIMS LYING is disgusting?
I’m not dismissing anyone. I’m fucking waiting for both sides because of history.
I can tell you 5 content creators that were cancelled and proved with receipts they were completely innocent in the past couple years. By then, the damage was done, and people didn’t care to listen to the accused.
So ya. Call me any childish names you want because I said I want to wait for both sides.
I’ve also heard it’s not as great for contestants/guests as well. I don’t think I’ve ever watched more than 10s or so of a Mr. Beast video, it’s just never been appealing to me.
I’d argue the two things are different in the fact that in this case Madison is talking about direct actions by LMG employees, not the channel’s fanbase.
Yeah, I really don’t get that viewpoint. Look at GN’s track history, they call out a company and then leave it at that. That’s it. Sometimes they include clips as a meme (e.g. the Gigabyte “exploding” PSUs), but they don’t make multiple videos covering the same topic. If a company improves, they will make a video recapping the issue, the company’s response, and an updated analysis of if they think that was an appropriate move or not.
So I really don’t see GN as a drama channel, they tend to have well-researched content, give companies a chance to explain themselves, etc. I don’t know if GN did that this time (it was a long video), but they did provide many examples of the types of issues they found.
One step worse imo is the “we’re more successful than you,” as if that’s a real argument, which Linus seems to also be pulling. And he’s not the only one, xQc did the same thing when he was challenged on his conception of Fair Use as it relates to “reaction” videos.
To be honest, I think ‘founders syndrome’ vibes have been radiating from their content for years. Owner-operators are often some of the most toxic employers.
I’ve noticed Linus be visibly mean to his employees on camera multiple times and I don’t even watch that much. I figure if that’s what he’s willing to do on camera it’s probably a lot worse off camera.
I always figured LTT was a boy’s club, considering how few female employees they have, but I had no idea the environment was that bad. Rather naive of me, tbh.
Ugh, I don’t think I can continue watching anything from LTT anymore. 😭 I hope Madison is doing better these days.
I’m confused about your comment. Why assume it’s childish to act in a way that distances you of any drama?
Why that us vs. them attitude of name calling someone as childish? How is that any different of the childish behaviour that is being hoisted upon in the first place?
Perhaps that’s an indication that a side is already being chosen?
Anyway, don’t take my comment in a wrong way. I really have no dog in this fight. I barely know who this Linus guy is. I just dislike seeing people being rude to each other, unneedingly escalating discussions by being unkind.
Exactly. I stopped watching LTT when I felt they produced childish content a few years ago (first it was the clickbait titles, then stupid thumbnails, then annoying ads). So I unsubbed for much less than a sexual harassment case.
Watch other channels, there’s plenty of good content out there depending on what you’re interested in. I mostly watch Gamer’s Nexus and Optimum Tech these days for tech stuff, but there are a few others I watch with some regularity.
If she had several tweets of bullshit about the company, it might not have been like this 100%… but ill bet that this is just one out of several people who felt screwed working there
Gamer’s Nexus - recently called out LTT for consistent technical mistakes in reviews; very high quality testing on PC hardware
Optimum Tech - focuses largely on SFFPCs and gaming peripherals like mice and keyboards (GN has almost no coverage on any of them)
The Phawx - lately lots of handhelds like AYANEO and Steam Deck, but also does lots of game performance testing and some hardware testing
Louis Rossmann - Right to Repair fanatic, and discussion about some tech news, usually pointing out repair-related issues
SomeOrdinaryGamers - a weird hodge-podge of software config (e.g. went through installing Arch, setting up PCIe passthrough for Windows gaming VMs, emulation), tech news, old school mods, and lately aliens (from a skeptic perspective)
I’ve also liked Hardware Canucks, Hardware Unboxed, and JayzTwoCents (dropped this hard since it became ridiculous imo), but I haven’t watched anything from them in a couple years so I can’t really recommend them.
I watch LTT a handful of times per year, and usually it’s not really my thing (more hype than content imo).
Can confirm that Gamer’s Nexus and Optimum Tech are absolutely superb. You can tell those guys are doing it for the love of the game. LTT is vacuous in comparison.
Another I didn’t mention is Level1Techs, though they tend to focus more on server hardware and less on weird gaming tech (though they do gaming reviews as well).
It’s also not like YouTube won’t recommend you channels that you unsub from. I had to into a 3rd party channel blocker because it kept recommending me AvE even though I very much don’t want to see that channel anymore.
Sure, but I can also ignore most of that by just going to my subscriptions page. I don’t mind seeing irrelevant videos, I’m just not going to click on them.
No, because you’ve posted SEVENTEEN TIMES today simping for Linus. You keep repeating “wait for both sides” even though Linus already responded directly to the GN piece and his response was GARBAGE, which is the main reason a lot of people are unsubscribing. Madison’s problem isn’t the only issue, it’s just another thing we’re throwing onto the pile.
If this was a male employee you wouldn’t be arguing this hard with the accusations.
It’s a lot of techies and IT guys. Sadly it’s basically expected that there will be a toxic environment for women. It’s HR’s job to put a stop to that shit so the company does not get sued. However, when the boss’ wife is the head of HR and the boss is the one allowing the toxic environment, it gets swept under the rug until it becomes a huge issue.
What? Roughly 7% of men in Western culture are not heterosexual. Across the rest of the world, 3-20% of men (depending on region) have had sex with men.
“Surveys in Western cultures find, on average, that about 93% of men and 87% of women identify as completely heterosexual, 4% of men and 10% of women as mostly heterosexual, 0.5% of men and 1% of women as evenly bisexual, 0.5% of men and 0.5% of women as mostly homosexual, and 2% of men and 0.5% of women as completely homosexual.[1] An analysis of 67 studies found that the lifetime prevalence of sex between men (regardless of orientation) was 3–5% for East Asia, 6–12% for South and South East Asia, 6–15% for Eastern Europe, and 6–20% for Latin America.[4] The International HIV/AIDS Alliance estimates a worldwide prevalence of men who have sex with men between 3 and 16 percent.[5]”
It’s a boys club because its a club that only accepts boys. Its genuinly that simple. A girls club would be one that only accepts girls. There is no generalization happening. This is some real incel shit you’re on, and thats a pipeline you should get off.
You’re misconstruing the meaning and intent of the phrase to support your argument. It in no way implies or affirms that all cis het males are bigots, only the males it is directly being used against. Similarly, calling a man a misogynist does not mean that all men are misogynists.
Its definitely a commonly used name for the mindset they are describing. There’s nothing to try to defend. As another cis het male, “the boy’s club”
is nothing to aspire to, unless of course, the goal is to belittle and victimize women.
It’s not just the one employee though. Gamer Nexus has been calling out LTT for inaccuracies too. The ethics of LMG seem dubious at best and the are lots of other options so why keep watching LTT?
When LMG releases a video supposedly addressing everything… doesn’t address it… then actively removed any mention of it in the comments of the video (I’ve had 2 comments removed myself). It’s safe to assume that LMG doesn’t have anything they want to add to the topic. I’ll just presume that I’ve heard all sides of the story.
Yeah they just want to change their wOrKfLoW…or something like that. To be honest, this is something that needs to be run through the justice system. If there was sexual harassment, then some people need to be tried for those crimes. This is a culture that cannot be changed along the lines that Linus Sebastian suggested. Justice needs to be served, however, I don’t think she really wants to relive this. My mother was sexually harassed by her boss (an optometrist)…it was pretty hard on her.
As someone who has self immolated in order to bring sexual assault to light… I see all the signs of darvo in the responses from LMG and Linus, and it turns my stomache.
I’ve heard similar before about her being HR in addition to CFO, but I went to confirm on their site and they don’t list anyone as HR staff that I could find.
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I believe her.
I have been in the tech industry for almost 30 years. These things she talks about are not new and will keep happening unless more people talk about them. I gave that Linus guy a listen once or twice, was never impressed. His fans are delusional, this thread contains a few of them!
Agreed. However, I still want to see facts, because it is possible that she’s exaggerating. Until I see facts, I’m going to believe Madison.
That said, I rarely watch LTT or any related channels. I find them to be shallow, often click-bait, and their merch advertising is incredibly annoying. I get my tech news and entertainment from other channels, such as Gamer’s Nexus, Level1Techs, Louis Rossmann, OptimumTech, Tech Ingredients, and SomeOrdinaryGamers.
I don’t understand the rabid following LMG has, but I do try to be objective in my criticism. I think GN’s coverage recently was pretty revealing (the one about testing quality), especially when paired with this article.
What is she exaggerating? It’s her perspective. The things she described are not exaggerating.
I don’t know, that’s why I want to see more facts about the situation.
So that’s why I’m defaulting to believing the victim until I have evidence to the contrary. She has provided her side, I’m waiting for LMG to provide theirs.
I have never felt the need to use YouTube for anything aside from classic comedy clips, music, gameplay clips and trailers. So, YouTube personalities like these pass me by. I’m one of those types who instantly closes a video if I hear commentary or talking over it. I don’t want to hear that shite.
Maybe it’s because I grew up without YouTube, unlike my daughter. She watches so much utter shit on there, unfortunately.
However, I have watched one LTT video before when doing some electronic engineering classes, and we were shown one to explain some thing I can’t remember. I do remember saying the guy seemed like a right prick, to the chagrin of others in my class. A smug, know-it all prick.
Well, guess who feels vindicated today! Me!
I’m like you, grown up without YT and I rarely watch it, for some video clip, or when I need to check how to disassemble my laptop or washing machine. I never watched a “YouTuber” or never ever went to twitch
I’ve never actually used twitch before. Ever.
I’m getting old…
But yeah, if I need a walkthrough on how to do something, I’ll always prefer written instructions/guides.
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Who?
Madison was a person chosen for ROG reboot (Asus sponsored LMG to make PCs with people after they made a video explaining why they should get one) and her video was really popular (5th most viewed on LTT channel with 12mil views) and people enjoyed her personality/dynamic. Later, there was a job offering posted for social media manager/coordinator and she ended up getting the job, after that you can read what she says happened (not saying it did, not saying it didn’t, just saying what we do know). She also posted about some of this stuff before I’m pretty sure, but I don’t remember exactly what she said (it was in the same vein as this, but I’m pretty sure this is more in detail though).
remember when linus spoke out against unionizing :)
Linus “spoke out” against unionizing by saying that he couldn’t legally do anything to stand in the way of his employees unionizing and wouldn’t want to stand in their way if they ever decided to. But he wants to make a workplace where people don’t feel the need to and if they did then he would see it as a personal failure.
There’s plenty to criticize Linus for right now, but I don’t think that his “anti-union” stance is one of them
Edit: in the context of these allegations, then yes, his employees certainly should unionize if the actual criminal crimes in this thread are even partially true. And if that happens then I will be singing Solidarity Forever for the LMG employees, but until that happens and we see how Linus responds to that this is just not a good read on Linus’ stance towards unions.
Edit2: it feels weird to have posted what could be seen as a defense of Linus under this particular post. I’m not a Linus Stan, Just a union advocate that wants criticism to be levied where it’s actually called for and this doesn’t seem like it is
An genuine employer who isn’t against unions and has their employees wellbeing as a top priority should encourage the employees to unionize.
I’m not convinced.
I have two uncles who worked for the same company, in different departments but in similar roles. Both were engineers, one was a CAE, and the other an ME. The CAE was not part of a union, and the ME was. They had a comparable lifestyle, so I assume they made a comparable salary (they live about a mile from each other, in a similarly sized house, drive similar cars, take similar amounts of vacations, etc).
Here’s the work history of my unionized uncle:
And here’s the work history of my non-unionized uncle:
This is obviously a very small sample, so it’s hardly enough evidence to say whether unions are a net positive or net negative. So whether a union is better for you depends on a lot of factors, such as:
But one thing that should be universally true is that openly anti-union employers should be avoided.
That wasn’t quite the point. What would be a good reason for a well meaning, rocking employer to not encourage unionization?
Lots of reasons:
An awesome employer shouldn’t discourage unionization, and ideally they’d encourage attempts to unionize, but they wouldn’t recommend unionization, assuming the employer intended to maintain control and monitor managers throughout the chain. If the employer can provide all of the benefits employees would get through unionization, unionizing merely adds extra BS that employees and employers need to deal with.
Alright, so let’s take a look.
No escaping this one.
What does the employer have to go through the union for?
If the employer is rocking, why would union members vote to strike?
This doesn’t feel right but I can’t quite put my finger on why so I’ll reserve judgement for now. 😄
I can see the extra layer of overhead in the case when everything is perfect, but given the incentives in traditional for-profit corporations I can’t see that case ever being realistic. In addition, even if a company is perfect today, the way corporations are structured makes it incredibly easy for that to change especially if there’s no worker-controlled counterbalance to such change. So just on the basis of that, if I’m an awesome, perfect employer, and I presumably want this to go on, because that really is part of being awesome, I should want to create this counterbalance against change for the worse. Assuming a for-profit, not-a-co-op corporation that is. It looks to me like this overhead is the price of preserving this perfect environment over the long term. Doesn’t that make sense?
Benefits, and depending on the union’s rules, salary adjustments. Some unions also require informing them of schedule changes.
The reverse is also true, employees may need to go through the union depending on the union’s rules.
Idk, perhaps communication issues w/ management? Over-zealous union leadership?
The point is, the employee isn’t empowered here, they’re subject to whatever the union agrees to do.
My uncle went through multiple strikes, few (if any) he actually agreed with, but had to deal with being out of work. He wished he wasn’t union so he could just continue working.
Sure, which is why it absolutely depends on the type of organization. Something owner-operated has a much lower risk of unexpected awful changes than something publicly traded.
A lot of owner-operated businesses don’t intend to sell to someone else, the owner will just shut it down when they’re done operating it. So “long term” in this sense is until the owner retires. And if they do intend to sell, they could at that point encourage the employees to make any employment adjustments needed.
Fair point, well made. I would love to live in a world like this one day
If I ever start a corporation and if for some reason it isn’t a workers co-op, I will make the employees unionize. I see little reason other than absolute profit maximization to not treat your employees as a great asset, assuming they’re doing reasonably well. But I’m a dirty socialist so…
Dirty? Nah, you’re fresh as hell, comrade. Workers co-ops are great
I guess I have my own special version of pessimism where if I see an employer not actively hiring Pinkertons I think if it add a little w for workers these days
I’m not saying he meant anti-union by that line, but that’s classic anti-union line saying my employees don’t need unions.
Very much in line of “unions means less money for you” statement.
True. If he said that line in response to a statement about wages. I can’t say that I exactly remember the context in which he made that statement, but I believe that it (ironically, given this post) had more to do with workplace culture than wages.
It’s not unusual for several people to have the same rational thought process. That’s why it’s “classic”.
Yeah the whole “I love unions, but we at this company are a family so we don’t need that”, is peak anti-union talk. Throughout history it’s been used by people who are horrible to their employees.
Exactly. If I was really concerned about my employees etc. I would want them to have a union with power that could match mine to argue their needs and concerns. If he had a union a lot of these problems and mistakes that he’s having likely wouldn’t have occurred.
Lol, sounds like what someone with a reputation to uphold would say if he hated the idea of his workers unionizing.
It’s manipulative doublespeak meant to discourage unionization.
The employer is by nature profit-seeking and all communication must be viewed through this lens.
And here I thought they were just sometimes a little inaccurate on the information they presented. Holy shit it’s so much worse.
Pepperige farm remembers.
That and the “We don’t discuss wages.” remark. Screw that mentality. And from what Madison wrote, If promissory estoppel is a thing in Canada, then it sounds like she had a strong case. Especially if there was any paperwork.
There’s tons of shit they could get LMG for. But it seems that they intentionally hired people that don’t know any better, and it’s no real fault of their own since they just are appearing to use predatory hiring processes. It’s ridiculous to think everyone young should know employment law.
Surely verbal contracts are still enforceable in Canada like they are in the US, assuming Madison can prove they happened.
Yeah, I’d say it’s about time for LTT staff to unionise.
I think that “taking care of people” smacks of the same rhetoric as “we’re like a family” and “I like to think that all staff are considered equals here” and just about any other lie I’ve heard from exploitative upper management types.
Wow, that would be the last straw. You have a link to his comments?
It was a wan show a while back if I remember right (not op), but basically trashed unions and said businesses should do better and vaguely acted like all the employees of the world could just quit and find something better on a whim if things were actually bad where they worked.
Which is all fine. His position was literally “I can’t and won’t do anything to stop it except for treating everyone to enough money that they won’t bother to do it”
That’s about as inoffensive as you can get. You’re twisting it into being some anti union thing.
Unions are not just for getting higher wages. They’re not even just for when conditions start to get worse. Unions should be there for the best as well as the worst working conditions. Unions serve to maintain good and improve bad conditions, it’s not about going against the “boss”, it’s about actively or passively defending the workers’ conditions.
Would you trust your boss’ lawyer saying “the trial will be fair, you won’t need a lawyer”?
And none of what Linus said goes against that. The employees are fine to form a union if they ever feel the need.
They always say that.
And some of them mean it. It’s just incredibly hard to tell one from the other, so always protect yourself first.
This is the leat surprising information anyone could have told me about working for LTT/LMG. Time and time again, tech jobs and game dev jobs in workplaces run by “old internet edgelords” always (always) results in shit like this.
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Understatement of the fucking century. I mean I know they got some data wrong but this is Blizzard level of workplace harassment.
With the assault and shit that’s straight up criminally illegal.
I’m so sorry for her; she probably gets the love she deserves now but it shouldn’t have taken so long and it’s time to start from scratch with this company.
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Edit: See my other comment below, looks like in Canada the legal system can fuck you over with legal costs in these matters https://lemmy.zip/comment/1760082
It is. So where is the police report? She said she was groped on several occasions (which is sexual assault) and quit the job by her own decision, so why not throw the men who groped her under the bus?
I 100% get the fear of a witch hunt from LTT fans (which are overall dumb and rabid most of the time, just read the YouTube comments), but now that she openly accuses them she should file a police report.
Otherwise this is just throwing accusations around at an opportune time, I’d much rather have this proven in court and the men punished (which would also uncover more systemic problems inside of LTT).
Linus did say a year ago:
Now that she openly accuses them I’d expect some action there to go with.
She will almost certainly find it very, very hard to prove the offence. Police and courts are usually reluctant to prosecute something on a ‘he said, she said’ basis. I can see why she’d not go down the police route with that, without even taking into account the massive power imbalance in terms of wealth / influence
Regarding Canada, I do find this: https://globalnews.ca/content/8797002/can-you-get-fired-recording-conversations-work/
So it seems 100% legal to record yourself even at work. Both audio and video? Which would make it rather easy to provide at least some proof (verbal abuse mostly, but if someone groped her at her desk then filming that might have worked too).
She also wrote:
I had co-workers come to me saying "I didn't like how you were treated, glad you got out." And only then did I realize it wasn't me.So that would mean there might be additional witnesses? I’m really hoping several of them actually come forward and talk about this then.
Sounds like she got witch-hunted tbh. Management was unhappy with Linus hiring her without going through the proper channels and pushed her out.
I am tired of reading these things. I am absolutely aware these are done in good faith to have some neutral instance to deal with this, but it not the reality. If you are low on money, you are right out or a bit later, if you are an “undesirable” person, you will lose, and if you lack time, energy and mental health going through the paperwork will break the last bit you had and money too.
Ah darn, in Canada this is a bit fucked, true. Just found this: https://lernerspersonalinjury.ca/sexual-abuse/sexual-abuse-cases-who-pays-the-legal-bills/
In Austria and Germany (as far as I’m aware, I’m not a lawyer) when it’s criminal charges the state sues. So you report it to the police and then it’s out of your hand pretty much (besides being a witness). If you want extra compensation you can go the civil case route afterwards as a victim.
Similar to if you stab me and the police notices then they don’t ask me if I want to sue you. They’ll charge you all on their own as it’s a criminal matter, not a civil one.
To follow on from my previous comment… I’m sure you’ve seen multiple cases in your own country where the police / courts decline to charge or prosecute someone based on lack of physical evidence
True, we also have the whole Rammstein issue at the moment (But that’s even more complicated, as the girls were all adults and consented to it at first).
I’m not sure what the recording laws in Canada are, LTT has a hundred cameras around every day and Madison wrote she got regularly assaulted. If it’s legal there I’d film myself to have proof.
Overall I just don’t like the timing, the drama was a year ago and now that other (more objective drama) gets brought up Madison unpacks everything and piles it on top? She was already in public back then and it’s bullshit that she believes the employer handbook would be an NDA covering sexual assault allegations (like Linus himself wrote back then, no NDA can do that in Canada). The other stuff in the post? Totally fine, that’s criticizing internal processes. But mixed right in there are serious criminal allegations.
Yeah, the whole “it didn’t happen if it wasn’t reported to the police” thing is shit. There is unfortunately too long of a list of reasons as to why someone would be unable or unwilling to report these types of things and the attitude of the OP you’re replying to is on the list.
You would think after watching the droves of men and women coming forward during the me too movement would show people that coming forward at the time is extremely difficult and often not possible.
Just to further your opinion:
Only ~30% of sexual assaults get reported according to this: https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system
And psychologists will probably tell you that after the assault there is shame, embarrassment, fear of repercussions due to power dynamics and anxiety about what will happen. Of course this doesn’t mean our society is dysfunctional, as we already managed to get a lot of systems in place to drive up this figure, but they’re all far from perfect, and we need more studies and more improvements to do victims of SA better justice.
Seems like a real shit hole place to work
Let’s wait for both sides before picking. The internet has a history of the “victim” lying.
Yep. There was a situation like that with LTT and Naomi Wu before, turned to be just drama.
Hovewer, given her and LTT staff characters, I tend to believe most of what she said. Though, I expected Max to come out with it, not Madison.
True, but the scale is completely different, Madison worked there for years and Naomi Wu was just a random idiot.
I’m all for covering both sides and this needs to be addressed.
I think their response was covered in her post(s)… lol
They’ve not responded to her. If you think what SHE is saying they said is a response, it’s not.
We shouldn’t witch hunt but this should be taken very seriously.
As for history of the victim lying… Never fall into this toxic mindset, even if it does happen you should never rush to this conclusion either. It’s disgusting
Sitting here waiting for both sides is disgusting? Fuck off lol.
No implying that people in this position have a history of lying is disgusting. Unequivocally fuck you
It discounts and underlays the seriousness of the situations and discredits them without due process
They do. But I guess go off and be outraged without a response from both sides.
You’re a child.
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Like I said don’t witch hunt but don’t dismiss her either, which you have tripled down on at this point.
I’m not outraged I expect due process, what grosses me out is your attitude
My attitude of WAITING FOR BOTH SIDES TO SPEAK BECAUSE THERE’S A HISTORY OF VICTIMS LYING is disgusting?
I’m not dismissing anyone. I’m fucking waiting for both sides because of history.
I can tell you 5 content creators that were cancelled and proved with receipts they were completely innocent in the past couple years. By then, the damage was done, and people didn’t care to listen to the accused.
So ya. Call me any childish names you want because I said I want to wait for both sides.
No stop moving the goal posts, you said they often lie whether true or not is Irrelevant.
Given the power imbalance tactics like this have been used in the past silence people that were otherwise completely within their rights.
I’m not saying that Linus did all these things and I agree with you that there needs to be a due process what I’m taking issue with is your language.
So many of these fuckin YouTube content farms are like this. Reminds me of the rooster teeth fiasco
I think most male-dominated industries/businesses are this way.
Jesus, that is beyond awful. I’m really sorry she had to go through so much bullshit and I’m really glad she’s speaking up.
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Wtf has Mr beast done again?
He is just speculating, but Mr Beast is known to push his people as well to work a lot
I’ve also heard it’s not as great for contestants/guests as well. I don’t think I’ve ever watched more than 10s or so of a Mr. Beast video, it’s just never been appealing to me.
Was there evidence linking the suicide to them apart from the Reddit post ? I never did have the stomach to research it in details.
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I’d argue the two things are different in the fact that in this case Madison is talking about direct actions by LMG employees, not the channel’s fanbase.
Yeah, I really don’t get that viewpoint. Look at GN’s track history, they call out a company and then leave it at that. That’s it. Sometimes they include clips as a meme (e.g. the Gigabyte “exploding” PSUs), but they don’t make multiple videos covering the same topic. If a company improves, they will make a video recapping the issue, the company’s response, and an updated analysis of if they think that was an appropriate move or not.
So I really don’t see GN as a drama channel, they tend to have well-researched content, give companies a chance to explain themselves, etc. I don’t know if GN did that this time (it was a long video), but they did provide many examples of the types of issues they found.
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One step worse imo is the “we’re more successful than you,” as if that’s a real argument, which Linus seems to also be pulling. And he’s not the only one, xQc did the same thing when he was challenged on his conception of Fair Use as it relates to “reaction” videos.
To be honest, I think ‘founders syndrome’ vibes have been radiating from their content for years. Owner-operators are often some of the most toxic employers.
I’ve noticed Linus be visibly mean to his employees on camera multiple times and I don’t even watch that much. I figure if that’s what he’s willing to do on camera it’s probably a lot worse off camera.
I always figured LTT was a boy’s club, considering how few female employees they have, but I had no idea the environment was that bad. Rather naive of me, tbh.
Ugh, I don’t think I can continue watching anything from LTT anymore. 😭 I hope Madison is doing better these days.
Edit: I’ve zero issues blocking bad actors. =)
Maybe let both sides talk before picking a side? Or I guess you can just unsubscribe like a child.
I’m confused about your comment. Why assume it’s childish to act in a way that distances you of any drama?
Why that us vs. them attitude of name calling someone as childish? How is that any different of the childish behaviour that is being hoisted upon in the first place?
Perhaps that’s an indication that a side is already being chosen?
Anyway, don’t take my comment in a wrong way. I really have no dog in this fight. I barely know who this Linus guy is. I just dislike seeing people being rude to each other, unneedingly escalating discussions by being unkind.
Exactly. I stopped watching LTT when I felt they produced childish content a few years ago (first it was the clickbait titles, then stupid thumbnails, then annoying ads). So I unsubbed for much less than a sexual harassment case.
Watch other channels, there’s plenty of good content out there depending on what you’re interested in. I mostly watch Gamer’s Nexus and Optimum Tech these days for tech stuff, but there are a few others I watch with some regularity.
What a stupid thing to say. Unsubbing is a mature response.
Waiting for both sides to tell their story is the mature response.
But we wont hear llts response to this… lol
If she had several tweets of bullshit about the company, it might not have been like this 100%… but ill bet that this is just one out of several people who felt screwed working there
Linus?
We already have their response though? They continue deleting comments that even bring it up. That alone should tell you everything.
Stop licking their boots; there are better tech channels.
Yup. Some favorites:
I’ve also liked Hardware Canucks, Hardware Unboxed, and JayzTwoCents (dropped this hard since it became ridiculous imo), but I haven’t watched anything from them in a couple years so I can’t really recommend them.
I watch LTT a handful of times per year, and usually it’s not really my thing (more hype than content imo).
Thanks for this recommendation! I love SFF pcs.
His production value is fantastic as well. I hope you enjoy. :)
Can confirm that Gamer’s Nexus and Optimum Tech are absolutely superb. You can tell those guys are doing it for the love of the game. LTT is vacuous in comparison.
Another I didn’t mention is Level1Techs, though they tend to focus more on server hardware and less on weird gaming tech (though they do gaming reviews as well).
It’s a sub. Why are you acting like unsubbing is such a terrible, immature response?
Exactly. OP can easily resub once each side has said their piece and OP feels comfortable that any issues were resolved.
It’s also not like YouTube won’t recommend you channels that you unsub from. I had to into a 3rd party channel blocker because it kept recommending me AvE even though I very much don’t want to see that channel anymore.
Sure, but I can also ignore most of that by just going to my subscriptions page. I don’t mind seeing irrelevant videos, I’m just not going to click on them.
Lol this fanboy
Fanboy because I’m not reacting like a child before I hear both sides?
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Look up super mega.
Matt came with receipts that showed everything he was accused of was a lie.
Great. So the other 5M times women come forward like this can be ignored because one time it was proven otherwise.
1 time? You’re ignorant.
No, because you’ve posted SEVENTEEN TIMES today simping for Linus. You keep repeating “wait for both sides” even though Linus already responded directly to the GN piece and his response was GARBAGE, which is the main reason a lot of people are unsubscribing. Madison’s problem isn’t the only issue, it’s just another thing we’re throwing onto the pile.
If this was a male employee you wouldn’t be arguing this hard with the accusations.
lmao. You seem to be projecting.
Both sides HAVE spoken. The fire was stoked by the shitty LMG response.
It’s a lot of techies and IT guys. Sadly it’s basically expected that there will be a toxic environment for women. It’s HR’s job to put a stop to that shit so the company does not get sued. However, when the boss’ wife is the head of HR and the boss is the one allowing the toxic environment, it gets swept under the rug until it becomes a huge issue.
She isn’t the head of HR.
Downvote if you want, but it is true.
She isn’t anymore. She was previously.
Yeah, I believe when the company was a lot smaller.
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Oh no a cis white male feels offended.
Anyways.
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Buahahaha
Calling something a boys club in no way generalizes guys.
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No? I don’t see why a boy couldn’t be gay, for example.
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What? Roughly 7% of men in Western culture are not heterosexual. Across the rest of the world, 3-20% of men (depending on region) have had sex with men.
Recent figures for young adults (i.e., 18-29) identifying as trans / non-binary in the US are in the ~5% area, which suggests that figures historically would have been higher had there been more cultural awareness and acceptance. Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/06/07/about-5-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-say-their-gender-is-different-from-their-sex-assigned-at-birth/
Source for the sexuality claim (quote below): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orientation
“Surveys in Western cultures find, on average, that about 93% of men and 87% of women identify as completely heterosexual, 4% of men and 10% of women as mostly heterosexual, 0.5% of men and 1% of women as evenly bisexual, 0.5% of men and 0.5% of women as mostly homosexual, and 2% of men and 0.5% of women as completely homosexual.[1] An analysis of 67 studies found that the lifetime prevalence of sex between men (regardless of orientation) was 3–5% for East Asia, 6–12% for South and South East Asia, 6–15% for Eastern Europe, and 6–20% for Latin America.[4] The International HIV/AIDS Alliance estimates a worldwide prevalence of men who have sex with men between 3 and 16 percent.[5]”
It’s a boys club because its a club that only accepts boys. Its genuinly that simple. A girls club would be one that only accepts girls. There is no generalization happening. This is some real incel shit you’re on, and thats a pipeline you should get off.
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You’re misconstruing the meaning and intent of the phrase to support your argument. It in no way implies or affirms that all cis het males are bigots, only the males it is directly being used against. Similarly, calling a man a misogynist does not mean that all men are misogynists.
Its definitely a commonly used name for the mindset they are describing. There’s nothing to try to defend. As another cis het male, “the boy’s club” is nothing to aspire to, unless of course, the goal is to belittle and victimize women.
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Cry me a river you fucking homonculus people have the right to decide they don’t want to watch the boys club anymore
It’s not just the one employee though. Gamer Nexus has been calling out LTT for inaccuracies too. The ethics of LMG seem dubious at best and the are lots of other options so why keep watching LTT?
When LMG releases a video supposedly addressing everything… doesn’t address it… then actively removed any mention of it in the comments of the video (I’ve had 2 comments removed myself). It’s safe to assume that LMG doesn’t have anything they want to add to the topic. I’ll just presume that I’ve heard all sides of the story.
… Did you really just insinuate that unsubbing from a channel is the same as “canceling” them? LOL
Begone, foul troll!
The other side has spoken, and Linus is attempting to plaster over things instead of addressing them head on.
They have spoken. Both sides had their say. This is the reaction to that.
Yeah they just want to change their wOrKfLoW…or something like that. To be honest, this is something that needs to be run through the justice system. If there was sexual harassment, then some people need to be tried for those crimes. This is a culture that cannot be changed along the lines that Linus Sebastian suggested. Justice needs to be served, however, I don’t think she really wants to relive this. My mother was sexually harassed by her boss (an optometrist)…it was pretty hard on her.
As someone who has self immolated in order to bring sexual assault to light… I see all the signs of darvo in the responses from LMG and Linus, and it turns my stomache.
Update: LMG to hire external investigator on this matter.
Tip for LMG: don’t have the founder’s wife be head of HR.
HRs job is to protect the company… from employees. So they dont sue.
So they pressure the leadership: you cant do this, because then X will sue.
You cant do that coz then the government will give us a large fine etc etc
Thwy are not there to help the employees. At all. Ever. Lol.
She’s not - Yvonne is accounting and business, I’ve never heard of her as being remotely involved with the HR department.
I’ve heard similar before about her being HR in addition to CFO, but I went to confirm on their site and they don’t list anyone as HR staff that I could find.
I believe Linus said they have an external HR contract now. Yvonne was HR when they were much smaller.
That makes sense