Linus Media Group has formally apologized for the Billet Labs blunder a few hours after harassment and mistreatment allegations against the company surfaced.
Linus Tech Tips, a YouTube tech review channel that blossomed into a media company, is in hot waters as allegations of poor ethics, errors, harassment, and toxic work culture pile up. The Linus Media Group has tackled at least one matter in a 22-minute-long video, apologizing to the fans about the Billet Lab controversy, consequently halting production for a week.
The tension between Linus Tech Tips and rival Gamers Nexus had been building up since July, but it reached a boiling point when the latter accused LTT of lazy reviews to churn out heaps of content. Gamers Nexus criticized LTT for testing Billet Labs’ GPU cooling block on the wrong GPU, not meant to accentuate the true potential of the product. After reviewing the cooling block, Gamers Nexus alleged that LTT sold the rare monotype in the market instead of returning it to the manufacturer.
The former CEO Linus Sebastian and other higher-ups at Linus Media Groups have now addressed the controversy in a video titled “What do we do now.”Â
“Linus made a clear and egregious judgment error regarding retesting a product he felt was impractical. That was wrong, and I’ve told him so. He allowed his personal feelings on the matter to cloud his judgment,” the chief financial officer of LTT, Yvonne Ho, said.
What do we do now?
The video ended with Yvonne confirming that LTT content production would be halted for a week, which would be used to reevaluate and overhaul the company’s guidelines. While the video did convince Linus’ followers, the accusations brought forth against the company by Madison “Suop” Reeve were overlooked. That was likely because the video was shot before the allegations were made public since Sebastian responded privately to The Verge, addressing the former employee’s claims.
On August 16, Madison accused Linus Media Group of a toxic and sexist work environment and recounted distressing encounters involving unwarranted physical contact and inappropriate questions. According to Sebastian, he was in a “state of shock” since the allegations weren’t “consistent with his recollections.”
“Our HR team will be conducting a more thorough assessment of the allegations, and when we are ready, we will release a more complete statement. For now, I would ask that we allow our team the time they need to be as thorough as possible.” He told The Verge in a statement.
While the long video did include a formal apology from Sebastian, not everyone was sold due to the light humor injected into the video. Fans also noted that the apology video was monetized, a backlash that prompted LTT to turn off monetization later.
In any case, LTT’s popularity is taking a hit as the channel has already lost 100K subscribers since August 15. It remains to be seen how the company bounces back after a week-long content hiatus.
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