- cross-posted to:
- linus_tech_tips@discuss.online
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- linus_tech_tips@discuss.online
- technology@lemmy.world
Here’s the entire thing if you don’t want to go to that link:
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:
Claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated.
Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
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.
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.
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.
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You know who else is bullying the competition? Our sponsor!
(shamelessly stolen)
That segue would definitely lead to a Dbrand ad.
One big question I’m wondering is if that company they hired to investigate themselves ever finds a company they’ve been hired to investigate (by that company) is in the wrong or if they are basically a PR company disguised as an investigation company.
It sucks that LTT is in this position because I acknowledge that it looks the same whether or not they are innocent, but it’s so hard to trust that these things are done in good faith when it’s likely more profitable to do it in bad faith.
I know a lawyer at Roper-Greyell. The firm specializes in defending/protecting companies around employment law. They probably also consult on best practices for companies to avoid suits.
They are a law firm, but they are LMG’s law firm. Note that we’re reading what LMG wants to share about the report, not the report itself.
It’s a legal strategy to say, “Investigators didn’t find anything seriously wrong, and we’re considering suing you for defamation”
A lot of the other replies to your comment read between the lines in some insightful ways. I would just like to also add that “claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated” means that the investigation didn’t find evidence. Not that the bullying/ harassment didn’t occur. It is kind of meaningless without knowing what information was looked at. What sorts of substantiation could reasonably be expected from the investigation?
It’s possible that the person making allegations has evidence that the investigators didn’t.
Yeah, the language used and things said don’t inspire much confidence. Especially the defamation part. Are they being kind by dropping the matter? Are they pretending to be strong when they know they don’t have a defamation case? Or did they include that to silence her?
Though if it’s either of the two last cases, all she has to do is double down on her position and she wins because the only move to beat that is to actually file the defamation case (and win it or settle to turn it into an expensive draw). And a suit would come with discovery.
Are they being kind by dropping the matter?
I believe they are sincere that they just want this all to go away. It’s self interest though, not kindness.
Are they pretending to be strong when they know they don’t have a defamation case? Or did they include that to silence her?
I think what they are saying is “shut up or the lawyers will make a lot of money”.
LTT sold someone else’s property (prototype even, after failing to review it correctly). I doubt they are innocent.
Yeah, the way they handled that was IMO criminally negligent, assuming it wasn’t a deliberate attempt to sabotage that company. But it doesn’t imply anything about the sexual harassment issue.
Though their initial handling of that situation going viral is exactly why I’m skeptical about the integrity of this investigation. Each step Linus took just screamed: “we’ll just say what we think we need to say to make this problem go away” plus a dose of “I’ll apologize but also I still think I was right”. But he also saw just how badly all of that went. So it would be in character for the investigation to be just another version of this, but it would also make sense for him to have realized that a fake investigation would make things worse and that his only real way out was to let go of his fate and leave it to a legitimate investigation.
But both of those cases look the same from here so idk.
We don’t know if they are wrong or right here but we do know that these investigations are 100% PR stunt.
I agree, but in one case it’s a despicable attempt to bury the truth and in the other it is an understandable attempt to set the record straight.
IMO it’s clear that they are/were in over their heads and doing damage control, but it’s not clear if it’s all deserved. Some of it is, but the sexual harassment stuff was the worst of it that made me go from “I hope they sort their shit out” to “I hope they fail” back when it first came out.
Personally, I didn’t pounce on that. He said, she said…
This needs to be handled in the courts.
In personal side, smaller fact did confirm some biases.
They got the boys having fun that likely offended somebody, fine…
But that’s no 1 reason why a Union would be good. So from my perspetive thats where they lost me. Because outside of courts, this second best choice for employee who is mistreated to deal with the issue.
We will never know what went down tho.
Yeah, at this point I don’t know if it’s possible to clear away the doubt one way or another. In another comment I mentioned that strategically her best move would be to call Linus’ defamation bluff because then he’d have to file and win it to make it look like anything other than an intimidation tactic. But that strategy could work even if she is in the wrong because defamation has a high burden of proof. It was a strategic blunder to bring it up at all unless he does have a solid case.
Courts are generally anti employee and cost to litigate is high, ie not something regular worker can afford to do.
Exactly; the statement will have been reviewed by lawyers who would have suggested rewording it.
It seems like people want… a volunteer (no money involved) who has never heard of LMG (unbiased) to interview people without permission (LMG wouldn’t know about the investigation and couldn’t prepare), access information and then release all of it. Remember to include finger prints of everyone interviewed in case the statement are falsified.
I’m exaggerating here but it looks like no matter what they do, someone will have a problem with it.
Like… investigators were paid to… investigate. They’re not gonna get paid more for not finding anything or gonna refund the money if they do. 100% they have this in their contract
But it’s also going to reduce their chances of getting hired for this kind of work.
Sponsored investigations cannot be impartial unless the investigator is blinded with respect to who hired them.
On the other hand, if an investigator is found out to do bad investigations, their credibility gets lost. Some corporations likely would choose them for exactly that reason, but most won’t, so there’s some incentive to do a proper job.
Given I don’t know of bad rumors about this corporation, I’d go with @ashok36@lemmy.world’s take that the following statement was written by a lawyer and thus sexual harassment did happen but was addressed.
Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
Given that this issue was made public, it wasn’t addressed well enough for at least some parties involved. Hopefully harassment won’t be an issue going forward.
This! Would you hire a mechanic who you know does what you say but 1/3 cars they “repair” ends up breaking again 6 months later?
As noted above, I think the statement is that allegations were made and they were not ignored, and/or were addressed.
Its like forced arbitration where a “impartial” arbitrator is hired by the company to settle disputes and IIRC the stats are that the company who pays them wins like 99% of cases.
Exactly
I’m exaggerating here but it looks like no matter what they do, someone will have a problem with it.
Well you’re not wrong, but the point is that the external investigator is not the one releasing these statements, and therefore nothing said can really be trusted. I couldn’t imagine them letting the investigators release the findings themselves anyway, that’s a dangerous proposition if they find shit that hadn’t even been mentioned yet.
Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
The only way to read this, assuming the lawyers wrote the statement, is that sexual harassment did happen but was “addressed”. Otherwise they’d just say the claims of sexual harassment were unsubstantiated.
I’d like to know more about how those claims were addressed before making final judgement.
Correction, the only way to read this is that allegations happened, and said allegations were not ignored, but investigated. The statement doesn’t tell us wether those allegations were found to have merit.
That’s not the only way to read that at all. Your interpretation is that sexual harrassment was not ignored & was addressed; but the sentence is actually that allegations were not ignored and were addressed.
That’s fair, I suppose, but awfully ambiguous. It would be better if they just said, “Allegations of sexual harassment were found to be unsubstantiated” or similar if that’s actually the case.
I don’t think of it that way. I think the allegation of sexual harassment were ignored is false means sexual harassment report is not ignored, not that it did happen. It means there is a procedure to report it, and to handle it. Remember, innocent until proven guilty. If you just fire the accused employee before the proof is sufficient, it is also giving the accuser power to misuse the reporting procedure. Didn’t like someone? Accuse them of sexual harassment.
Why do I interpret it that way? Because for sexual harassment to be noticed, it must be reported. Otherwise, how tf will the company know anything? So, a report did come, now what to do? A. Ignore it, told every party “tough shit” B. Do something and give sanction/disciplinary action if proven true
But what do I know, I am not a lawyer so I know jack shit about workplace regulation.
So if they report but the accused is some higher up… There is no report. Easy.
This is silly.
If it was reported, it was reported. The whole point of Roper Greyell being involved is to identify if there were events that weren’t reported, or were reported and not acted upon.
If it was reported and (now) there is no document… it was not reported.
I’ve made my final judgement. That was one long message saying “We’re guilty and we know it, but we’re not going to tell anyone”
I recall this and the allegations / issues with the vendors they reviewed as being my “final straw” to stop viewing their content. This itself had a prominent place in my memory, but I don’t recall much about the other scandal / issues at the time. Anyone recall that stuff and if they were similarly addressed? All I remember was I stopped caring after that pitiful we’re sorry video from the new CEO.
Long and the short of it is that they had been making tons of factual errors by just being sloppy. They were growing super fast and investing tons of money in Labs, touting how accurate and trustworthy they were while making a bunch of dumb mistakes. Oh, also being just really unaware of how it comes off having your YouTube channel employees doing construction and installation work on your McMansion while some of them were still living in their parents’ basement.
There’s more to it than that, that video (and its follow-up) are definitely worth the watch if you have the time.
Edit: Linus has been consistently anti-union, saying he’d feel as if he failed as a boss if his employees unionized. It comes off like ‘oh how did it get so bad that you felt this was the only option, why didn’t you just talk w/ me’, but he’s really just completely misunderstanding the purpose, function, and history of unions. He really just seems completely clueless as to his power dynamic as a boss in general.
I feel his sentiment as he is someone that grows from a small, family-like group which he leads. But that model indeed is incompatible with the pace that they are expanding. He saw that he is not fit for the role of CEO and has since stepped down. But yes, I know he still has a major stake in the company. It is kind of a complex problem. You can’t stop the owner from wanting to be the janitor at his own company.
I just want to jump in here as the whole thing about the tonnes of factual errors stuff…
A lot of the allegations about the accuracy of their data basically came down to arguments about the validity of statistics garnered from testing methodology; and how Labs guy claimed their methods were super good, vs other content creators claiming their methods were better.
My opinion is that all of these benchmarking content creators who base their content on rigorous “testing” are full of their own hot air.
None of them are doing sampling and testing in volume enough to be able to point to any given number and say that it is the metric for a given model of hardware. So the value reduces to this particular device performed better or worse than these other devices at this point in time doing a comparable test on our specific hardware, with our specific software installation, using the electricity supply we have at the ambient temperatures we tested at.
Its marginally useful for a product buying general comparison - in my opinion to only a limited degree; because they just aren’t testing in enough volume to get past the lottery of tolerances this gear is released under. Anyone claiming that its the performance number to expect is just full of it. Benchmarking presents like it has scientific objectivity but there are way too many variables between any given test run that none of these folks isolate before putting their videos up.
Should LTT have been better at not putting up numbers they could have known were wrong? Sure! Should they have corrected sooner & clearer when they knew they were wrong? Absolutely! Does anybody have a perfect testing methodology that produces reliable metrics - ahhhh, im not so sure. Was it a really removed beat up at the time from someone with an axe to grind? In my opinion, hell yes.
A lot of the allegations about the accuracy of their data basically came down to arguments about the validity of statistics garnered from testing methodology…
I mean, no, not really. They mislabelled graphs entirely, let data that was supposedly comparing components in the same benchmark, by the same testers, on the same platform pass with incredible outliers, and just incorrectly posted specs of components, and that’s nothing to say about any of the other allegations brought up at that time. It’s super basic proofreading stuff, not methodology, that they couldn’t be assed to double-check, all because of crunch.
There have been a few videos by hardware reviewers to address the sample size concern. Gamers Nexus tested 3 different CPU models with 20+ CPUs each and found that the biggest variance from lowest to highest performance was under 4% while performance variance in most cases was about 2%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUeZQ3pky-w
The way CPU manufacturing and binning are done means that cpus in particular will have very minor differences within the same model number.
There is also sexual assult allegation from their previous employee madison:
https://old.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15shoyx/madison_on_her_ltt_experience/
I believe this investigation is primarily related to that allegation.
How was it pitiful? To me it showed a clear improvement plan and wasn’t just some YouTuber “I’m sorry we were caught” apology.
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You can’t investigate employee abuse allegations months after the fact, everything there is circumstantial and proving anything after the fact is near impossible.
This was obviously an act done to cover the business. I’m not saying they are wrong to do so. I’m just saying that anyone expected any other outcome isn’t living in reality.
Well yes you can. I am sure the investigation company poured through digital (timestamped) logs, messages, data, emails…
Most places I’ve worked have data retention policies in place that would twart to any such efforts.
To add this any party that’s perpetrating abuse would obviously know to avoid recorded communication. I’m my anecdotal experience people tend to think better of it when they have time to actually type it out.
Lastly given the sensitive nature of the investigation and the third party being hired it was obvious we’d never get a look behind the curtain at the methodology and without that any statement is worthless.
Cool. Release the report.
I’m astounded the investigator they hired found them innocent.
Assuming you aren’t trolling; LMG:
- Hired a professional HR firm
- Gave them access to their internal records and communications
- Gave them free reign to talk to whoever they need
- Tasked them to work out what happened, and provide them with instructions to improve their processes
If that isn’t the right thing to do, then what is?
I guess people just wanna be mad with him I mean what I think what they want is that they would find that the company was actually at fault and they actually did something wrong and then I guess someone gets fired. I think it’s what they wanted to hear, but honestly, this is the best outcome . 
Isn’t the classic phrase that HR is not your friend? They are there to manage you as a resource and to protect the bottom line.
Absolutely, which is why they hired external consultants to do the review - they are a neutral third party, with a reputation of fairness to uphold
Easy on the koolaid…
Paying somebody by default makes them not neutral
I’d love to hear how you managed to convince someone to do complex, detailed work over 8 months without paying them
that’s because you have a bootlicker’s imagination, dear.
They said at the time “We are committed to publishing the findings”. This has not happened yet as far as I know, and it’s critical. Accusations were specific, the investigation findings can’t be vague.
Those are the findings of the report - what kind of specifics were you expecting?
A break down of all the allegations with what evidence (testimonies, electronic messages…) they took into consideration before coming to the conclusion that the claim was false.
That’s not gonna happen. They can’t publish private business and personal communications, names and data with the public. The point of hiring an external company is that they audit the case and come to a conclusion, and for the company to be reputable they must not be biased. If you don’t believe the conclusion why would you believe the details? They could also be manufactured or cherry picked.
They probably could but anonymized.
Anonymized is still risky as people speech has a pattern. All it takes is one nutjob to dox and now everyone has a problem.
Edit to add further information why anonymization is hard. US survey and statistics data is jittered in a random way to protect the privacy since it is possible to backtrack the statistics to the person who answers the survey. I think it was explained in a minutephysics video.
That is a whole government department dealing with sensitive data and mathematical proof that their survey result is anonymous. What can a law firm do to guarantee anonymization? Remember, guarantee is a strong word here as it carries legal implication for the firm. If the firm cannot guarantee anonymization, then the company would not want to be liable when shit hits the fan.
Would you give candid testimony if you knew that your boss - let alone the general public - were going to see it later?
The breakdown you are wanting shouldn’t be generally available within LMG, let alone publicly available.
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I think you need to sit back and reevaluate your position in this situation. You have no right to that information, and even if you did, nobody involved would care about your opinion.
I never said it was my right. I said that if they want people to believe them, they will need to show the report.
If not, I treat them as I would any other money first company with a clueless owner. I probably won’t be the only one turned off.
Free rein, as-in not directing them, like not controlling the reins of a horse.
I always thought it was free reign as in free rule/power over the process
I did, as well. It’s very common.
Hired a professional firm that specializes in defending employers against employees and has a history of anti-union action. This isn’t some bootstrap law firm, it’s a multi billion dollar giant that makes its money by suppressing labor unrest.
Hr are the worst bootlickers out there… Inherently biased againt the employee.
They are not even pretending here.
Ah yes… They hired a third-party respected law firm specializing in labor and employment law, and allowed full access to records and employees to investigate the allegations. They took months to complete that investigation thoroughly and provide a report on the findings and recommendations going forwards.
Because the results aren’t what you personally wanted, you attack the entire idea that an investigation paid for by LMG must inherently be biased in their favor because they paid for it.
So what alternative would you suggest? They already hired a respected third party law firm specializing in this. Since you seem to think you know of a better way to investigate in a more unbiased manner.
Not the original commenter… but an investigation paid for by a company is not the same as an investigation by somebody who is incentivized to work for the aggreived.
But obviously they can’t force the potential victim to pay for an investigation when they’re the ones who need the report. Do you think instead that anyone accused in this way is literally incapable of countering the claims for themselves? There has to be an avenue for them to defend themselves, and this feels like the best thing they realistically could have done.
Clearly a more thorough final report would help here, but I don’t see the point in attacking the money trail when that isn’t something that can be avoided.
So you are saying that simply by accepting payment from a company any investigation must inherently be biased?
That’s the entire reason a reputable third party was hired in the first place, because a reputable group won’t be incentivized to bias like that. That’s why they are reputable.
The aggrieved are welcome to hire their own investigator, or file a lawsuit, or any number of other things. But all we got from that side were the original claims on social media, and advertising for their stream. Not exactly an unbiased source either.
And should it come to the lawsuit both parties can present their findings.
There is no report, just a statement that is poorly written yet again. A few paragraphs on X written by them isn’t a report refuting the allegations. It’s another “Trust me Bro” statement.
I mean did you expect them to give you a copy of the report with the original names, statements, personal files?
How would you like the information presented to you?
You can redact a lot without losing the focus of what is found in a report of this magnitude. It happens a lot in many businesses that had investigations.
If they don’t have the skill to write that, then why are they a media company to begin with?
Why is the statement written personally instead of as a standard press release?
This note sounds more to the point that Linus didn’t know anything of what happened, so nothing was wrong. Lastly, they said that they would have a report for us after the investigation was done. Without putting the report out, they can’t hope to put this all behind them. There will always be a shadow order them still. Also, saying that they don’t have to publish a report because they are a private company will only let more people think they are hiding something.
The investigation was to show they weren’t hiding anything, and without a report showing the allegations were false they haven’t done anything.
Not as a cover up
Nothing personal against lmg but this just good old corporate pay your way out of bad PR trick.
Why would I respect this as worker or YouTube watcher?
Also Linus made strong anti Union statements so we know how he thinks about the wage slaves who ain’t his buddies.
Ok, so like you are cynical, but not nearly cynical enough.
If they did this as a “cover-up”, the aggrieved parties will sue the ever living dicks off LMG.
If LMG is making the claim they did a thorough investigation with an outside auditor, the aggrieved parties can contest that and sue.
LMG is clearly confident enough in the results of the investigation to go to court over the matter. The second to last paragraph is a not-even-veiled threat.
They are basically stating “if you are feeling froggy, leap”, as in, the investigation turned up jack shit, and if you want, bring it to court and we’ll massacre you; we did the investigation, and we have the facts.
No sane company would do that unless they believed themselves to be 1000% in the right, with the
I mean that seems a little cynical. They obviously did so to protect the company. And the barely veiled threat at the end suggest they would be more than happy to go to court with the results the investigation found. A court of law isn’t going to just take LMG’s word for it.
This is Canada we’re talking about, not the US. They have laws you know.
The US is however a pretty low bar.
A pretty low bar… like our sponsor!
Firms don’t hire auditors to tell them everything is great. They actually want an unbiased report. They just don’t release to the public if it’s not flattering
LTT? Linus Tech Tips? Am I missing something here…?
At the same time it came out that they were pretty shitty to one of the products they reviewed and some other terrible reviewing practices they had, sexual abuse allegations came about. That was a while ago, but thankfully it seems they investigated themselves and found no issue. Works for the police, works for LTT.
I see you can’t read.
They hired an outside group to come in and perform an investigation, this is like the exact opposite of what police “internal investigations” do.
“Canada’s largest”, but companies don’t hire you if you consistently make the companies paying you look bad. Like HR, these sorts of companies help protect the people paying them.
Jesus fuck you all so fucking cynical it’s a miracle you can put your pants on without shitting them in fear.
You didn’t even see a report from this company, just what LTT said they said, and you believe them outright. This is what being a fucking shill is, man. Can’t you see that daddy Linus isn’t going to reward you for your blind loyalty to him? He’ll never notice you and your blind devotion.
You don’t put out a statement saying “This company looked at us & found this:” without running the statement by the company in question first.
Well, you can, but you’ll usually find yourself in hot water if the things you’re claiming the company found run contrary to what they actually found.
No, youre not.
I guess these results count for something, however Madison’s allegations have been really consistent and more importantly, were quietly published months before without any drama.
Believing the big corporation with drastically more leverage on this situation would be stupid, so they aren’t 100% cleared for me. Something definitely happened with Madison, but likely for lack of records and evidence it wasn’t confirmed.
We’re not gonna ever know what really happened.
Hahahahahhaha
Furthermore, from reviewing our history, the investigator is confident that if any other concerns had been raised, we would have investigated them.
Can you make it look like even more of a joke? (outside of Russia, they are King, of course)
This is great and all, but it doesn’t change the fact that their content hasn’t been good for at least five years
We’ve moved on
Exactly as everyone with at least 5 brain cells suspected
