Linus Tech Tips pauses production as controversy swirls | What started as criticism over errors in recent YouTube videos has escalated into allegations of sexual harassment, prompting the company t…::The YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips has halted production after controversies over ethics and accuracy in reporting, spurred further this morning by accusations of sexual harassment experienced at the company.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The company has currently paused all production to improve its review processes, and CEO Terren Tong tells The Verge an outside investigator will be hired to examine the harassment allegations.
“We’ve been seeing an alarming amount of conflicts from Linus Tech Tips as it relates to their corporate connections, their flow of money, and the potential bias as a result of those things,” said Gamers Nexus host Steve Burke.
According to Gamers Nexus, Linus Tech Tips reviewed a copper cooling block from Billet Labs on the wrong GPU, then auctioned it off at a recent fan event without the company’s permission.
The afternoon after Gamers Nexus posted its video, Sebastian began responding to concerned fans in the Linus Tech Tips forums.
Reeve went on to accuse the company of barring her from videos after she reported being “grabbed multiple times in the office” and being told to “calm my tits” and “stop being such a bitch.”
He went on to note that “as part of this process, beyond an internal review we will also be hiring an outside investigator to look into the allegations and will commit to publish the findings and implementing any corrective actions that may arise because of this.”
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The grabbing part is clear - but “calm your tits” and “stop being such a bitch”? At least where I live both are gender neutral, first one even used most often male to male. Am I missing something? Would it not have been sexual harassment but just toxic culture if it was another cuss? E.g. when you say “motherfucker” you don’t actually mean “somebody having sexual relations with one’s mother”. Can somebody with more knowledge about US legal system explain this to me?
You can make a distinction between gender when it comes to the phrases. To my male friends, yeah. Depending on the situation I can see myself saying both of those phrases. But to my female friends? They don’t mean the same thing.
“Calm your tits” is a maybe depending on the circumstances and how close we are, but never in an aggressive tone.
“Stop being such a bitch”, downright out. Never to those friends. So many better ways to phrase it depending on the circumstances.
And finally, all of these were to my friends, NOT A FUCKING COWORKER. You never say these things to coworkers. The whole goal of team management is promoting teamwork, these phrase foster nothing but animosity. I try to say anything even remotely close to those phrases and my ass will be out of a job before lunch (and for good reason).
In terms of legal, IANAL, but as far as I know you would have to present this to a jury or judge, and the bar that they’d have to pass in the US is “more likely than not”. In other words: “is it more likely than not that this comment was made to harass the individual based on their sex?” Pretty low bar to cross.
Also, LTT is a Canadian company, so the above paragraph is kinda moot to the whole situation.
TL;DR: those phrases are rude to women, LTT would likely have a rough time in court (if they were a US company)
Ah okay, thank you for explanation! Also I (wrongly) thought they are from US - thanks again :)
If I said either of those things to any of the women I work with I’d likely get fired before the end of the week. And they really do not want to fire me
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Yikes, after reading that thread in its entirety I unsubbed from their channel. They will have to do a LOT to get me to ever come back. I’m not sure if that’s even possible?
It has to do with how the parties involved interpret it. Between friends I have said the same things, but not everyone will be comfortable with these things said to them and can even interpret them maliciously. They can be seen as workplace harassment for this reason.
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