What will we do now?
Linus Tech Suggestions is a veteran YouTube gadget and tech overview channel that landed in scorching water this week over the standard of its content material. Channel co-founder Linus Sebastian appeared in a video on the finish of June during which he reviewed a PC water cooler from Billet Labs. Within the video, Sebastian famous the poor efficiency of the cooler and blasted the corporate. A video from fellow tech reviewer Players Nexus identified that Sebastian incorrectly mounted the water cooler to the CPU, therefore the unhealthy efficiency, in addition to identified a sequence of issues with Linus Tech Suggestions’ video content material and critiques, arguing that the sheer quantity of content material printed by the corporate with a purpose to feed the YouTube algorithm concerned slicing corners.
The Linus Media Group group, together with Sebastian, CEO Terren Tong, CFO Yvonne Ho, and head author James Strieb, introduced that they’d be taking per week off from their manufacturing schedule in a video printed yesterday. In a poor try at levity, the group additionally made jokes concerning the video being sponsored, plugging the channel’s merch retailer, and lewd sexual content material. After the reception to the apology video was much less constructive than anticipated, the Linus Tech Suggestions account revealed in a remark that they’d be switching off monetization, indicating that the video was receiving income throughout its first few hours of being printed.
On the similar time, former group member Madison Reeve posted a prolonged Twitter thread describing her time working for Linus Media Group. Reeve stated that she was overworked and belittled by superiors, inflicting her psychological well being to endure. Tong informed Kotaku that the media firm could be bringing in an outdoor investigator to evaluate the office tradition.