Hallo! I’m trying to get a bit more social interaction in my life, so here I am writing an #introduction post on #Mastodon. :moogle_peek:
I’m Jaden (though I go by different names in different circles :bulbasaur_confused:). I have a silly potato (@nuz) and a silly sausage (#sillyDoggy). I’m fairly socially awkward, a bit #autistic and very #ADHD. :ms_neurodiversity: Sometimes I say very little and sometimes I say a whole heck of a lot, depending on the topic. I’ll probably be posting random facts or videos that I find particularly cool/amusing~ :cat_wow:
I love science (and have a PhD in #physics, but was it really worth it? :frog_think:) and maker videos that try to bring comic books and fiction to life (shoutout to #Hacksmith and #JLazerVideos, amazing folks)! I also really love technology (in particular, I really like #LTT / #LinusTechTips, although I know he can be a bit problematic :shiba_hide:).
I'm also an avid video gamer! :gaming_love: I play a lot of #RPG, #Survival, and #Automation games. Some of the ones that I've really enjoyed and/or played recently are:
Feel free to say hello, boost, follow, or any combo of the above! I'd love to make new friends on here, but I feel awkward a lot, so I might just end up favoriting your posts if I can't figure out what to say :panda_derp: (but I appreciate you nonetheless! :blob_heart:)
I think I'm finally ready to unsubscribe from Linus Media Group channels. Between their rampant misinformation, their questionable conflicts of interest/ethics violations, a corporate handbook that forbids discussion of wages (which is illegal in British Columbia, by the way), and clear demonstrations of wage theft by the company, Linus's entire facade of being a for-the-people reviewer is obviously fake. Linus Media Group's entire goofy atmosphere seems to hide an underlying corporate culture that values quantity of content and profit over all-else.
»My time at this company brought my mental health to an all time low.
You could talk to anyone who was around me during my employment and they would confirm it.
I would not have recommended anyone I knew to work there, especially with my experiences as a woman in the office.«
»There is a system of micro-managing and a level of distrust because the amount of content they have to push out daily is so insane, no one gets a break.«
What a mess of an apology video #linustechtips#LTT
Monetized with 2 merch plugs
Spreading in jokes to break the tension
Leaking value of the Billet Labs prototype which they didn't want to make public
Lying about emailing them before the controversy
Oh dear. In the wake of the community criticism of #LinusTechTips & #LinusMediaGroup, Madison is also writing about her experience at LMG and why she quit.
I’ve seen how cringeworthy Linus talks about & interacts with his wife Yvonne on camera, and the bro culture in the company is clearly visible in a lot of videos.
I see folks giving their #linustechtips hot takes. Here is mine.
I enjoyed Linus' for a bit, but dropped the channel when the builds of vendor donated equipment became too absurd. You can't expect me to believe you are unbiased at that point. You are a business - making business friends. I also found him over time to be very pompous.
The entire Linus Tech Tips apology rings pretty hollow to me. I'm tired of them reiterating, "oh we'll be transparent about this." Yes, transparency is good, but having outside people read your dogshit homework isn't better than putting the effort into doing your homework right in the first place. They offload a lot of things to the community that benefit them to do so, while actively hiding things from the community that might harm their brand.
Which brings me to Madison Reeve. Are the allegations really shocking to anyone at this point? There have been numerous reports in the past that Linus Media Group cultivates an incredibly misogynistic "boy's club" that's hostile towards women. Linus saying, "They aren’t consistent with my recollections" is completely horseshit. Of course they're not consistent with your recollections. When you treat your company like a frat house, I'd imagine harassing women probably doesn't seem so bad. It's like a bunch of white people at a country club trying to figure out what a microaggression is. The lack of diversity at LMG should be the biggest red flag ever. While Madison's allegations are new, similar allegations are not, so where was the transparency then?
Also speaking to transparency, what about the wage theft? What about the burn out? What about the (apparently not illegal until recently but highly reprehensible) practice of forbidding employees from discussing their pay? Where's the transparency there? Linus and LMG have never addressed the criticisms whatsoever. The egregiously anti-labor employee handbook was leaked, yet they didn't feel like that criticism was worth addressing, as it doesn't benefit them to do so.
Seeing people look at their apology video and soften on their stance about LMG is driving me insane. Fixing some of their testing errors is not the issue. Their entire corporation is the issue. Until they agree to diversity-inclusive hiring practices (the channels desperately need more women presenting the content), more rights for their workers with equitable pay and a healthy work/life balance, warranties for their products, all in addition to the quality-related issues with their videos, I really don't see how anyone can have an interest in LMG's content.
The standard rebuttal is, "that's just capitalism", but if you've predicated your brand on not being a greedy capitalist, then your brand really falls apart when you treat your employees and consumers the same way that any other greedy capitalist does.
Koniec swiata - juz nawet #Linus z #LinusTechTips (tak, wiem, ostatnio jego reputacja jest mocno nadszarpnieta) tworzy serie "Jak sie odciac od #Google", bazujaca wlasnie na tym, ze Google bez pytania bierze sobie nasze dane i wykorzystuje w swoich algorytmach
The biggest thing that gets me about this #LinusMediaGroup thing is how bad must the working conditions be where someone felt they needed to record an HR meeting the day after Madison left. Seriously. The person who recorded this meeting must have known SOMETHING about Madison and her situation, or was experiencing the same.
In all my years of working for companies big and small, I have never felt the need to secretly record any meeting, let alone an HR meeting.
You know what else I haven't felt the need to do? Tell an inappropriate joke after an HR meeting.
»Linus ist ja hauptsächlich durch seine Persönlichkeit auf YouTube so groß geworden und es war alles noch okay, wenn man in seiner Garage mit ein paar Kumpels werkelt.
Aber heute hat der Kerl eine dreistellige Zahl an Mitarbeiter, einen exklusiven Ansprechpartner auf YouTube …
Luke (from #LinusTechTips) made a really good point that I hadn't considered about the new #Microsoft#Recall feature. What about public computers? How many libraries, computer labs or internet cafes are going to be absolute hotbeds for personal data compromise? You know Microsoft will have the feature enabled by default and you know that even if people disable it, they'll randomly re-enable it. What happens on public computers where everyone shares one user account? 1/
Good job, The Guardian. I would never have heard about this if it weren’t for you taking it down, and now I’m actually in the position of looking at something Osama Bin Laden wrote and saying, “Well, he’s not wrong….”
Does no one teach kids about The Streisand Effect any more?
I wonder if 20 years of cramming "#hackers" into every story that involves computers being broken (or broken into) has anything to do with #Canada banning #FlipperZero? :thaenkin:
Surely, media focusing every such story, for decades, on some nebulous "hackers" instead of on companies who could not be bothered to secure their stuff properly in no way affected the public perception of who's to blame. :blobcatcoffee:
But please, do tell me how we should not fight for this term anymore. 🙄
It really bothers me how even the techies and hacker types not just give up on this — but spend their energy arguing against pushing back against the h-word abuse.
Even when it so blatantly and so directly hurts them, as with the #FlipperZero case.
I mean, thanks #LinusTechTips for helping make Flipper Zero bans a thing, by way of clickbaity videos. Well done. Got your clicks, I hope!
I feel that the response from LTT after Gamers Nexus pointed out the ethical issues over auctioning off the water block when the company wants it back is obviously not going to be enough. Actually, it made the issue worse on LTT’s part.
I’m at work, so I will watch this video later, I would rather see LTT admit that they are wrong and taking the steps to do better in the future, but they are digging in instead of addressing the concerns Steve pointed out. :kanafacepalm:
Wil eigenlijk een paar dingen van LTTstore.com bestellen. Maar zie nu tijdens de WAN show dat er nog best wel leuke dingen aan komen..... wacht ik af of bestel ik... #LTT#Shopping#Merch#LinusTechTips#LTTstorr
I don't have love for #LinusTechTips, but it looks like they've made a video about moving Google away from their life and it's... not horrible? they DO highlight some choices that I'm not a fan of, like Brave products, Kagi, or Arc browser, but it's quite informative and looks like they're actually doing something useful with their reach.
Madison on why she quit Linus Tech Tips. (Content Warning: Sexism, Self Harm , Sexual Assault & Harassment) (threadreaderapp.com)
For Reasons relating to LTT on its coverage of PCGaming and PC Hardware I thought it important to share this here....