this post was submitted on 24 May 2024
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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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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Could someone just give us a quick summary of what LTT is accused of?

Do we know if there is a court case about it? As this would be more interesting than just a release from the company auditing them?

Personally, I clearly don’t know so much about LTT, but I love their videos.

[–] GeneralVincent 26 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Here's an overview by The Verge

But basically it started when Gamers Nexus called out some issues LTT had with testing methodology and also an incident where LTT accidentally auctioned off another companies products that they had reviewed poorly.

Then Linus responded pretty poorly (and ended up stepping down as CEO and is now a chief creative something or other iirc)

Then a former employee tweeted about why she left LTT and accused LTT of having a toxic workplace environment. And specifically said she had been sexually harassed by a coworker but not taken seriously.

There's no court case, LTT just did this to clear their name basically.

[–] Scholars_Mate 36 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Then Linus responded pretty poorly (and ended up stepping down as CEO and is now a chief creative something or other iirc)

Linus didn't step down in response to this. I don't remember the exact timelines, but he either stepped down before this, or was in already in the process of transitioning to the new CEO when this happened.

[–] GeneralVincent 5 points 6 months ago

Oh yeah, I think I do remember that announcement being before everything else went down, my bad for misrepresenting that

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Ok thanks for the explanation.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Here is a good writeup how it started: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamers-nexus-vs-linus-tech-tips-billet-labs-review-controversy

Relevant part is this:

On August 16th, 2023, ex-LTT employee Madison Suop posted a thread on X explaining her reasons for leaving Linus Tech Tips and the kind of workplace misconduct she purportedly experienced during her time there: https://x.com/suuuoppp/status/1691693740254228741

[–] [email protected] -5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's important to talk about the timing. This person waited until there was already drama with Linus tech tips and they're very unfavorable review of the liquid cooler they put on the wrong device. Which is a f***** up review.

The dogpiled on, did not involve the labor board, made the accusations and then said I don't want to be involved and walk away. So the investigation is not about the water cooler review, which was the initial trigger for all the media, but about the accusations that were basically dropped drive-by-style

[–] Pieisawesome 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

How else were they supposed to air their accusations?

LTTA fans would have immediately gone after her for her accusations if she randomly made them. LTT fans have done this in the past.

She definitely bandwagoned, but it was likely the safest way.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Labor board, sue ltt, go to the police.

Release a public statement referring people to the ongoing investigation.

What they did instead, was make a bunch of social media accusations, which the company cannot respond to without violating their privacy. And did no follow-up with an outside authority.

The timing is a factor, you can weigh that one way or the other, but it needs to be indicated