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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.

  • Rognaut@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    6 months ago

    It’s unbelievable how much hate for LTT there is on this platform. I like them. No one is perfect. This investigation from a third party is a good thing and the findings are good as well. The statement about defamation, I feel, is warranted because the ex-employee made a ton of very damning claims and really hurt their image. The Fediverse is a great example of this damage.

    The hate from this community towards LTT is extreme and unfounded.

    • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      6 months ago

      I’m glad this report showed their innocence but I unsubscribed after the GN/Billet Labs thing.

      I might check them out again later but that situation made me kind of uncomfortable with supporting them

        • xkforce@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          6 months ago

          According to who?

          Tbh I don’t trust anyone that reacted the way Linus did in response to GN’s investigation or that only changes things once they get called out on it publically.

          • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
            01·
            6 months ago

            Okay, let’s go back in time, gamers Nexus just releases the video. You’re Linus. How do you respond?

            • xkforce@lemmy.worldEnglish
              01·
              6 months ago

              If I were Linus I’d stay as far the fuck away from any investigation as possible if for no other reason than having anything to do with it would sow doubt in any conclusion favorable to LTT.

              No one should trust the conclusions of an investigation paid for by the accused any more than you should trust an inspector that was hired by the real estate agent selling you a house and for the exact same reasons.

              • IronKrill@lemmy.caEnglish
                1·
                6 months ago

                … the investigation has nothing to do with the GamersNexus video, so your reply is irrelevant to the parent comment. But since you posted, I’ll take the dive: you really think it’s better they don’t investigate? If you were Linus, you’re saying you would rather bury your head in the sand about potential employee abuse because your reputation is too important? Sounds like your morals are worse than LTT.

        • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          I saw that which is why I’m willing to give them another chance. I really don’t think Linus is a scummy guy or anything, they just grew too fast without thinking.

          I haven’t had a strong desire to get back into the channel but if a video pops up on my feed again, I might resub.

          • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
            1·
            6 months ago

            personally, I think they handled the situation the best way the could.

            Gamers Nexus had genuine good criticism, and they took it, took a moment to pause and implemented fixes.

            Mistakes happen. And they learned from them

            • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              6 months ago

              I agree but it did shake my confidence enough to make me back off. I watched LTT mostly for entertainment (GN for news and reviews) and I’ve since “filled that spot” so it’ll probably only make its way back into my watch list once a different thing falls off.

        • helenslunch@feddit.nlEnglish
          01·
          5 months ago

          I mean they hired a CEO, which is probably what they needed (somebody who actually knows how to run a company).

    • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      The hate from this community towards LTT is extreme and unfounded.

      Are you just going to ignore Linus and the companies abhorrent response to the situation? That alone should make anyone lose any respect they had for them.

      • Aphelion@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        Yeah, same for me. Linus’ response was so stereotypicaly defensive, dismissive and shitty, I lost all trust. Couple that with GN’s fact checking of LMGs sloppyness, and I was done ever watching their channel.

    • ShaunaTheDead@kbin.social
      1·
      6 months ago

      An investigation from a neutral third party is a good thing, but in this case LTT hired the third party investigator so the investigators obviously have an incentive to find LTT innocent of all charges since LTT is paying them through Linus Media Group (LMG). It’s better than nothing, but it’s like when there’s an internal affairs investigation into police misconduct… by the police… Nobody believes it and for good reason.

      • JRush@lemmy.caEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        If the law firm bungled the investigation, it would affect their reputation and future business. Wouldn’t that mean they have a monetary incentive not to favor LMG in their investigation?

        • Thann@lemmy.mlEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          Bro, CEOs pay them to not find things. Finding things would make CEOs not want to pay them

      • TORFdot0@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        Who would be paying for an investigation if not LMG? Firms don’t hire auditors/investigators to give them a rosy report. They want the truth so they can adjust their processes so they don’t spend more money on regulatory actions/fines.

        If the report is bad they just don’t release it to the public. But a third party audit lying to a firm to make them look good does not provide value. The company isn’t biased just because they are being paid by LMG, that’s just not how it works. LMG could just say they investigated themselves and found no wrong doing if that was their objective.

        Saying that you don’t believe the report because the company investigating it was paid for by PMG shows that you are biased more than they are.

      • 0xD@infosec.pubEnglish
        01·
        6 months ago

        That’s not how this works. Maybe if you get some business consultants, but this ain’t it. Just because you hire them yourself, doesn’t mean that they’ll fall in line with your wishes.

      • JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.caEnglish
        01·
        6 months ago

        The law firm would be putting themselves on the line for LTT if there was any further legal action, or if the subject of the investigation brought forth more evidence.

        I doubt LTT is big enough to give them the incentive to do that.

        Hiring a third party investigator is not the same as internal affairs. Internal affairs have only one client and little incentive to bite the hand that feeds them.

        If LTT goes down after this and it comes out that the law firm missed something major or outright lied, it would call into question every investigation they’ve done (at least recently) and destroy their reputation.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      I don’t have LTT, I just find it worthless. Their content is frequently shallow, I dislike the presentation (clickbait-y titles and thumbnails, annoying segways, etc), and I find Linus himself annoying. Then again, I do watch their content from time to time, if they have something worth watching. That’s not very often, but they do make some decent content occasionally. I rarely care about PC shenanigans, but sometimes I’ll watch Jays2Cents if I want some of that (he’s perhaps more annoying than Linus, but it is what it is, I guess).

      I mostly watch Gamers Nexus for reviews, news, and benchmarks. I find the delivery much more in-line with what I’d like, though I find Steve a bit long-winded so I tend to skip a bunch in the videos. But the content is high quality.

      To each their own though. My coworker really like LTT and went to LTX recently, so I’ll watch a video here and there for water-cooler discussions.

    • erwan@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      I just don’t like Linus because he’s annoying and abuses clickbait thumbnails and titles.

      Some of their videos (from other people than himself) are good, but usually I’ll avoid LTT content all together.

      For that reason I’m not really sure what happened, and I don’t really care.

      • helenslunch@feddit.nlEnglish
        01·
        5 months ago

        I just don’t like Linus because he’s annoying and abuses clickbait thumbnails and titles.

        You can blame Google for that. It’s just what you have to do to be successful on the platform, and Google does nothing about it. Veritaseum made a whole video about it.

    • SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      01·
      6 months ago

      The defamation statement was maybe a bit much, but also warranted. People need to know that just throwing accusations out there that are just plainly not true is actually legally problematic.

      I also don’t get why people feel this is “threatening people who want to speak up in the future”.

      If your “speaking up” has merit, it’s not defarmation. Plain and simple.

      Companies make mistakes (and aparently some were made in this case, and dealt with).

      But I find it concerning that people also just blindly trust any and all claims that individuals make about these kind of situations. Believe that they are telling the truth, but also verify that this is actually true. The latter part is important. Blind trust is as damaging as not doing anything at all about a proble, There are people out there who get laid off for legitimate reasons, and try to retaliate for that. Even by claiming BS reasons.

      • dustyData@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        6 months ago

        I wish you never have to find yourself facing a corporation. The power imbalance is so massive that you feel like an ant, it’s the most disempowering experience anyone could face in legal terms. LTT could destroy people’s lives and it would be decades if ever, for them to ever have to face consequences.

        This is why I always default to believing the individual over the corporation. The corporation has no soul, no heart, no conscience and no remorse. Imagine being a person who wants to speak up about something else you know for certain happened, but a million dollar law firm just put in writing that such kind of thing didn’t happen. You have no recourse or power, it’s your word against a literal army of lawyers. Regardless of whether the investigation was good or not. The result still has a silencing effect.