Popular review and tech YouTube media company Linus Tech Tips is in the midst of some pretty severe controversy at the moment, sparked by its poor handling of putting together a water-cooled PC using a prototype of a Billet Labs' Monoblock, which then exploded to include countless examples of inaccuracies and rushed content courtesy of an in-depth expose by competitor Gamers Nexus.
Linus Tech Tips posts a lengthy apology video.
And that's a competitor in that both channels offer reviews and critiques of everything from CPUs to GPUs to cooling solutions. The Gamers Nexus video goes in-depth, highlighting and showcasing what feels like a mountain of erroneous reporting by Linus Tech Tips (LTT), from incorrect benchmark results to several critical inaccuracies. The video purports that this is due to LTT "rushing content out of the door" and focusing on quantity over quality.
Linus Tech Tips founder Linus Sebastian wrote a lengthy rebuttal, admitting to some of the mistakes and sloppiness in LTT's hardware reviews while admitting that not reviewing the prototype Billet Labs' Monoblock with a video card recommended by Billet and then selling it was a mistake, adding that "our intention wasn't to hurt anyone."
Gamers Nexus' original 'The Problem with Linus Tech Tips: Accuracy, Ethics, & Responsibility' video.
The written apology led to another Gamers Nexus video calling out further inaccuracies in the apology (ouch), which brings us to today. Of course, there's much more to the story than this quick summary. Linus Tech Tips has posted a lengthy apology video and is halting video production for a week while it makes internal changes to improve the quality and accuracy of its content.
After an introduction from LTT's new CEO Terren Tong and confirmation that the volume of content produced by the channel will slow down, we hear from the company's Head of Labs, Gary Key. "We've made some mistakes, too many," Gary says. "We're hoping how we deal with it moving forward defines who we are."
Gary then goes on to confirm that his team will be publishing LTT's testing standards and practices to get direct feedback from the community and its peers while noting that part of the team will be going through the entire LTT back catalog to confirm the accuracy of data and make corrections where necessary.
The entire apology video highlights the rough state that the Linus Tech Tips channel is in regarding quality, with Linus Sebastian appearing towards the end of the video stating that he reacted emotionally in the case of the Monoblock situation.
"I owe you guys better, and I'm sorry," Sebastian says. "I'm going to be spending my week [off] just refocusing on what matters most, bringing you guys the best-damned content we can make. It's been over ten years - almost 15 - but I still love tech and my team, and even though our relationship is a little rocky right now, I love this community and everything it stands for."
After the apology video went live, several members of the LTT community posted their criticism of the apology because the video was monetized while the Gamers Nexus expose video was not. LTT has since turned off monetization on the video.
To make matters worse, a former employee took to Twitter to post about her experience working for Linus Tech Tips - a working environment that was ruining her mental health. From being belittled by management and forced to produce large amounts of content daily and weekly, there were also several instances of sexual harassment.
LTT has posted to Twitter/X noting that it is taking these allegations seriously and bringing in a "third-party investigator."