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Our Response to Linus Sebastian | GamersNexus
gamersnexus.netGN Extras Our Response to Linus Sebastian January 21, 2025 Last Updated: 2025-01-21 GamersNexus responds to Linus Sebastian's WAN Show segment Evidence Included PLAGIARISM: Receipt #1 - History of Failure to Resolve IssuesDATA ERRORS: Receipt #2 - History of Failure to Resolve IssuesEDITORIAL DISPUTE: Receipt #3 - Unprofessionalism in Prior Communications Table of Contents AutoTOC Intro On January 17, 2025, Linus Sebastian, Founder/CVO of Linus Media Groups and property Linus Tech Tips, explicitly requested that we produce “receipts” relating to comments we have previously made. The quote is below: “I would also be very curious to see receipts for the claims that we have a ‘history of failure to resolve issues or unprofessionalism in prior communications.” - Linus Sebastian Sebastian on multiple occasions insinuated that we were defaming him and his company and suggested that we are dishonest. In our publication on this page, upon explicit request by Linus Sebastian, we will be providing the requested evidence. We will also provide corrections to his additional errors. This evidence provided highlights the following, all of which occurred prior to GamersNexus’ 2023 video: Plagiarism by Linus Tech Tips of GamersNexus content wherein we previously privately reached out without resolutionUnprofessional and aggressive communications in privateHistory of failure to resolve data accuracy issues that were privately raised We have spent several years keeping all of this information private as a courtesy. However, with recent demands from Linus Sebastian to produce “receipts,” and with his segment containing numerous factual errors, we are now providing the details below. Additional history of Linus Sebastian’s failure to resolve issues or unprofessionalism in prior communications are available; however, as a continued ongoing and professional courtesy, only the minimum amount of interactions are presented below that are needed to prove the claims that were made and provide the requested evidence. Credits Writing Steve Burke Context In this publication by Linus Media Group on the WAN Show and LMG Clips, the latter of which was originally entitled “Is GamersNexus Ethical Journalism?” later renamed to “Linus emailed Gamers Nexus,” and most recently renamed to “Can Linus & Gamers Nexus Ever be Friends Again?,” Sebastian stated the following: “Since we’re at this: I would also be very curious to see receipts for the claims that we have a ‘history of failure to resolve issues or unprofessionalism in prior communications.’ OK. GN further writes, ‘we previously had non-public contact with this organization’ (LMG here) ‘about similar matters that were not resolved satisfactorily or wherein we sometimes were the recipients of aggressive messaging pertaining to review topics.’ That is an extraordinary claim that I believe requires extraordinary evidence.” For the full context of this clip, you may watch from approximately 10:22 until approximately 12:38. This is what we believe contextualizes the request for “receipts.” Of course, you may watch the entire video if you like and decide what you believe the context is. It is linked above. On the screen during the above quote, Linus Sebastian reads from a Gamers.Nexus mini-site post (click the “Problem with Linus Tech Tips” accordion), wherein we shared our reasoning for not contacting Linus Sebastian or Linus Media Group in advance of publication of our video entitled “The Problem with Linus Tech Tips: Accuracy, Ethics, & Responsibility,” published on August 14, 2023. The criteria being discussed is included in full below. 6 different criteria were met, of which this is one of them: “Criteria Met [for no contact]: History of Failure to Resolve Issues or Unprofessionalism in prior Communications (we previously had non-public contact with the organization about similar matters that were not resolved satisfactorily or wherein we sometimes were the recipients of aggressive messaging pertaining to review topics).” - Gamers.Nexus All criteria that were met can be found here. PLAGIARISM: Receipt #1 - History of Failure to Resolve Issues Context: In a September 16, 2022 publication of the WAN Show with over 2,000,000 views (“The Biggest Tech Divorce”), Linus Sebastian read from a script about the EVGA / NVIDIA split. The script nearly identically matched the order, topics, and words of a GamersNexus report with 1,800,000 views, and yet at no time in the segment did Linus Sebastian cite GamersNexus or its author. As additional context, this incident closely followed a GamersNexus video published on August 12, 2022, one month prior to this EVGA WAN show segment, where GamersNexus publicly criticized Linus Media Group relating to LMG’s warranty policies. In regards to the plagiarism, Linus Media Group never satisfactorily resolved this issue or publicly acknowledged this theft of content or lack of citation. GamersNexus did not previously bring this issue publicly. EVGA Coverage Context: GamersNexus was one of three members of the media with access to the story that EVGA would quit manufacturing video cards; further, GamersNexus was the only party of the three which was familiar with several matters of the EVGA / NVIDIA split. GamersNexus was the only party privy to this additional information as the conversation was held in Mandarin Chinese between this author, Steve Burke, and EVGA CEO Andrew Han. No other parties to the conversation spoke Mandarin, and as a result, GamersNexus had exclusive access to several pieces of information. Evidence: View full-size image here. This email was sent to the following individuals: Linus Sebastian, then CEOLuke Lafreniere, CTONick Light, COO Result As of January 20, 2025, nearly 3 years later, there has been no public acknowledgement of the plagiarism, nor retraction of the content in the WAN Show upload with 2,000,000 views. The WAN Show upload and LMG Clips videos do not reference or cite GamersNexus either verbally or on screen at any point for the EVGA story. In the LMG Clips subsequent upload with an additional 107,000 views, as of this publication, there has still been no attribution to GamersNexus in any form, including pinned comments.On the WAN Show 2,000,000 view upload, as of this publication, there has still been no attribution to GamersNexus in any form, including pinned comments. The only change made, after responding to our email, was a pinned comment stating “shoutout to Jayztwocents and Steve,” which is not the same as a citation, without ever acknowledging GamersNexus or the plagiarism or naming the author in full. This does not adequately cite the author and does not resolve the issue. Jayztwocents had already been cited verbally in the piece. GamersNexus reached out privately and in good faith to inform Linus Tech Tips of this serious issue. The expectation was that LTT/LMG would resolve it satisfactorily and inform the public of any wrongdoing. The public was never informed, and GamersNexus was never attributed. DATA ERRORS: Receipt #2 - History of Failure to Resolve Issues Context In this thread, which was cordial by all parties, we privately addressed a number of errors made in the video “Delidding a $1000 CPU - Worth the RISK??” These errors contributed to the presented platform instability and poor thermal results shown at various points in the video. These were not publicly corrected by LTT/LMG, and this predates our 2023 publication (“The Problem with Linus Tech Tips”). Evidence Ordered left-to-right. We reached out privately and alerted Linus Sebastian to the issues. Sebastian copied a staff writer. We felt the communication was cordial; however, Linus Tech Tips never posted a pinned comment, never updated its description, and never otherwise publicly noted the numerous test setup errors on the video in question, as of the date of this publication, which is around 7 years later. The video has 2,292,280 views as of January 20, 2025. This was not included in our August 2023 coverage, as it was from several years prior and we only focused on the most recent year of errors, as disclosed in that video. EDITORIAL DISPUTE: Receipt #3 - Unprofessionalism in Prior Communications Context On June 2, 2021, GamersNexus both replied to and tweeted about a reddit thread relating to the pricing of the RTX 3080 Ti cards, preceding the launch of the 3070 Ti. The full conversation is included below and occurred on June 11th, 2021, following the launch of the 3070 Ti. As it is from an ongoing text thread which may contain discussions from earlier or following events, and does not have clear start and stop points, if Linus Sebastian publicly requests for any prior or following text messages to be published, then we will amend this article with additional evidence. We later privately followed-up via email providing the reddit thread and timeline to further assure Sebastian that the matter was not related to him. We are also prepared to release these emails if publicly requested by Sebastian. We also allege that there were derogatory comments made by Linus Sebastian in a conversation with Steve Burke on a private phone call on August 31, 2021 at 7:31 PM Eastern lasting 9m 43s, where Sebastian referred to Burke as being “less autistic than you used to be;” however, with no recording of said call, this can only be alleged and there is no additional evidence to provide. Ultimately, these examples, among others still being kept private as a courtesy, made me personally uncomfortable engaging in private communications with Linus Sebastian when relating to editorial differences, perceived or actual. Additional Evidence GamersNexus believes that these “receipts” answer the demand to provide them to support our statements that Sebastian has a history of unprofessionalism in prior communications while still maintaining the maximum possible integrity of the privacy of the conversations. If publicly requested by Linus Sebastian to produce further evidence, GamersNexus is prepared to publicly do so. Additional Errors and Misrepresentations The WAN show publication (January 17, 2025) and LMG Clips segment (January 18, 2025) further included several wholly and provably inaccurate statements and misrepresentations. In interest of brevity, we are listing only a few of them below. ERRORS AND MISREPRESENTATION: Example #1 - “Special Treatment” Linus Sebastian, in his WAN Show segment (03:18), used a previously published video clip from Ian Cutress containing errors. This advanced inaccurate statements and was used as evidence for Sebastian’s own erroneous claims. In the time since his video went up, we publicly addressed these timelines, which we will detail again below. We believe Linus Sebastian’s reliance upon these incorrect statements is used as evidence that GamersNexus treats Linus Sebastian and Linus Media Group unfairly and that GamersNexus reaches out to other companies in advance, but not Sebastian or LMG. The relevant quote from that clip, which Sebastian included in his recent WAN show addressing GamersNexus, is as follows: “One part of ethical investigative journalism is, unless it’s covering an explicit crime or breaking the law, reaching out to get a formal response in advance. GamersNexus did it with Principled Technologies and that blew up. GamersNexus did it with Newegg and that blew up. Somehow, those companies got special treatment, but Linus Media Group did not.” This quote occurs around 3:29 in the LMG Clips upload and can be watched in full for further background information. These statements relating to Principled Technologies and Newegg are factually incorrect. The facts of these two examples, as published on our site, are as follows: Principled Technologies: “Our first story (in the ‘Mix’ column) involved outreach from Intel and no contact to Principled Technologies. In that story, we stated that we’d be driving over to their offices as that video went live. While possible they had about 10 minutes heads-up if they saw that video, we did not contact before the content, because they were the content.” Newegg: “We did not contact Newegg in a non-public fashion in this piece. In the first piece, we publicly blasted Newegg on Twitter as the first entry (after anonymously contacting customer support — which was part of the review as a consumer) and then published our video. Newegg actually replied to our tweet and asked us to talk. We told them: ‘We can talk after our video goes up. I'm not a big fan of disingenuous attempts to fix an issue after it's revealed that the mistreated customer has a following.’ We ran the video without their comment because it had become a true customer service investigation — normal customers don’t get PR channels, so we refused those channels and also we publicly exposed them before they even attempted them. It wasn’t until we visited them that Newegg had a real chance to comment (see: ‘Contact’ to the right).” These errors could have been avoided by Linus Sebastian had proper research been conducted before making irresponsible and false statements. Further errors have also been documented but have been held for brevity. MISREPRESENTATION: Example #2 - “I never got a response” - Linus Sebastian Linus Sebastian in his WAN show segment on January 17, 2025, timestamped at 14:35, stated that he sent a text message to Steve Burke of GamersNexus following the August, 2023 “The Problem with Linus Tech Tips” video. Sebastian states: “My last message to him was on the day he published the exposé and I never got a response.” However, Sebastian did not text Steve Burke’s current phone number, yet he has previously been in frequent contact via the current, correct number. Here is a timeline: In approx. August, 2021, Steve changed phone numbers due to his prior number leaking publiclySteve contacted Nick Light, COO of Linus Media Group, and Linus Sebastian, then-CEO, to inform them of the changeSeveral conversations ensued over the following 2 years between Linus Sebastian and Steve Burke on this phone number, an already-public example that proves this as follows:At approximately 05:00 AM on March 23, 2023 and from his current and correct phone number, Steve repeatedly called and texted Linus Sebastian’s personal number to awaken and alert Sebastian to a channel hack wherein Linus Tech Tips had been compromised and taken over by hackers. Sebastian has publicly acknowledged and shown these texts in this video (“My Channel Was Deleted Last Night”). Sebastian and Steve continued to text via this correct and current phone number numerous times in relation to the hacking event.On the date of publishing our August, 2023 “The Problem with Linus Tech Tips” video, Sebastian claims to have texted Steve a lengthy message. Sebastian did not, in fact, text this to Steve’s correct phone number. After investigation, we found that he sent it to Steve’s prior phone number -- one which Sebastian had not sent any texts to since approx. July 9, 2021, years prior.On January 17, 2025, Linus Sebastian claims he “never got a response” from a 2023 message sent to a number no longer actively monitored by Steve (but still held in storage for security reasons) Substantial evidence exists, and we are prepared to provide more upon Sebastian’s public request, to demonstrate that Linus Sebastian has been aware of and has actively engaged with Steve’s correct phone number for at least two years preceding the message shared on January 17, 2025. This is a mischaracterization of the actual events and publicly unfairly depicts GamersNexus, and in particular Steve Burke, in a negative light. Additional Errors / Conclusion If Linus Sebastian would like to make a public video requesting our further elaboration, he can do so and then provide us with a full transcript of his WAN show segment. We will proceed to go line-by-line and dispute all false timelines, inaccuracies, and omissions from his WAN show segment, of which there are many more. Short of that, we have provided the above examples of some of the critical errors from his video, and provided the requested and sufficient receipts to evidence our claims. Email to Linus Media Group Upon publication of this article, we sent an email to Linus Media Group’s executive team. The email is enclosed below. -- Terren, Linus, Luke, Nick: In LMG’s WAN Show segment, Linus Sebastian stated the following: “I think it is undeniable that these omissions and errors are significant and that they've done significant, possibly irreparable damage to my reputation, to my company, and to my finances. To be clear, I'm only pointing out the finances because it's such an important factor in cases of libel and defamation.” This statement escalates tensions to the highest severity and necessitates our response. Sebastian also stated: “I would also be very curious to see receipts for the claims that we have a ‘history of failure to resolve issues or unprofessionalism in prior communications.’” Given the severity of these accusations and what we perceive to be veiled threats, and given the direct request of “receipts” by Linus Sebastian on the show, please find the following information: We have published our official response to the WAN Show segment on our website. In our publication, upon explicit request by Linus Sebastian, we provided “receipts” / evidence in regards to Linus Sebastian’s, and as a result, Linus Media Group’s and Linus Tech Tips’ “history of failure to resolve issues or unprofessionalism in prior communications,” as well as corrections to several of Sebastian’s inaccuracies, false statements, and misleading representations. We unequivocally deny and reject your statements and false claims of defamation. In contrast, we assert that the provably false and misleading statements that have been distributed by Linus Media Group as a company, and Linus Sebastian in his own personal capacity, have caused extensive and significant harm to GamersNexus, LLC and the owner, Steve Burke, in both a direct financial manner, as well as a significant reputational manner, that continues to be unmitigated and accrue additional damages with each passing day that the content is allowed to propagate knowingly false information, including, but not limited to, Linus Media Group’s continued profiting off of content plagiarized from GamersNexus, LLC. We view your coverage as irresponsible, negligent, and damaging. Frankly speaking: I feel Linus Sebastian has provided a manipulative and deceptive offer to try to “bury the hatchet,” create a “team media,” and encourage a “brotherhood” as if it is a personal spat between friends. I believe Sebastian’s statements are intended to diminish the seriousness and impact of any criticism by any creator toward Linus Sebastian or Linus Media Group, and suppress current and future coverage. Sebastian’s recent calls for friendship were accompanied by serious legal allegations and claims regarding the ethics and motives behind our entire business. We believe this is a play on parasocial relationships, reinforced by Linus Media Group’s decision to re-title the LMG Clip “Can Linus & Gamers Nexus Ever be Friends Again?”, where it paints GamersNexus as a friend who just needs to make up with LTT so things can “get back to normal.” This suppresses dissenting views by pretending to be everyone’s friend, so a legitimate critique seems like a personal attack to onlooking viewers. At this stage, Linus Media Group and GamersNexus have both made statements which are extremely serious. This is far beyond presenting a front of friendliness, and I am respectfully requesting that Linus Sebastian drops that facade publicly, as well as ceases the repeated personal emails requesting as much, as it is personally making me extremely uncomfortable. That said, I think Linus Media Group has some well-intentioned and extremely intelligent people, including Luke Lafreniere, and I feel there could still be benefit to open discussions relating to his efforts in LMG’s Labs, the industry, or coverage types. At Computex, if Luke wishes to, or if Luke and Linus Sebastian (collectively only), wish to speak privately, please feel free to let me know and we can talk. Given the legal nature of Linus Sebastian’s allegations though and on advice of our attorneys, we are neither willing nor able to discuss this specific topic further, and any further contact related to this matter will instead be forwarded to GamersNexus, LLC’s attorneys if a response is necessary. We will be at Computex and available on Friday, May 23 and can book a meeting room for a private discussion such as testing, hardware, the industry, or other topics unrelated to this matter, if Luke wishes to do so. Regards, -- Steve Burke Editor-in-Chief GamersNexus
Wow.
They make money because people watch their videos and/or contribute directly to them by buying their products. I honestly see absolutely nothing wrong people supporting a channel that they like. Especially when they’re not only producing content but also potentially burning down bridges with brands/sponsors when they need to call them out. If you look at Linus, on the other hand, he deliberately chose not to call out the issues with Honey over fear or repercussions. To this day I still don’t understand why he would think that informing their viewers that they were being scammed would have any negative impact at all. Except, maybe, he wasn’t thinking about his viewers…
It’s really weird that you’d accuse GN of going after profits when Linus has repeatedly said, and shown, that that’s precisely all he cares about.
Wasn’t the issue with honey that the creators were being scammed? They were replacing the codes being used with their own, so that honey was getting the affiliate money and not the creators themselves?
To the end user, the issue would be moot. The users themselves weren’t even being impacted, unless they were trying to specifically use the affiliate code to support their favorite creator.
If they realized it was an issue and cut off their sponsorship because it was negatively impacting their own business and not the viewers, they have no reason to tell the viewers about it. On the same note, had they stated their reason publically for discontinuing the partnership and made an erroneous claim which, if you believe GN, they are very likely to do, it could open them up to a lawsuit with honey, and ultimately PayPal, who has a lot more money than a relatively large YouTube entertainment company.
As you said, Linus had claimed that their primary goal is making money. They’re a business with over 100 employees, you have a responsibility as a business owner to ensure you can keep paying those people. He also has said that their primary channel creates edutainment and pure entertainment content because it’s the only thing that can maintain their viewership at a level high enough to support LMG.
I can’t see GN as anything but the annoying, self righteous redditor type who stands on his soapbox claiming everyone else is doing wrong and getting a sense of superiority out of it. Their content isn’t anything particularly special, so they have to drum up the view count by creating drama. It’s okay to like it, but at least hold them to the same scrutiny you would the channels they call out.
I think you haven’t watched MegaLag’s video (at least not all of it) or other channels that covered this properly. As you can see in this section of MegaLag’s video, Honey also hurt consumers because it claimed that there either weren’t any coupons available when there were or it gave you a coupon that wasn’t the one with the highest discount.
Exactly. This also “hurts” consumers because, if I use an affiliate link, I want the channel I got it from to get that kickback so they can keep making content.
They do because the issue impacted both parties. Also, this is very cliché but also true, “if you see something, say something”.
If you watch MegaLag’s video, you’ll also see that LTT then partnered with “Karma” (kinda ironic) which also does at least some of the same shady stuff Honey does. Here’s the timestamped video.. They also ignored/refused to answer many of the questions MegaLag had.
GN, a smaller channel, is taking Honey to court so I don’t see why a lawsuit would’ve scared them. They’re also not alone, other creators and lawyers are doing the same thing. Honey will lose because there’s undeniable proof that they’ve been stealing sales and offering coupon’s that weren’t actually the best to their consumers (if they offered any at all).
While that’s true, it’s also true that the end doesn’t always justify the means. Ethics are very important. Not only for yourself as the owner of the company but also to your employees and the audience.
Again, you say this upsets you but can you point at a single case where they called out a company/product and were wrong? I really don’t understand why you’d be upset about someone literally fighting and looking out for you.
Please name other channels that review hw as well as they do. GN and Hardware Unboxed are the only ones that I know of that are actually decent. I don’t see how you could consider them “not special”. Considering not only their reviews but also all of their methodology videos, technical deep dives with industry workers and/or experts and factory tours.
I do, not sure why you’d say I don’t. Is there anything specific you’re referring to? Afaik, they have literally no problems with other youtubers and no one (that I know of) has generated any content denouncing them. The only thing I could criticize is that Steve seems to be a bit of a workaholic but, at least according to him, that’s not something he demands of his coworkers.
Truthfully, I’m not that invested in the stoty and I was under the impression that the honey issue was solely on the creator side, so knowing otherwise does change my perspective some.
That said, I don’t think we know if LTT knew the entire story at the time. If they did, I also believe they should have said something. AFAIK they haven’t come out to say they knew of the whole story at the time of dropping the sponsorship, just that they knew of some of the issues. Without doing a deep dive like other creators have, I still think they would rather avoid the publicity for fear of retaliation, like they stated.
Ultimately, to each their own on whether you like GN or LTT. I still think GN goes out of their way to stir drama, whether it’s called for or not, and it sure seems like he just has an issue with Linus overall.
This is also discussed in MegaLag’s video. They did know at least about this issue affecting them, financially. So, they brought it up with Honey, who refused to make any changes. After that, they ended their sponsorship. If they didn’t figure out the full extent of the issue, it’s because they didn’t want to. I doubt you seriously think they didn’t have the resources to investigate further.
From who? Honey? If so, that’s a very mistaken mentality. They basically decided to stay quiet about something that was demonstrably hurting creators and consumers out of sheer selfishness. Coming from linus, who seems to be rather narcissistic, that doesn’t surprise me. It does suprise me that this excuse would be accepted by their viewers, who were negatively impacted by this decision. Again, if you see something, say something.
Once again. Has there been an instance where it wasn’t called for? I think they just have a very strict moral compass and they respect that regardless of any financial hit or extra work it might cause them. That’s something I respect, a lot.
Did you read their post? Wouldn’t you have a personal issue with someone who says you’re autistic, quotes your work without actually quoting you, reaches out to your personal phone over random tweets because they think they’re about them and also misrepresent you publicly?
For example, after the GN video, Linus said he reached out to Steve and was ignored. What actually happened was that linus sent a message to Steve’s old phone, which they hadn’t used for over 2 years. If you want more examples and details, you can read GN’s post.
Honeys issues are two fold:
Honey steals/replaces affiliate links/cookies meaning 100% of the commission earned by creators goes to Honey instead.
Several small creators have come out to say this has essentially bankrupt their channels as the entirety of their affiliate revenue just disappears overnight, then their sponsors pullout because it appears they are generating no traffic.
Honey also collude directly with retailers to control exactly what coupons are made available to you, explicitly preventing you from getting a better deal; while telling you they’ve gotten the best deal possible and convincing you to not even bother with other coupons or other sources. They even have a mechanism to ‘submit’ coupons they hadn’t applied to be distributed to other customers, to convince you you’re helping others get a good deal; but those submissions NEVER go to customers.
This happens on every transaction within a browser that has Honey installed; even in cases where Honey knows before trying, that they don’t have coupons to offer. It will still popup, tell you they don’t have anything to offer, then replace the affiliate connection with their own.
Through this they are stealing both from the customer and from any creators/affiliates that sent that customer to the store.
I briefly fact checked myself before my comment but the first few articles I saw didn’t mention the issues beyond creators. Good information and definitely changes my perspective of the overall problem. Thank you!