NVIDIA Influencing YouTube Tech Journalists' Product-Placements, Alleges Whistleblower

[Xzibit]

Don't be too hard on yourself man. Shit happens. Correcting it as you did takes guts, too.

I'm mostly trying to put the point across that maybe it wasn't even your intent to create clickbait, but rather how easy it is to get sucked into doing it. I mean, the environment is very encouraging and has been for years, constantly fighting for attention with millions of others.

Especially with the low attention span viewers have. Even Steve (GN) recognized that in talking with Gordon (PCWorld) in a video they did. Not wanting to cover the rumor gossips but having to.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Just noticed Reddit mods deleted the original post...again. The censorship at Reddit is strong with this one.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/dgnfmm

Glad btarunr got a screenshot of it.

 

[Vayra86]

Just noticed Reddit mods deleted the original post...again. The censorship at Reddit is strong with this one.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/dgnfmm

Glad btarunr got a screenshot of it.

The responses below it are telling, I hadn't even read any of it yet, but these definitely stand out to me

2nd one might actually prompt an investigation, especially if you'd also mention GPP.

Now thát is a story, right there, 'we filed a collective complaint'

 

[RAINFIRE333]

It took me 11 minutes of the YouTuber getting in touch with me to remedy the situation to their satisfaction, including waking my boss up from sleep to scrub our social media, and my apologizing to them at every stage. They gave me a list of measures I should take, and I took each of those measures in 11 minutes. I asked them if there's anything else that needed to be done, they told me "no," but that they will talk about this incident in a future video. I continue to remain apologetic, but I felt you needed to know. All this happened after the post you quoted. At no point did I try to "fight" the YouTuber after they got in touch with us.

Everyone has an MTBF. I hit mine today.

I think you were just fine. GNSteve is a hot mess. They accused me of being a shill account for you. I hope I wasn't out of line too much in your defense.

Derek Moore

 

[Gungar]

I always though GN set was just disorganized. He moved into a new office but decided to build the backdrop as the old one. Many/Majority Youtube techers like to keep that living out of the garage look. Linus is the only one that's successfully over the years transition to a more professional business model, pay to play

If anyone is Product Placing on Steve Burke its der8auer. That bromance between the two is undeniable.

Its not disorganized, you see at disorganized, that's the problem.

 

[btarunr]

I think you were just fine. GNSteve is a hot mess. They accused me of being a shill account for you. I hope I wasn't out of line too much in your defense.

Derek Moore

The YouTuber is a great guy and I hold him in high regard. Please don't defend me.

 

[EarthDog]

Wow. I'm incredibly surprised it blew up like this.. yikes.

But yeah, be careful. This isnt the first time such an egregious mistake was made in an article or the community begged of you to do actual research before posting an article. Nobody wanted it to come to this, but for some the writing was on the wall. Hopefully it's a wake up call.

Keep your head up...and move on man.

 

[Vya Domus]

As if everyone would ever come forward telling the truth. I personally take every review with a dose of skepticism and pretty much expect that most of the stuff is influenced in some way the primary suspects being Nvidia and Intel. The evidence is certainly there such as reviewers making excessive coverage of certain stuff all in unison, you'd have to be pretty dimwitted to believe all of this stuff happens by coincidence. I noticed this even in some of my favorite impartial channels such as DigitalFoundry where they started out pumping a ton of videos that were straight up Nivida boilerplate.

I don't know if anyone remembers this but Nivida was even accused of paying forum dwellers many years ago to promote their products. There is literally no way I can can ever trust anything related to them.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

...saw a PMs from forum members about this story...

I'm a fan of full disclosure so I'll admit that was me. Chain of events on my part were not unlike btarunr's:
1) Saw Reddit post and read it.
2) Noticed it was 12 days old and questioned why no one was talking about this.
3) Sent PM to btarunr.
4) After I sent the PM, I thought, "hey, I can verify some of this myself!"
5) Pulled up DuckDuckGo.
6) Did a search for RX 5700 XT
7) Changed to "Video" tab.
8) Started watching the first video listed (Oct 25), waited for the first panned out shot, paused it, took a screen shot, scanned for RTX product placement. Highlighted it and edited it into my initial PM with btarunr.
9) Started watching the second video listed (Oct 19), waited for the first panned out shot, paused it, took a screen shot, and scanned for RTX product placement. Highlighted it and sent a second PM because the 5 minute edit window closed on the first PM.

I went to bed at this point and btarunr took it from there. My hasty research undeniably mislead btarunr and I profusely apologize for that. My intent wasn't to accuse any YouTuber of anything. My intent was to give some attention to this claim that has largely gone ignored which, at face value, appears to have some credibility.

I am not the whistleblower nor do I know the identify of the whistleblower. I am just a messenger, like btarunr.

 

[Vayra86]

As if everyone would ever come forward telling the truth. I personally take every review with a dose of skepticism and pretty much expect that most of the stuff is influenced in some way the primary suspects being Nvidia and Intel. The evidence is certainly there such as reviewers making excessive coverage of certain stuff all in unison, you'd have to be pretty dimwitted to believe all of this stuff happens by coincidence. I noticed this even in some of my favorite impartial channels such as DigitalFoundry where they started out pumping a ton of videos that were straight up Nivida boilerplate.

I don't know if anyone remembers this but Nivida was even accused of paying forum dwellers many years ago to promote their products. There is literally no way I can can ever trust anything related to them.

The gist of this whole story really should be that everyone SHOULD come forward telling the truth, but the vast majority is lacking the guts to do so, maintaining the toxic status quo of reviews that are little more than paid ads - and it gets worse - while the writer tries to hide that very fact.

Its a deal with the devil and shouldn't be made. And the only way to not make it, is taking a collective stand. Let's see how Nvidia manages their own press next time. Report only on AMD cards for a full gen. Weather the storm. Reap the benefits. Go full force against anyone outside the collective.

If tech press ever wants to ascend to journalism, that's what needs to happen.

 

[dj-electric]

My 2 cents as someone who knows hardware media up close for the past 10 years:

btarunr rushed to write about a juicy story, he did not fully thought of the consequences, and decided to upload it anyway.
This is bad, and from what i see he is extremely regretful of this action, of the way this news piece came up in the first version. Nobody seemed to like it, especially not GN.

What i think should happen is that the article should have stayed cleaner, and if a mistake like that happened, TPU should release a formal apology... and that's it. No harm no foul.

About ugly truths in media between hardware companies and media outlets - if only people knew 10% of what's going on. Seriously, it takes serious guts.

 

[Vayra86]

About ugly truths in media between hardware companies and media outlets - if only people knew 10% of what's going on. Seriously, it takes serious guts.

No different from any other place of competition in the world. The choices we make in these moments are the ones that define who we are and what we stand for. Personally but also on a business level.

 

[RAINFIRE333]

The YouTuber is a great guy and I hold him in high regard. Please don't defend me.

I wasn't defending you I was going after ding dong. He's in the top ten complainers in the Tech community.

 

[Vya Domus]

Its a deal with the devil and shouldn't be made. And the only way to not make it, is taking a collective stand. Let's see how Nvidia manages their own press next time. Report only on AMD cards for a full gen. Weather the storm. Reap the benefits. Go full force against anyone outside the collective.

There is no practical way to take "collective stance" as that would mark the extinction of the vast majority of sites/channels. And it wouldn't fix anything, I am convinced the largest players are the most involved in this and they sure as hell wont let go of their businesses.

Nobody seemed to like it, especially not GN.

What i think should happen is that the article should have stayed cleaner, and if a mistake like that happened, TPU should release a formal apology... and that's it.

So what am I to take from this ? That as soon as we hurt someones feelings we should back off ? I couldn't care less that TPU put up a screenshot of one of GN's videos and no one should.

It's this fear of pointing fingers and making sure everything remains "anonymous" and "alleged" that makes this garbage to keep on going.

 

[Xzibit]

Saying some YouTubers are paid for this branding and others are not paid means, again.. there are different agreements and NDAs being involved. If this was the case, it would've been news all over. The pitfalls of conjuring up lies when not being a reviewer yourself is that you overlook finer details, such as this one. @Xzibit is this what you were looking for?

View attachment 134906​

It doesn't. Your insinuating it. A Youtuber can simply just like putting boxes of his stuff on display. Not sure how one jumps to the conclusion that a company has to be contractually obligated to pay you for a display you have chosen to do so of your own free will. That silly.

 

[cucker tarlson]

The news section has been getting worse and worse with @btarunr.
I only read those by Ravenlord and Aleksandar,you can easily tell by the title.
GN is a reputable site and I hope Steve wins and sets an example for sensationalist "writers" who are interested in smearing people for clicks.

 

[JB_Gamer]

I just read the full reddit text. And that Nvidia is doing that, which i believe is true for some youtube channels, indicates that Nvidia is afraid of a real competition

And i have to state again, picking a Gamer Nexus picture, was a very bad example. And it still not removed at this point.

Edit: Picture has been removed at 4:35 UTC +2 on the 25th of October 2019

Oh yes, they (Nvidia) really fear Amd - as also Intel does!!!

 

[cucker tarlson]

A mistake was made an quickly rectified. Admitting wrong and fixing it is a sign of maturity and ethical journalism.

He ran a stupid Reddit post on tpu's front page,then only retracted it when he read how stupid tpy users think he was.
Real mature.
He's dragging the site down with his agenda.Prolly gets paid on a regular

 

[Deleted member 50521]

The news section has been getting worse and worse with @btarunr.
I only read those by Ravenlord and Aleksandar,you can easily tell by the title.
GN is a reputable site and I hope Steve wins and sets an example for sensationalist "writers" who are interested in smearing people for clicks.

Gotta agree. He’s like the clicky baity drama queen of TPU editors

 

[dj-electric]

There is no practical way to take "collective stance" as that would mark the extinction of the vast majority of sites/channels. And it wouldn't fix anything, I am convinced the largest players are the most involved in this and they sure as hell wont let go of their businesses.



So what am I to take from this ? That as soon as we hurt someones feelings we should back off ? I couldn't care less that TPU put up a screenshot of one of GN's videos and no one should.

It's this fear of pointing fingers and making sure everything remains "anonymous" and "alleged" that makes this garbage to keep on going.

This isn't about hurt, this is about potential defamation. If GN had nothing to do with it, putting their picture in an article about under-the-table agreements has legal issues.
There are legal responsibilities to a media outlet, they can't just gung-ho accusations and put photos of others next to it

 

[FordGT90Concept]

He ran a stupid Reddit post on tpu's front page,then only retracted it when he read how stupid tpy users think he was.

The only thing retracted was references to a specific YouTuber. The substance of the complaint (which was the point) is still present.

This isn't about hurt, this is about potential defamation. If GN had nothing to do with it, putting their picture in an article about under-the-table agreements has legal issues.
There are legal responsibilities to a media outlet, they can't just gung-ho accusations and put photos of others next to it

There will be no such thing. TPU was notified, TPU fixed it, TPU verified the fix was appropriate, the matter is settled. It was a mistake that has been quickly rectified. Defamation only works if the publisher refuses to correct factual inaccuracies.

 

[cucker tarlson]

The only thing retracted was references to a specific YouTuber. The substance of the complaint (which was the point) is still present.

I think that's the whole point.
Nvidia or AMD have ways of influencing people,that's not news.FFS most gpu tech news channels live from this! They either paint a red or green picture.
But to drag anyone he likes down like he did with GN is just poor.

anyway,who's really surprised it was btanrur that did something like that ? If you are then it's really on you.
a journalist should know better.

lol,now I see it's you who sent him the thread.
good news I can at least put you on ignore.

 

[Xzibit]

I am being sarcastic whenever this whole "being paid for putting up boxes" thing is being brought up. And every review is done through a "contract" where the terms and conditions are made clear and in fact some companies will fix a quota of product that you have to review by certain dates, etc. . (I don't deal with PR) If something isn't there that means there are no obligations for either parties. Obviously, someone who doesn't review will not understand this. Verbal agreements stands for nothing.

Okay but then you say this

Saying some YouTubers are paid for this branding and others are not paid means, again.. there are different agreements and NDAs being involved. If this was the case, it would've been news all over. The pitfalls of conjuring up lies when not being a reviewer yourself is that you overlook finer details, such as this one. @Xzibit is this what you were looking for?
View attachment 134906

I still don't get your line of thinking. Why would it be in the news? Do you think PPs are treated equally? Why would a company treat a low viewership exposure the same as a high one. More importantly why would a Youtuber with a high viewership want to be treated the same as a low viewership one. Thats just bad self valuation.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Nvidia or AMD have ways of influencing people,that's not news.

It's YouTube's policy to disclose it.

But to drag anyone he likes down like he did with GN is just poor.

It was just an example of what the whistleblower was describing. GN didn't like being used as the example so, btarunr elected to give no example instead. It's easy enough to find on your own. Literally takes less than a minute. NVIDIA merchandise in the background is *everywhere* on YouTube reviews. The whistleblower explains why that is too: this practice started back with Vega.

 

[Vya Domus]

This isn't about hurt, this is about potential defamation. If GN had nothing to do with it, putting their picture in an article about under-the-table agreements has legal issues.
There are legal responsibilities to a media outlet, they can't just gung-ho accusations and put photos of others next to it

I haven't seen the original TPU post but from what I gather GN was never explicitly mentioned in the title or the post itself, there was just the screenshot used as an example and not a direct accusation. Quite the disproportional response from GN for a bloody screenshot to start threatening with lawyers and whatnot.

Essentially what you are saying is that you are prohibited to accuse anyone of anything ever because you'll be threatened with legal action, the truth always comes second. Cool, that's a really nice way of suppressing freedom of speech.