I think that a lot of you are completely misunderstanding the situation, intentionally or not, because you dislike Linus. I always try to stay impartial on totally important internet drama, but it's clear that a lot of you are blatantly misrepresenting his points. Steve himself does claim to be a journalist, and with that title, there is some degree of journalistic integrity that you are expected to uphold if you are going to grant yourself that title. Keep in mind that this is his own self-described title, so it's not like he is being held to an unrealistic standard, he calls himself a journalist. And yet, he doesn't follow core tenets of real journalism (which to be fair, neither do mainstream outlets like CNN either, but that's besides the point, it's about morals). I personally don't care if he follows these or not, but I also think he needs to get off of his high horse, calling himself a journalist when at best he is an expose YouTuber that can conduct pretty surface-level investigations.
None of this is to say that Linus and his channel cannot be criticized, and I know that many of you will take this as some sort of sweeping or defense for Linus; there are still issues to this day that need to be addressed and fixed. However, there are some criticisms (as Linus mentioned in his response) that are misleading at best, and at worse, completely inaccurate to the actual truth - which is why the whole journalistic integrity thing is important in the first place. If he wants to pursue the truth, then pursue the truth. If he wants to make YouTube videos to expose people/companies, then he can do that - but he's not a True and Honest journalist, which I think was the crux of the argument. I don't really think that it matters too much, but it's clear that Steve does have a personal vendetta against Linus, and it's undeniable that he has had some bad faith arguments, and intentionally maliciously clipped him out of context to sow distrust.
And just to be clear about my personal stance on this, I number one think that Linus should definitely own up to the Honey thing and he should have made a video addressing it years ago when they had found out instead of staying quiet about it. While it would have been an L to do so because they, and many other YouTubers, had promoted it, it would have been better for the consumers, which they claim to be on the side of. Additionally, I think that he is holding his critics to too high of a standard, however at the same time, I think that GN is on a bit of a high horse about his own credibility and reliability, and while Steve does good work, I ultimately believe that both parties in this case are handling this in a retarded fashion. Linus is ranting about journalistic integrity because Steve calls himself a journalist while Steve is intentionally misleading his audience for profit.
I know that I 100% am going to get flack for the post, but I am not even in agreement with Linus or his position or what he says, but I think a lot of people like to take any sort of drama and extrapolate something entirely new out of it that isn't happening and create a much bigger narrative than there actually is.
