On September 14th, 2018 The Verge posted up a near 10 minute video teaching people how to build a high-end gaming PC. The video was filled with inaccuracies and misinformation, giving potential PC builders a lot of erroneous advice about building a PC, which netted it a lot of criticisms and confutation from actual gamers in places like Linus Tech Tips or the YouTube comment section.
After receiving a lot of feedback that corrected them on the video, such as the lengthy commented pictured below, The Verge decided to shut down the comment section and disable the like/dislike ratio.
Actual gamers and PC enthusiasts continued to pepper The Verge with corrections on everything they got wrong in the video even to the point where casual PC users were pointing out that The Verge were doing more harm than good by spreading misinformation about building a PC, as highlighted in a video put together by Appabend.
As more people continued to point out that The Verge was doing more damage than good by spreading misinformation and erroneously teaching people dangerous and potentially hazardous ways to build a PC, The Verge’s editor-in-chief, Nilay Patel, sent out a tweet addressing the issue on September 17th, 2018. In the message Patel claimed that the criticisms they received for their harmful and poorly constructed video was “harassment”. They also acknowledged that the video was being pulled from Facebook and YouTube.
Hey — so we pulled that gaming PC video from our YouTube and Facebook pages. Here’s my statement, for more info: pic.twitter.com/I7i4FmvFQa
— nilay patel (@reckless) September 17, 2018
If you’re unable to read the message, it states…
“Last week, The Verge published a video on how to build a gaming PC. Today, we’re pulling that video off our YouTube and Facebook pages, because it contains minor factual errors, that, in sum, do not meet our editorial standards. I also want to reiterate that The Verge has zero tolerance for internet harassment campaigns, and that we will automatically disregard any feedback that appears to be in bad faith or part of such a campaign. As many of you know, we are happy to engage openly with our audiences across our platforms, but over the weekend multiple people on our staff have been subject to a wave of attacks, including hundreds of racist attacks on the host of our video. We simply will not listen to feedback that is associated with these campaigns or the people who direct such campaigns.
“We’ll eventually make another rvideo on how to build a PC. It’ll be good. See you out there.”
The Twitter thread rips in into Patel for trying to deflect the legitimate criticisms about the video by attempting to blame it on “harassment”.
One of the critics in the deluge of feedback pointing out how wrong The Verge was came from former Maximum PC editor-in-chief, Tuan Nguyen, who dismantled Patel’s “racism” equivocation.
Thanks for pulling the video, Nilay! Here’s what’s wrong with the response though: pic.twitter.com/0fzxNipkv6
— Tuanster (@blankspace) September 18, 2018
There were also a number of YouTubers who did videos pointing out the poltrooning tactics employed by The Verge staff, such as ReviewTechUSA.
This is all par the course for The Verge, who was one of the prime targets of #GamerGate.
The outlet is notorious for misreporting on a variety of topics, including being one of the prime outlets that Google promoted during the Jessica Price firing from Arenanet, where multiple outlets culled the facts and attempted to rewrite history to paint Price as a victim of a wrongful firing.
The outlet has its own section on DeepFreeze after having multiple violations brought to light over the years since #GamerGate targeted the outlet for unethical journalism. After repeated complaints and filings to the Federal Trade Commission, The Verge did overhaul their ethics policy back in January of 2018. However, as evident with the most recent PC building video, the Left-leaning media outlet doesn’t appear to have any intentions of giving up their bad habits.
(Thanks for the news tip Gemma Ham)
