YouTube tech creator Marques ‘MKBHD’ Brownlee has pushed back against a recurring conspiracy theory claiming he intentionally includes factual errors in his reviews to drive engagement.
The claim has circulated in comment sections and forums for years, suggesting that minor inaccuracies are deliberate and designed to spark debate, boost comments, and increase reach. Brownlee addressed the allegation directly while reviewing his own mistakes from across 2025, rejecting the idea outright.
“I’ve seen so many conspiracy comments of people saying, ‘Oh, Marques will throw in a factual inaccuracy here and there just to engagement bait,’” he said. “No, that’s not true. I would rather not make any mistakes, and I’m going to try my best not to.”
Responding directly to engagement claims
Addressing the conspiracy theory head-on, Brownlee said mistakes are never intentional and are something he actively works to eliminate.
“I appreciate you guys for holding me to a high standard,” he said, adding that his goal is to make future videos even more fact-dense and accurate.
Brownlee said he expects mistakes to still happen, but hopes they will become less frequent as processes improve. He also encouraged viewers to assume errors are the result of oversight rather than intent, framing them as part of the reality of producing detailed tech content at scale.
Brownlee details his fact-checking process
Brownlee explained that tech videos involve dense specs, numbers, and technical details, making absolute accuracy difficult even with careful preparation. He said he takes responsibility seriously, especially given the size and scrutiny of his audience.
To reduce errors, Brownlee said his team has spent the past few years refining its production workflow. That includes multiple rounds of review, additional eyes on scripts and edits, and a dedicated fact-checking stage before videos are finalized. Earlier this year, he said the team formalized a new process, then later audited every long-form video uploaded in 2025 to see what still slipped through.
The review involved rewatching each video, scanning comment sections and Reddit threads, and cataloging every factual issue that made it to publication. Brownlee said the results showed progress, but also confirmed there was still room to improve.
Calling out the limits of corrections on YouTube
As part of the breakdown, Brownlee highlighted a recurring frustration with YouTube’s lack of post-upload correction tools. He said many mistakes are minor and do not change a video’s conclusion, but still deserve clarification.
Brownlee pointed to YouTube’s discontinued annotation feature as a better solution, saying small on-screen text notes would be ideal for quick corrections that pinned comments often fail to surface. Larger errors, he noted, require pinned comments or description updates, which rarely receive the same visibility as the original video.
Across the year, Brownlee outlined a wide range of errors, from incorrect carrier support claims and misquoted product specs to mislabeled graphics and terminology issues. In several cases, he said the underlying point of the review remained accurate, even if a specific detail was wrong.
Marques isn’t the first massive tech creator to call out YouTube in 2025, either. Linus Tech Tips has urged the platform to fix its new collab feature, and has slammed the website’s membership feature multiple times throughout the year.
