The downfall of Jason Lanier: Removed as Sony Artisan of Imagery

I wrote this post in May 2018, when it was noticed by some people in the photography Youtube community that Jason Lanier was silently removed as Sony Artisan of Imagery. It was an interesting topic, as it's a very rare thing to happen. Lanier has never addressed this issue, and people were guessing what happened. There were some rumors already at that time that it had something to do with allegations from his models, but it were just rumors. One year later this topic became interesting again. The reason was that several women who used to work with him came out publicly alleging misconduct, some even mentioned sexual assault. This is the reason why I have decided to expand my original post to update on what is happening right now. There's a lot to digest here, so if you just want to know why Jason was dropped as Sony Artisan of Imagery, scroll down to the very end. This post is being updated regularly with new information. Please note that I am merely reporting on what each party says: Lanier made a long video where he alleged several things about his former models, and the models made videos a few days later where they responded and alleged several things about Jason Lanier. Both parties claim that they have initiated a legal process against the other side, but we do not have much details about that. Meanwhile both sides have decided to discuss this publicly, hence my blog and several other Youtube channels, photography forums and websites have been sharing their views. My goal is to not share my opinion on who is guilty of what, I just want to report on what all sides said, I'm merely an aggregator here.

ORIGINAL POST (MAY 29, 2018)
Jason Lanier is a photography gear Youtuber, who built up his career with the help of Sony and their Alpha series of mirrorless cameras. At the same time he greatly helped building up Sony's name in the online hobbyist photography community, and probably helped to sell an enormous amounts of their overly expensive Sony Alpha cameras. His clickbait style videos coupled with his arrogant persona often went viral on YouTube and gave Sony immense exposure. Lanier and his antics against Canon and Nikon DSLRs became a known name in the photography gear review community, and was a few years ago one of the top channels. This all changed in 2018.