By Prokofy Neva, Virtualtor
Still of Patch Linden (L) and Squeaky Mole (R) at a "Meet the Lindens" video at SL19B. Photo by Kunisaki Izumo.
So our little virtual world is abuzz with chatter about the serious allegations made in this anonymous post on Medium, to which I've made the following post with comments, basically concluding that not enough legitimate research has been made to make these allegations, by credible, known, identified persons, with querying of the Lab -- and/or the Lab's own investigation.
Instead, there is a cloud of silence over the issue on the forums, with at least one timid thread being closed and "disappeared". Inara Pey, among the most respected and widely-read bloggers in SL, has only very vaguely hinted about the scandal in reporting about the departure of two two Lindens -- VP of Engineering and CEO of Marketing -- which was discovered by perusing the Linden Lab corporate page, as no public mention of it was made by the Lab.
Second Lifers are used to looking at what isn't visible as much as what is visible when they try to follow stories and rumours and scandals. A web page with removed names or a 404 of a previous public page; a banned account gone from the People List; an empty sim where there used to be a store; scrubbed profiles -- these are all common points of reference for our world which often requires a "lost-wax" kind of approach to evidence to follow what's going on. So in sum, as of this hour, we have some key "Missings":
o Stitch Frostypaws from the People List
o Patch Linden's Flickr Page (locked from view and/or scrubbed)
o Linden Lab's board and staff page -- empty
To summarize my corroborations so far for those who hate reading anything larger than their hand:
o Some adult men with avatar pictures on their profile -- which are of young adult male avatars sitting in an embrace -- have a house with a M/M sex bed on it on an adult sim, and profession of their love for each other on their profile with a significant date for them. They may be tied to a Linden and a Mole, but this is speculative. Even if tied, this is not news. It's not even questionable. Lindens get to make alts and have private lives on their islands. Perhaps there are company guidelines for this, perhaps not but so far -- Nothing to See Here.
o One or both of these avatars with their young adult avatars in their profile screenshot (not child or teen) are the owners of at least four sims, which have alleged to have adult content on them. One island, mature-rated appears to be a little "suggestive" with the name "Sausage Land" and a crude sketch appearing on the map as of yesterday -- now it shows as white and blank; another, also mature-rated, is also blank and has the name "UwU Family" -- neither of these can be accessed by outsiders. A third, adult-rated sim named "Isle of Tharen" is an goth-themed sim open to the public with a bunch of stores on it, some now empty, and empty lots. Again -- even if these avatars present on the sim, or owners or land or content on the sim are Lindens or Moles, it's not news. A fourth sim, Xeo Realms, is mature-rated and closed to the public.
o A four location is on an M-rated sim has the store called XeoLife which allegedly has strictly child content in it, with nothing objectionable about the content (although in a larger sense, some of us find the entire child thing in SL creepy even when "innocent" -- especially the furry/hentai/anime etc renditions of "youth" which all appears to be a scam to evade child porn laws). The sim is closed to outside teleports. This sim's proximity to the other three wouldn't necessarily be a "thing" -- Lindens randomly locate and mix sims of different ratings both on the Mainland and on the map of islands as the orders come in. The only problematic point here is that the owner of the fourth "child store" sim is the same avatar as the owner of the adult group and land in at least the public goth sim (Isle of Theren). Even so, no smoking gun here.
o Now comes the problematic allegation, that can be still seen, and has not been scrubbed: the Xeolots and XeoLife Main Store has now moved to a fifth, separate location -- which was ostensibly selling strictly innocent child content, although it was previously situated on an adult sim (why?). "We Have Moved" signs have been placed in this now-empty store. The store, shelves, and signs are owned by Scout Frostypaws.
Thus, on the same sim as this former XeoLot/XeoLife child store, on the outer corner of the sim, are the home and land of an adult avatar, Stitch Snowpaw, with a sex bed for male-to-male explicit activity, also owned by Stitch, as easily seen with a right-click on the land, which is open and not closed to any group or access list. This seems like questionable judgement -- placing the "child content" store on the adult sim, not far from decidedly adult content. Since no avatar in their child get-up has actually been seen also in this house with the adult furniture, it's not "a thing" in Linden Lab abuse report terms, although for me, their proximity on the sim with the same owners would be enough to send back all the content and eject all the avatars and AR all those concerned, both the owners of furniture and the owners/residents on the land. But in the scheme of things in SL, this could still be merely a matter of "a bad judgement call by staff" and in theory could have led merely to a request to move the store to a G sim and cool it with the mixing of A- and G-rated activity on one avatar.
The continued presence of this adult content on this adult sim -- rather than its removal along with the child store -- seemes more like a statement of "nothing to see here, it's not an issue" than neglect. If it had been known to be there, and was removed, then it would stand out more.
I'll say here it is actually quite hard to eliminate this sort of mixture. Let's say somebody makes only religious content for churchs and has a G-rated store on a G-rated sim. Or makes this G-rated child content that is a substantial part of the economy, from all indications, whether abused or innocent. That creator may also want to have a private life on an adult sim where they as an adult avatar do adult things. If their profile also has links to their G-rated store, no action can be taken because they aren't in flagrante in the moment -- the locations are different. I think there isn't a single person in SL who hasn't sworn on a G-rated sim (I've been banned for 3 days for that sort of thing when a griefer or enemy exploits this rating system to "get" me), or put out a painting that may be classical but have a breast exposed (so that a Linden returns it -- again, after a busybody reports it, or an enemy), or -- like me -- who has conducted a generally G-rated public life, but has rentals in M- and A-rated sims with adult furniture on the sky or ground. The mixing of ratings of content on one avatar and his properties and objects is not prohibited.
But I think we can agree that if you have decided to devote your content creation activities to child content, your having any kind of adult activity on that avatar of any kind leaves you open to suspicions.
The bed is filled with M/M adult animations (no need for a screenshot upload but it's available).
Again, there is nothing to link this bed to the RL persons of Patch Linden or Squeaky Mole except the marriage date of December 18, 2018 -- identical on the wedding registry and on the inworld profile of the avatar owner of the bed -- and to the owner of the land of the store which has now moved.
So basically, while I think there are many problematic things here, possibly related to "ageplay" and not, there is likely no more that will come of this, although for the first time, with some disappearances now, I think we may possibly see some heads rolling but I won't be surprised if Patch remains on staff, and it's Squeaky who has to fall on his sword and lose his job at LL.
Now to show my work:
WHY ARE THEY ALL STILL IN SL?
The question I've asked from the first day of this scandal is: if any of this is true, or true enough or serious enough to warrant an investigation, why aren't any of these people missing from the People List -- that is, banned, temporarily or permanently, or with deleted accounts? The Medium piece is nearly a week old; it appears the story actually began unfolding in December or even earlier -- why are they all still in place?
And the presence of ALL of them in the People List, with quite a few of them online at various times of the day, left me to wonder if this was all basically an obscure furry/Mole/Linden/child/cub war of some kind, with blogs carrying out a vendetta, and the crime of "ageplay" or child pornography being wielded to kick rivals out of "the game" (however that is to be understood -- and I still think that's the most likely scenario). The gaming types that commented laconically on Twitter or Reddit or the Medium page (now locked to comments) that it looked like just a few furries wanted to kick others out of "the game" seemed to be the most apt.
But now I can say there is one person missing from the People List. And after investigating this a little more in totally "open source" fashion, with no "inside dope" or "inside dopes" such as are really required for a story like this, I can say I think there's a problem here where action was warranted. Action has been taken, yet curiously, but possibly not enough to satisfy everyone observing these phenomena.
IF THIS WERE IN MY RENTALS I'D REMOVE IT, EVICT THE AVATARS, AND AR THEM
Let me put this as succinctly as I can again: if this content appeared in my rentals in proximity on a sim -- an adult home with an adult bed next to a store selling child items -- I would instantly evict the content owners and the tenant of record any anyone on the land, and AR the guilty parties using the AR system for "age play," the euphemistic term for depicting child abuse and sexualization of children.
So since everything I've seen so far would get gone in the worst way from my rentals, I don't understand why it didn't get gone quickly -- and thoroughly -- from the islands in question in SL.
That's what I would do because the mere proximity of the content is sufficient to take action. But Lindens might get legalistic here -- especially with one of their own -- and NOT take action if there was no actual "activity" -- just proximity of content.
UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS
So let me start with the unknown unknowns of the Medium story, which are the most serious allegations, and about which I have nothing to say because to research them -- as I indicated before -- you'd have to do the kind of journalistic footwork that you'd do to research GRU assassins -- infiltrating groups, looking at content with anonymizers or incognito to keep the links from appearing on your own computer; saving any screenshots elsewhere than your own computer; interviewing all kinds of strange characters; buying data from shadowy data brokers; scouring social media in meticulous, time-consuming ways with attention to all kinds of meta data on screenshots; recording and comparison and geolocation of IP addresses; looking at ownership and histories of web sites, etc. etc. So Not For Us.
The most serious allegations concern Squeaky Mole, Loki Eliot, and Casper Warden, are regarding their alleged alts and their alleged activities both inworld and content creation on other sites, some clearly adult in nature (I thought one appeared innocent enough, but when I clicked on it I had to back out of it in a hurry as I got a face full of frank adult porn in the form of a video clip. So no thank you, other people can work that beat. I remain unconvinced that any of these people are related to the content that is questionable or even criminal in nature.
Why? Because each one of these people -- and by extention Patch Linden, said to be related to them in various ways -- are highly public figures; highly sought-after figures that many people want to befriend, obtain favours from, stand next to, take selfies with, and get into their events -- so that means that they all have enemies or even people simply jealous of their visibility and professional, social, and financial success, and therefore they'd be motivated to "take them down" with making these kinds of linkages. Some of what the mysterious and anonymous Robert Bartos says about these people may be true, but it isn't proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Likely only Linden Lab would be in a position to look at all the log-in records of these people to follow their alts, and likely only law-enforcement (the FBI as it crosses state borders) would be in a position to track IP addresses and obtain warrants for perusal of chat logs and telephone communications such as to see if any of this makes connections. Journalists can sometimes replicate (or more often imitate) this sort of activity through confrontation, impersonation, hacking, and purchases from data brokers -- I personally find these methods to be inadmissible, although increasingly in the last 10 years I see them used more and more without anyone caring. So I leave that piece of the story to my betters.
MARRIAGE OF PATCH LINDEN AND SQUEAKY MOLE IN RL?
Next, I noted that we haven't confirmed that Patch Linden, whose real life name is known, is in fact married to Squeaky Mole in RL. Squeaky's RL name can easily enough be found with enough persistence as well, once you start with the hypothesis that they are married, had a wedding, and a wedding registry. A web site with the RL name of Patch wouldn't be enough because it's a fairly frequent name on social media and the Internet and you can't be sure it's the same person. His purported husband's name is less common but you'd still not have confirmed this relationship. I personally continue to note that unless you had a marriage license, or a newspaper of record with a report of a marriage, you couldn't really be said to have proven it as it is all too easy to fake web sites especially of a social nature.
Even so, regarding a page I found which I won't upload here, I did notice that the RL registry page of these two men contains the same date for the wedding -- December 18, 2018 -- as the marriage date on the profile for the two love-bird avatars in question within SL, which may be evidence that these avatars are the alts of Patch and Squeaky. And an added touch -- the RL husband of the RL Patch Linden has a shock of green-coloured hair, like one of the online avatars said to be related to Squeaky Linden.
A lot more work would have to be done for this to stand up in court.
Again, get into any chat room or even party of 50 people and ask everyone's birthday -- you'll find some people have the exact same birth date, and more often than you think, the same year. Marriage anniversaries can work the same way. It's a clue -- but not what I would call firm evidence. Even so, two of the avatars in question -- Stitch Frostypaws and Scout Frostypaws have the same picture of a couple of young men and the date "December 18, 2018" as does the RL wedding page -- and there's the green hair.
For many commenting on this tale, the name change is tantamount to a "smoking gun" but it may not be.
As "Robert Bartos" pointed out, some of these avatars appeared to have changed their name from "Snowpaw" to "Frostypaws". "Snowpaw" can be seen as far back as 2011 and likely earlier; Frostypaws became available only in December 2023 as a last name. So these individuals paid (or were given the option) to change their last name to "Frostypaws" in December 2023.
If you look in Google search with the terms "Rhyph Somme" and secondlife.com you will find the profile of Rhyph Somme, yet if you click on it, it turns into "Scout Frostypaws," his new name.
What I confirmed, using the Artizan script which searches for avatars inworld, is that Rhyph Somme did indeed turninto Stitch Frostypaws. If you type in a name of someone who has changed their name, it will then instantly turn into that other name, because the avatar UUID is the same (that's why this isn't the ideal way to "re-spawn").
But there's another character named Scout Frostypaws who now appears as the owner of XeoLife. If you type "Xelm Snowpaw" into Artizan, the result turns into "Scout Frostypaws". He has an old birthday of February 20, 2010 but it is not as old as Stitch Frostypaws, whose birthday is December 2, 2005. Scout has a newer name than his birthdate would warrant. Also both Stitch and Scout have the very expensive Premium Plus Lifetime accounts. (Geez, I didn't realize staff were taking some of those highly-coveted and limited number of accounts -- if they are indeed staff).
It's not clear that Stitch = Scout and is related to Squeaky, or if he is related to Patch, and others will have opinions about this.
I had written earlier that the Isle of Theren, named as the "scene of the crime" in Robert Bartos' piece didn't have anything untoward on it -- not surprisingly with a story a week or even months old. Looking around at the ground level stores I just saw a lot of goth content, starting with the landing, which is the DRD goth castle (the same one I used to have in Motocycle, in a community now gone -- it was an annoying build to work with -- and quite a few empty stores. Yes, there was the house referenced above with the adult bed, but it's an adult sim. There were on two occasions I TP'd in about 9 avatars evidently in the sky (I couldn't see them on the ground) over the Blow-Up adult store -- they looked like bots for traffic enhancement.
STITCH SNOWPAW IS GONE FROM PEOPLE LIST
I decided to take another look at the Isle of Theren. This time, I let the objects at the landing rez more, and went further into what appeared to be an entirely empty store. There were several signs amid the empty shelves that said WE HAVE MOVED. The move of XeoLife is to a store on the G-rated sim of Zoie. The move could be entirely innocent -- the space appears to be somewhat larger -- and while I didn't check every single item in the store, what you could see was row after row of innocent content.
That is, I personally don't think the entire child avatar shtick in SL is so innocent even when it purports to be, and I find it constantly pushing the envelope. The child avatar crowd wants to have beds, chairs, rugs, etc. all with animations, most innocent but some verging into something else once both an adult and child both sit on the furnitures. I've been shocked sometimes at the stuff I've sent back from my rentals violating the TOS when I check up on a diminuitive avatar who tells you they "aren't a child" emphatically; you see the groups in fact have the typical ageplay suspects, and then you find a pink little girl's room with whips and chains -- child-size. It's awful stuff.
The real questionable judgement here is why the G-rated (for all we can tell) Xeo store is on an adult-rated sim (who needs it to be there?) and worse, near a house with adult M/M sex beds. And there's no question who the owner of the house and the furniture is: Stitch Snowpaw.
In addition to owning the modern house on the edge of the sim with the adult bed, Stitch Snowpaw is also indeed the owner of the land upon which the XeoLots store was located as you can still see (as of February 29, 2024) on the "about land" menu:
The rest of the text on the profile says:
Cheap SMB TD Toddleedoo Boy Boys Girl Girls RP Roleplay Clothes Clothing Kids Furniture Tweenster Freebie Free Toys Shop PG Animations Bedroom sale Toddler Baby Advent Calendar
And now he is not in search. Why is he not in search? Well, as we all know, there are ways you can fall out of search:
o You can be banned, and then you will fall out for the duration of the ban - or permanently.
o You can hide yourself and not show up in search, although you will still show up in a group -- unless, of course, the group is large enough to hide its members -- apparently large groups automatically have this happen.
o Your account can be put on hold, which causes you to disappear from search and even groups, but you may still show up online if not logged out, and you may still be pulled up from your objects, so that someone could still write to you or send you content.
I'll add more reasons:
o SL search is not working, broken, not loading, you've forgotten to check off G/M/A for an avatar who might have rated themselves "M" or "A" and you didn't add those search categories.
So Stitch Snowpaws is gone from the People list using the SL search/people function in the browser, although you can still pull up the name using Artizan and see that it has nothing on it now except the photo of the couple and the December 18, 2018 date with a heart.
OR -- to use another tried-and-true sleuthing method -- if you go to Sidewalk Clothing group inworld, the name of the store mentioned on Stitch Snowpaw's profile, you will see the group membership displayed -- unlike other big groups he is in like "Second Life Birthday" or "Bellisseria Citizens" where the membership is hidden. There you can see both Stitch Frostypaws and Scout Frostypaws present in the group list, and shown as logged in on February 28, 2024 -- thereby indicating that Stich is not banned or on hold.
BTW, Sidewalk Clothing has some members who have not logged on since 2007 and 2008! That's odd for a store group to still have members like that unless they charged a lot for membership. Perhaps it's nostalgia. Perhaps THIS is the store and THIS is the original avatar of Patch Linden -- he often tells his foundational myth story of once owning a men's clothing store and we've all wracked our brains to figure out who it could be because there weren't that many back in 2004-2005. I have to say I have no memory of anyting in SL called Sidewalk Clothing circa 2007 with grunge clothing but that wasn't my thing.
WHAT ELSE IS MISSING?
Well, the Valentine's photo of Patch Linden and Squeaky Mole, even the other day publicly visible on Patch's Flickr page now 404s for me as I don't have permission to view it. I'll watch for a takedown notice of copyrighted material or simple a removal by the blogging platform, as has happened to me before in my years in SL.
If you go on Flickr, you can't find Patch Linden's account visible (at least I can't, perhaps there's a way to block individuals). Pictures of Patch Linden and Squeaky Mole taken by other residents can still be found.
And...the entire board of Linden Lab. They're just...gone from their web page completely.
As Inara Pey noted, in December 2023, the board showed two Lindens who are now gone from the Lab, their names gone from the People List: Mojo Linden and Styfy Linden. (BTW, the first time I saw Styfy on a Lab Gab, I thought to myself, "Now that's an unfortunate name, dude. Why do you have a name like that which will open you up to ridicule AND be seen a inappropriate? Depending on how you pronounce it.)
On February 6, you could still see the reduced board, with Brad etc. but without the two Lindens missing who just left.
If you look as recently as February 25, however, the president, etc. and the VP of Product Operations, Patch Linden with his RL name -- which all used to be there in January 2024 and December of last year -- are gone completely. There are no people at all.
Today, there is still NOTHING. No board, no staff. Just a brief discussion and the Tao of Linden -- which we know has changed its nature and text over the years but honestly, I don't have the patience to check this now.
That suggests an unheaval -- but it's an absence, not a presence. The web site is dated 2024 for the copyright.
Meanwhile, Nodoka Hanama, over on blsky (she has left Twitter and shuttered her account) has been burning up the wires with many comments on this sordid affair, but it's mainly heat, not light, with no new information and just restatements of the obvious re SL realities of virtuality and RL laws. She is now promising to soon drop something that will "tell all," related to the Mirai Group, whatever that is, possibly this or this. But, given what we see so far of her content - "Nodoka" is the name of many anime characters, go and Google it -- the story may not be credible, along with many Twitter commentators or the author of an early story as I noted on my last post. Nodoka Hanama herself had me blocked over something she didn't like, no doubt my criticism of Contraption or my criticism of trans extremism, of the sort insisting that people say "pregnant people," something I find abhorrent to be forced on people in any setting.
BONNIEBOTS
For extra credit, when we landed on the Isle of Theren the other night, who should we see but ostiab, the leader of the intrusive and obnoxious "petplay" gang called Bonniebots. He appears grey here because we have him blocked. He was standing by an empty store. It's not clear if this was anything related to his activities, "petplay" or "bot" (ugh). But his presence on the sim is one more data point in the sordid saga of how Patch Linden shoved the bonniebots down everyone's throats -- apparently because he was already friends with them -- although it seemed from the New World Notes and other sources that they became acquainted after bonniebots came on the scene.
Skyler Pancake -- once so fetchingly photographed with minimally-dressed Patch Linden chasing her, in a scanty nightgown (although he is gay) -- has reportedly sounded off about her "dismay" about all this, and confronted Patch on blusky, I guess the place where the Kool Kids have gone now as they have either been AR'd off by Elon's new crew, or they are disgusted with Elon himself (as we all are) -- or both. Skyler's story about the photo is that she won a Halloween contest that gave her this photo opp...or something. Funny how these contests always have the same winners lol.
Feorie Frimon points out that Scout is the only non-Mole (ostensibly) in this Mole group for the SL Birthday - a sign of nepotism or an alt of a Mole?
So where are we now with all of this? Still, really, nowhere. The MIRAI group "drop" is not likely to be credible; as Nodoka herself acknowledges, her kinky crowd includes some people who have have been banned permanently from SL for "ageplay" -- what MOST gets her goat is that an exception has been made for Lindens and Moles to indulge in it that didn't apply to others.
I agree that it's that sense of "above the law" that really makes it so sordid -- but when it's a crowd of furry cubs and anime/hentai waifus etc making these claims, it really does seem like an internal game war vendetta.
I haven't spoken to any Lindens or Moles about this because I don't speak to them generally at all, unless there is some customer service problem -- I did ask Philip Rosedale to inquire about it merely because he posted something goofy about science always pushing the limits which I felt was actually part of the whole problematic worldview. "Nothing is True and Everything is Possible" -- like the title of Peter Pomerantz's book about the "New Russia". (I continue to maintain that Dostoevsky's famous quotation should be translated as "If God is dead, anything goes" to convey licentiousness, rather than "everything is possible" to connote freedom, because the tenor of the books are all about people enslaved by their vices).
As Dostoevsky said, "Without God, anything goes." And that's why you should intervene with the troublesome situation now at Linden Lab https://t.co/P31sdnpVjg
— pra-COFFEE (@Prokofy) February 28, 2024
This is all I have for now and all I think all I'm going to bother to get, because it's not really my story and a lot more people are wound up about it, pro and con. This is a story that the court scribes around SL like @SLHamlet of New World Notes are not going to cover (or cover with massive spin). Those most vested in it seem to be a lot of furry cubs and anime girls.
Prediction: nothing more will happen; nothing more will change; the scene has already been cleaned up; and there is really no actionable, material evidence at least from what we've seen so far.
The ONLY thing that suggests something bigger may be coming is the disappearance of the "about us" page on lindenlab.com No corporation can last long without people being shown -- and this could be an indication that one of the three board members (that's all there are, but that's common in Silicon Valley) could be leaving or more added; or Patch or other top staff are leaving or there are additions. Obviously if only Squeaky were thrown under the bus, there'd be no need to change this page. So watch this space.
Raj Date is shown on his Linked-in with membership on the Tilia board "to present" still, and on Tilia's page, but not Linden Lab (as he was shown at Crunchbase). I added this comment to a thread (outdated) about Date on the forums strarted by nikaj -- and a Mole closed it for the dreaded forums offense of "necroposting," I guess. No one made any comment on it prior to the closure.
All the OTHER issues at play here -- the nepotism (which I explained may not necessarily be a bad thing); the reported abusive work climate; Lindens/Moles having businesses and store sims on their alts (or original accounts); scarce Premium Plus Lifetime accounts handed out to staff; avatars and their content "above the law" -- these are not likely to be ever addressed, even now. I'd be happy if a different kind of person -- less of an empire builder with only fiercely-loyal underlings and fanz from the user base -- were in charge of Product Operations. But I'm also keenly aware that only getting rid of this one person would not change the system in which he grew and thrived.
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