Let's talk about this whole Linden-Warden scandal rumored to be happening in Second Life. I feel like I am caught in a loop with yet another scandal in a video game to most of the general public.

I wasn't going to speak out about it, but I read Ryan Schultz's blog, News and Views on Social VR, Virtual Worlds, and the Metaverse.

I attempted to comment on his post, "UPDATED: Linden Lab Is Investigating Serious (and Possibly Defamatory) Allegations Made Against Some Second Life Users and Companies and Linden Lab Staff," but my comment wouldn't post because it was too long.

His writing was too compelling to delete my comment and move on. Here is what I wanted to tell him. The quotes are from his article, which I responded to in my comment.

Please be aware that the section Titled Quotes are Ryan's words, with my responses afterward.

I also want to point out that there is no hate or maliciousness directed at Ryan in this editorial. I respect him as a writer, and I intended to create a dialog, if you will, and to bring a little logic into a shitty situation.

In the days of cancel culture, jumping on the GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT train is easy.

Hobbyist bloggers such as yourself (myself included) are not the only writers who blur the line of not getting facts before reporting. We all are guilty of it in some form, but so are the actual media.

As an example of the blurred lines in the actual press and media:

In 2021, I ripped a well-known Newspaper that has existed since 1877 for posting a story that could have caused a dangerous outcome in a volatile and dangerous time.

Instead of fact-gathering and reporting the news, they only posted a retraction that "Oops, we were wrong. We reported before we had the facts!"

By then, the damage was already done, and who reads retractions anyway?

The Press posted an article regarding white Police tasering a black man for no reason.

The retraction stated they made a mistake. The white police tasered the black man because he was shooting a gun at them and bystanders.

In this writer’s opinion, the cops had a good reason for tasering the man, but how many people read that retraction?

That also begs the question:

How many people retaliated against cops due to that “oops” posted by one newspaper that has existed since 1877 and should have the reputation of being a credible source?

But I digress... let's get back to the points at hand.

I read the now-deleted article on Medium written by an anonymous person ( and anonymous person which is an issue for me, red flag, red flag!). The problem with that article is that it contained a lot of hearsay and no facts. I also read a few other articles that quickly jumped on the “GUILTY” bandwagon.

His claims were identical to those in any unethical magazine, with the “He said, she said, the insider said" kind of B.S. No reasonable doubt was contained in that anonymous person's article, which included, "And so and so dropped XYZ on HIS parcel."

I have four sims; I don't police everything others drop on the parcels all the time. Who has that kind of time?

I am still waiting for REAL allegations and facts before I get into an uproar.

Do I support that kind of content, child grooming, or pedophilia?

No! But I don't support accusing people without facts, either.

People get mad at others, and people lie. The problem is that in today's culture, people will believe anything they see on the web as gospel: "I saw it on Google, so it must be true."

I hear my 80-something-year-old father, who is normally a very logical and analytical man, say that statement every other day as he scrolls through Google on his phone.

Sadly, the outcome of rumors vs. hard facts is that they cause damage to others, and most of the time, they are innocent of what they are being accused of.

Let's take Inquisitore3, for instance. He ended his life LIVE because of lies being told about him, and it came out that the three people who were spreading these lies were vindictive jerks.

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard also come to mind. Everyone believed her, only to find out he was the abused, and she was his abuser. He lost everything because of an outright lie that caused everyone to jump onto her bandwagon.

I have seen Wagner James Au’s Confirmed: Linden Lab Investigating Serious Allegations Recently Posted To Social Media, Say Sources

I am not going to believe Wagner's claim of LL investigating is gospel yet; there is no proof. Just his word, and sorry, I don't know him from Adam. For all I know his

"through at least two highly credible sources"

is just more, "he said, she said, inside source says,” like you get from rag mags.

Do not insult my intelligence by claiming you have information and then turning around and saying you can't indulge us with FACT. You should have waited to post that article until you had something credible to share with us. Wagner, you set off my JD OCD with that one.

It already has become a proverbial witch hunt, I am afraid.

Like all witch hunts throughout history, Guilty on someone else’s word, with no proof or credibility to offer!

I know it is human nature to leap before knowing all the details. Even the most logical of us get angry when we hear someone may have done something as heinous as hurt a child.

We are all just humans, after all.

But we must do our best and avoid jumping into the fire until we have the facts.

Casper is being accused before we know the facts. Some refuse to use his products because he was named without proof in that Medium article.

Casper has already been found guilty by people on the Internet simply because of the say-so of one person who used hearsay in his article and did it anonymously. Anonymously equals not credible, in this writer’s opinion.

I hope all of this is untrue, but we will see; we will eventually have the facts that will either clear them or find them guilty in a court of law.

If they are found innocent, I won’t be surprised if slander and libel defamation lawsuits are filed, and I am sure the one mentioned as the ringleader has the lawyers and finances to do it.

We must remember that people are "INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY," not the other way around.

We do our best not to follow the crowd of (sorry, not sorry) sheeple and stop jumping on the cancel culture bandwagon before investigations are done and reality is first and foremost.

We try to get back to what journalism is supposed to be: REAL NEWS, not rumor, not just us as hobby bloggers, but the REAL media as well.

If we can't do that, instead of ruining someone else's life over a "he said, she said," we might as well talk about other things, like music, art, or LeL's latest head gift. (Not a slap; I talk about those, too, on my other blog.)

The old statement “It is better to ask forgiveness than permission,” by Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, USN, deceased, comes to mind when I think about today’s journalists.

And that is where the line is drawn.

Facts over Rumor; ethics over being the first to report hearsay, finding credible sources when allegations without facts are tossed out there, and not jumping on the guilty before proven innocent bandwagon.

When I first entered journalism in the mid-1980s (yes, I have had a life outside of Second Life), journalists had a set of ethics to report facts, not rumors, like the Daily Mail or the National Enquirer.

Every day, I am glad I didn’t stay in journalism because the “jump now, retract later mindset” of journalists in this decade has turned journalism into the Daily Mail and the National Enquirer and cost people their lives.

In closing, I will leave you with these thoughts.

We all know the quote:

“For the grace of God/Godds go I.”

We must never forget that the next victim could be one of us, depending on what we say one day or who decides they don't like us tomorrow.

As for me, I plan on waiting and finding out the truth. I will not jump or believe rumors until the allegations become fact.

I will continue to use Casper's products until they find him guilty in a court of law; I will not be a part of yet another witch hunt.