Newgon

Newgon logo from 2007

Newgon is a pro-contact MAP organization that calls itself an information center for the MAP Movement. Its website is a MediaWiki-based site archiving talking points and arguments for pro-contact maps.

History

Newgon was co-founded in 2007 by the pro-contact map activists Daniel Lièvre and Jillium after Google started censorship of small blogging sites. In 2014 the site was disabled, with the ISP requesting the administrator for contact. Soon, the site's domain expired and the site went fully offline.

In 2021 Newgon returned, relaunching by "previous associates of Newgon.com and its network of activists" and resuming editing of the Newgon Wiki with the domain newgon.net. In May 2022, an official Newgon Twitter account appeared. In June 2024, the site was altered so that newgon.net links redirect to yesmap.net.

Many Newgon activists have made social media sockpuppet accounts using various disingenuous tactics such as fabricating credentials or other significant information, targeted harassment, impersonating antis, impersonating anti-contact map activists (especially those who were visible opponents of Newgon) to attack or delegitimize them, spreading "ironic" bigoted rhetoric, arguing for stances they did not actually believe in, claiming certain opinions or events were far more common than they actually were, widely circulating dubious memes, lying, recycling pre-written lines while passing them off as organic and spontaneous, and pretending to be engaged in entirely independent activism efforts rather than encouraged and backed by and working for an entire organization. Several made Twitter accounts posing as researchers of sexuality. These efforts were geared toward generating as many clicks and mainstream outrage pieces as possible, supposedly with the goal of gaining visibility and thus recognition for the pro-contact map movement. Newgon members mainly targeted Twitter for its "visibility campaigns," but some also tried to do such activism (which Newgon believes constituted "tactical operations") on other sites.

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  Example of how Newgon used low-quality fake accounts

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  More on fake account usage

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  Some more attention-seeking Newgon troll proposals

The "Yesmap" Matrix server and its "Pro-c MAP Activist" ("PCMA") workgroup have been used to share choices of targets and coordinate such activity, along with distributing anonymous, cryptocurrency-bought Twitter accounts to members. The server is also used to coordinate attacks on and harassment campaigns of anti-contact maps on the fediverse. Newgon claims that "In 2023, PCMA and the Yesmap server, having achieved most of its publicity goals via the prior strategy, each moved independently towards a model of increasing visibility via community-building efforts such as expansion of the Fediverse".

According to Newgon, "PCMA (and some of its predecessors) have been criticized, mainly by anarcho-communist MAPs, for tolerating lively debate (eventually this was moved to a separate space) and controversial opinions. Some members have also sought to mobilize chan culture". This article uses euphemistic terminology to relativize PCMA's common usage of bigotry, harassment, and alt-right tactics, and reasonable criticisms of it—throughout 2021 and 2022, Newgon and its associated projects did indeed begin to be heavily criticized by many leftist-aligned map activists, mainly anti-contacts but also some pro-contacts, for their persistently problematic behavior.

Art theft and content exploitation

Newgon is known for dubious behavior with regards to other people's art and content. Newgon prominently linked a blog post by a map Quinn in its article "Proship", causing them to "keep getting unwanted traffic from it". In quote-posts and threads discussing this, Newgon seemed remarkably unfazed by the distress individuals were experiencing.

Newgon used the art of NNIA user Maki for its Twitter account NewgonOrg2007 without asking or even crediting him. His art has also bee used as the full-screen background of yesmap.net, again without any consent or acknowledgment. In its Memes and Graphics page, Newgon displays the image and simply labels it "Background/desktop".

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  Discussion on Newgon's misuse of art/blog posts

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  Newgon found stealing art

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  Yesmap.net welcome page

Threats against other map sites

In September 2023 the main Newgon admin made suggestions to report a map fediverse instance nnia.space, largely due to the fact that one of its admins is also involved with this wiki. In May 2024 similar threats were made against another instance, ghetti.monster, whose admin complained about fascist harassment from a Newgon member.

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  The threats against nnia.space

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  The threats against ghetti.monster

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  Extended context about ghetti.monster

The Newgon admin then protested the accusations and made a vague statement about weakness of ghetti's domain:

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Several days after this exchange, the Epik account that held the ghetti.monster domain name was suspended. Lolison.network, lolison.top, and associated domains were also owned by that account, so this move resulted in the loss of three map fediverse instances at once.

Discussing these controversies, the map activist Katie Cruz said that in her last months of access to the PCMA chat, she had "witnessed ideas tossed around about ways to get NNIA and other MAP instances taken down". Confronted with this allegation, Jim Burton/the Newgon Strategist did not deny it at all. In his response, he omitted any mention of the "other MAP instances" apart from NNIA. Regarding NNIA, he instead tried to justify the malicious conduct of his server's members, saying he "found it funny" they were trying to take down a map site and that "Those two [NNIA users] can gdiaf [go die in a fire]". He additionally insulted the two aforementioned individuals as "reptiles" and "literal pond life" and falsely labeled them as "antis", responding with harsh disparagement to a person who tried to criticize his dehumanizing rhetoric.

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  The Katie Cruz thread

Other maps have also accused Newgon of reporting other map instances.

Other dubious and manipulative behavior

In PCMA, the Newgon Strategist said the following while proposing a new fediverse instance made by Newgon:

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  "It will look like we are being fair" "Keep your powder dry"

He mentioned several individuals who were being victimized by Newgon-affiliated smear campaigns causing them to be defederated based on false charges from many fediverse instances. He tried to plan to trick them with an instance where they would have a federative "clean slate" and be able to interact with other instances again, but be deliberately banned "after a few months" for alleged infractions of rules against "malicious conduct." He seemed to not realize the total absurdity of the idea that Lecter, [Iris], or Kay Faraday would stoop to registering accounts on a Newgon instance merely for a few dangled federation privileges after months of experiencing Newgon hostility, bigotry, and harassment firsthand.

Political stances

Contact stances

Newgon is pro-contact, up to and including support of adult sexual contact with infants.

Newgon is known for its extreme and often conspiratorial viewpoints, suggesting that anti-contact people, among others, are "sex fascists", controlling the contact stances of major governments, and part of a "child abuse industry" or "CSA-industrial complex".

Newgon generally holds hostile attitudes toward anti-contact individuals, including (sometimes, perhaps especially) anti-contact maps. For example, in one discussion in the PCMA server, the user "mappymeal" said, "anti-c = creepy losers who want to rape 6 year olds and can not read a study." Given context, it seems probable that this was specifically a dig at anti-c maps, since "creepy losers who want to rape children" is a common anti-map stereotype much less often applied to non-maps or with an assumption of non-mapness, and a pro-c Newgon map like mappymeal would most likely have map-related discourses as his key frame of reference with regards to CSA. Another user replied, "Yes. Antis are the real child abusers, and not only in a sexual abuse way. They literally coerce those who willingly had sex to admit 'rape'." PCMA members, and Newgon in general, tend to conflate being anti-contact with being an "anti" (i.e., anti-map), although not all anti-c's are anti-map. Accusing people of being "child abusers" or child sexual abusers when they have not abused any children is also a common tactic of mapmisic/anti-map stereotyping.

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  PCMA discussion on anti-c's

Individuals who have recently carried out or been convicted of sexual offenses against minors who do not believe such actions are wrong are welcomed in PCMA, e.g.:

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Abuse culture

Much of Newgon is based around priming doubt, hostility, and dismissal against abuse or sexual violence survivors, anti-abuse theory and terminology, and the notion that such things are wrong and that vulnerable classes and survivors deserve justice and liberation from abuse. People who step out of line are often met with mockery and scorn.

Newgon takes issue with the terms "safeguarding," "grooming," "sexualization," "age-appropriate," "survivor," "sex trafficking," "child trafficking," "consent," "informed consent," "child sexual abuse," "child sexual abuse material," "trauma informed approach," "commercial sexual exploitation of children," "adolescence," "covert incest," "feminism," "sexual violence," "teen dating violence," "violence against women and girls," "rape," "child pornography," and "indecent images of children," as if these experiences, concepts, and issues simply don't exist or need to be discussed clearly. According to its "List of obfuscatory terms used by authorities," "rape" is "a term that once had a very certain meaning is now virtually redundant". It believes "informed consent" is an "arbitrary" and "problematic" concept that "objectifies" and "results in gaslighting."

Newgon makes the bizarre case that "Sexual Violence and Teen Dating Violence" are "conflatory terms that stem from and give rise to the assumption that sexual impulses and young people must be controlled in order to prevent harm". The terms simply denote the presence of violence. It is of course possible for some people to attach inaccurate assumptions to them when using them in a particular way, but the terms themselves do not prescribe particular methods to prevent them, whether control or otherwise. They do not inherently imply young people and older people would need different interventions; the term "sexual violence" does not even mention anything about age at all. "Sexual violence" does not conflate harmful and non-harmful or problematic and non-problematic sex, but it makes sense that Newgon would assume any use of the term is automatically conflatory if they themselves already conflate all sex with things that would qualify as sexual violence, or vice versa, and don't think sexual violence is problematic in the first place; likewise for intimate partner violence/abuse experienced by teens.

The Newgon Wiki Debate Guide section to counter the talking point "As a survivor" provides a guide to harassing CSA survivors. It claims CSA is "empirically invalid" and tries to draw a distinction between "classical - forceful rape" and "new rape (harassment, regretted sex, etc)" with the implication that the latter is less bad or not "really" rape because it may not involve overt violent physical force (with the typically rape-apologist dogwhistles e.g. the idea that what modern anti-rape activists are calling out as rape is merely unfortunately "regretted sex" which was consensual in the moment).

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  Debate Guide on survivors

Patriarchal views

Misogyny

Newgon resorts to "triggered feminist" memes to present anti-contacts as "Social Justice Warriors"/"SJWs", promoting sexism and body-shaming to score points against imagined opponents. It devalues older or infertile women to present young girls as more desirable. Two of its "Memes and Graphics" are tagged with "feminazi" or "feminazis".

Newgon says that it is "open" to "worldviews such as Men's Rights" and "Inceldom," and that individuals "politically engaged" in the New Right and Men's Rights are permitted as members for its Yesmap Matrix server.

Newgon promotes the MRA blogger "Angry Harry". It writes favorably on the incel movement and is dismissive of feminist critiques of toxic male entitlement.

Newgon is skeptical and dismissive of activism against misogynistic gender violence. According to the "List of obfuscatory terms used by authorities," "Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG)" is "a feminist term from the United Nations and social sciences that represents an attempt to whitewash ageist violence against children by blaming a small part of it on the 'patriarchy'. While it is true that particularly outside of the West, misogynistic violence effects both women and girls in similar ways, no justification has been given for the use of this construct, nor the exclusion of men or boys."

No justification has been given by Newgon for the use of "ageist violence against children" in this discussion, as this is an irrelevant obfuscation. For some reason, Newgon overlooks the possibility of intersectionality: both female people and children are oppressed classes that experience particular forms of targeted, disproportionate, oppressive, systematic violence. Violence against girls is a product of both ageism and misogyny. Pointing out the influence of misogyny obviously does not mean ageism is not also at fault, or that boys do not also experience oppressive violence/child abuse as a class. Newgon also does not give justification for its "particularly outside of the West" claim—presumably, resting on the assumption that non-Western misogyny is uniquely, uniformly, ontologically worse and Western misogyny is no longer much of an issue, so other forms of oppression such as ageism can take more precedent and there is less reason for class solidarity among female or other misogyny-oppressed people against misogyny—teetering dangerously close to stereotypical racist purplewashing narratives. (One may wonder—what might Newgon say in response to a term like "violence against adult and child non-Westerners"? "You can't say that, the adults and children don't experience the same violence, you're just trying to whitewash ageist violence against children by blaming a small part of it on 'Western imperialism,' what about the Western children, hell, what about Western adults?")

Newgon also blatantly overlooks that ageist violence against children which is "purely" ageist is still also patriarchal. "Patriarchy" in a literal sense does not mean "rule of males" (all undifferentiated), but "rule of the father," involving domination of both women and children. Patriarchy provides the structural basis for the ideology of adult supremacy and the practice of adult violence against children. The patriarchy is the system which materially disempowers both boys and girls so that adults can use their unchecked power to abuse them.

Of course, logic and factual accuracy are less conducive to deliberately demonizing misinterpretations meant to promote mistrust of any feminist terminology and anti-patriarchy critiques at all and dilute "patriarchy" into a vague buzzword or boogeyman.

Queerphobia

Homophobia

The pejorative use of the f-slur has been a regular occurrence in PCMA, with many users adopting 4chan-like homophobic norms. Some users are open hetero-supremacist.

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  Example of PCMA members being homophobic

PCMA members are fond of using the f-slur and other homophobic rhetoric in personal attacks against opponents. For example, in one discussion where a user screenshotted a NNIA post by Lecter, another replied, "he types like a fag." Two users reacted to this homophobic message with a "fire" emoji, including the Newgon Strategist. In a more recent public fediverse post, Strategist doubled down and tried to justify this derogatory use of a slur.

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  Homophobic slur usage in PCMA

Transphobia

Newgon promotes the transmisogynistic belief that the LGBT community forces cis gay youth to transition into girls. It uses the transmisogynistic phrasing "women and transwomen".

Newgon referred to Allyn Walker as a "trans academic who was attacked for 'misappropriating queer experiences' by activists in his own University's trans umbrella organization," misgendering them with incorrect pronouns. After receiving backlash, it corrected the pronoun to "their". However, on June 17, 2024, a year later, JohnHolt on BoyChat misgendered them again, saying "Allyn Walker seemed to endorse use of this in his book". It is extremely difficult to believe that this could have been multiple accidental mistakes in a row not caused by any transphobia at all.

Newgon referred to the transfeminine activist ZeebDemon as "trans (female-identifying)" instead of simply "trans female", implicitly delegitimizing trans female identity as mere subjective "identification" which can be challenged by outsiders with superior interpretations of a transfem's gender experience, rather than a statement of fact which she herself is the foremost expert on. (Newgon does not refer to cis women or girls as "female-identifying," just "female.") After receiving backlash, Newgon changed the section to say "trans-woman" instead.

Newgon refers to ZeebDemon as "they", although her most recently archived Twitter and Tumblr bios did not state which pronouns she uses, and neither does her Freak.University profile. Her most recent public statements about her pronouns, including her NNIA.space profile and a past Twitter bio, say that she uses "she/her," with no mention of "they." Many transfem activists have discussed how referring to a transfem as "they" without explicitly knowing that she uses "they" pronouns is a form of transmisogynistic degendering, and that it is disrespectful, invalidating, and often a bigoted dogwhistle to not default to "she" for someone known to be transfem with no other information given. Although ZeebDemon has confirmed in a recent private communication that she now uses she/they pronouns interchangeably, Newgon could not have known this beforehand, and this concurred with a broader pattern of transphobic behavior and biases.

In its article "Transgender youth and attraction to minors," Newgon refers to transgender people as "trans-identified" people instead of just "trans". For two and a half months from 1:53, 26 October 2022 to 23:32, 10 January 2023‎, the article's section "Dissent among MAPs and Trans people" contained the (unsourced) sentence, "Some heterosexual male MAPs oppose medical transition on the basis that it 'mutilates' the bodies of girls, and should never be put ahead of other forms of less invasive and permanent bodily autonomy." Since 21:23, 26 October 2022, the section has also said,

Other MAPs have varying reservations about the philosophical compatibility of trans ideology as a whole, with liberation of boylove and minor attraction:

• They may see trans ideology as an extension of the war on masculine eros/the appeal of boys to men. For a more general perspective on male extinction, see Andriette, 2002.
• They may see gender-transitioning children, not as a prelude to increasing agency, but as part of the "bourgeois and desexualized" protectionist gaze of western orthodoxy, and thus entirely compatible with CSA norms.

These statements were all added by the Newgon Wiki account "The Admins". It could maybe, at a stretch, be argued that these were only presentations of other people's arguments which the writers did not at all endorse themselves. However, the tone of the presentations has noticeable positive slant. This is congruent with Newgon's known habit of presenting bigotry or abuse apologia in a way clearly intended as appreciative and to influence readers to become more in favor of it while still maintaining barely enough plausible deniability to be able to deflect accusations and further interrogation into their views and motives.

Furthermore, after these statements were found and harshly criticized by several NNIA users for their transphobia and adultism, a different editor, "Loli," removed all mentions of heterosexuals and girls, stating that their change "modified towards a more neutral/objective viewpoint regarding MAP community", belying the view that all discussion of bigotry by the wiki which does not entirely, explicitly state it is endorsing it is automatically neutral. They seemed to realize that the content of the article was especially indefensible even by their own standards, or at least by the standards of much of Newgon's support base. However, the parts about "mutilation," labeling transition "invasive," wanting to restrict bodily autonomy, and other "reservations" were left alone, not deleted.

The article's references for the latter (recommended for "perspective") include two BoyChat posts (by users "Sick Rose" and "Errant") and one article by NAMBLA activist Bill Andriette, all three of which contain transphobic screeds. Both BoyChat posts are in fact replies to a post made by Newgon activist/editor JohnHolt himself, soliciting feedback on the article and asking for suggested sources. The recommendation for Andriette's article, "Castrating the Church," originated from Sick Rose's reply post.

After reading these expressions of severe bigotry and oppressive sexual entitlement, JohnHolt simply replied "Thanks," expressed agreement with their views, and added them to the wiki, clearly viewing such statements as within the realm of the acceptable for Newgon. They become examples for "MAP" views, with the relevant passage in the article implying a dubious, mapmisic automatic association between map liberation and not believing that child sexual abuse is a real, serious issue. Confusingly, Sick Rose is used as one such example of a "MAP," although he does not identify as one and in fact strongly rejects the term as problematic.

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  The article as of October 26, 2022

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  The article as of December 7, 2023

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  Edits made since 12:03, 27 October 2022

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  JohnHolt's BoyChat thread

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  Sick Rose's reply

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  Errant's reply

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  JohnHolt thanking Errant and Sick Rose

Transphobia is also rampant in the PCMA server. For example, in one incident which was both antisemitic and transphobic, the PCMA moderator "Hina" posted a meme with a paragraph copying from a Joseph Goebbels article, but switching out "The Jew" for "Iris/Lecter." (It is known that Lecter is Jewish, so this behavior was even more dubious.) The text said,

Hina identifying with Goebbels, being transphobic to Iris, and using antisemitic dogwhistles

Iris/Lecter are immunized against all dangers: one may call them a scoundrel, parasite, swindler, profiteer, it all runs off them like water off a raincoat. But call them doxxers and you will be astonished at how injured they are, how they suddenly shrink back:

"We've been found out."

- Newgoon mod Hina, Berlin speech (colourised on the right), 1939

On the right half of the meme is an enlarged version of Hina's profile picture.

(The original Goebbels article said, "The Jew is immunized against all dangers: one may call him a scoundrel, parasite, swindler, profiteer, it all runs off him like water off a raincoat. But call him a Jew and you will be astonished at how he recoils, how injured he is, how he suddenly shrinks back: 'I've been found out.'")

In a reply, user "poikarn90" edited Hina's meme to only refer to Iris, and replaced "them" with the pronoun "she":

Iris is immunized against all dangers: one may call her a scoundrel, parasite, swindler, profiteer, it all runs off her like water off a raincoat. But call her a doxxer and you will be astonished at how injured she is, how she suddenly shrinks back:

"I've been found out."

Iris is nonbinary and does not use she/her pronouns, and considers such usage to be misgendering. Hina corrected poikarn90, informing them that "it" would be a correct pronoun to refer to Iris with, but also tried to justify misgendering and dehumanizing Iris:

for Iris it's it, but tbh I've lost the necessary respect to care long ago

only reason why I do is cus it is even more fitting than she, because its [sic] hard to believe it is a real person

In another transphobic exchange targeting transgender pediverse members, the user "mappymeal" complained about there being too many "insane" "fediverse tr--ns"/"tr--nies," claiming "they make all MAPs look bad just by existing they need to be cleansed." Three other people reacted to this blatantly fascist message with a "thumbs up" emoji. Several PCMA members responded with messages in agreement to the original. Hina agreed, and sent a series of screenshots of posts by trans pediverse users that he and the group perceived as "cringe" and worthy of mockery. The group participated in a round of insults at the featured posts.

Screenshots of the conversation are uploaded below. The usernames and profile pictures of featured individuals for whom they were thought unnecessary to reshare or whose consent to be featured has not been ascertained have been censored. Since the purpose of the original resharing of the screenshots of pediverse users was to exhibit them in the manner of a "freakshow" to draw the disdain of a group of bullies, a publicization of this bullying would reduce potential harm to the subjects if the exhibited content was more protected this time. To protect the privacy of the subjects and reduce opportunities for bad-faith actors to try to repeat the original harm, any content which seemed too personal or not relevant to recent political events in the community has also been censored (especially screenshots that represented more severe potential violations of privacy, i.e. the first two, which were of non-public Matrix messages).

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In another exchange, PCMA members agreed with a series of vicious transmisogynistic comments about the existence of transfem Internet users and subcultural aesthetics. Hina brought in the topic of Lecter, insulting his gendered identities while also falsely claiming he describes himself as a lesbian.

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  Transphobic rants in PCMA

One instance of particularly egregious transphobic harassment in PCMA was against a trans woman. She had observed the constant transphobia/transmisogyny in PCMA as well as many other forms of bigotry. One day, stefibealipton, a neo-Nazi, posted a transmisogynistic wojak caricature meme in the chat. The trans woman replied with a long rant where she expressed frustration over the constant transmisogyny and transphobia (as well other queerphobia, antifeminism, and racist xenophobia) in PCMA, while the privileged bigots disregarded how their rhetoric, "jokes" and myths are part of a culture which contributes to violence and oppression against trans people in real life. She expressed her own trauma from past offline transmisogynistic violence and from having to live in a world where there is escalating anti-trans oppression that cis people don't (have to) understand the gravity of. She also expressed a desire to retaliate against the transphobes in Newgon. Other members found her distress amusing and mocked her for showing emotion, casting her as hysterical or "unhinged." Her vent made in the midst of a difficult moment was screenshotted and posted onto fediverse with mocking commentary. Newgon members employed DARVO-like tactics against her (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender), portraying her as the primary aggressor in the situation and her reaction as entirely unreasonable, even normally unthinkable, to pathologize and "other" her.

For once, Strategist took action against someone perceived to be doing wrong in PCMA, although for numerous other times where users engaged in types of rhetoric or behavior he claims he and PCMA care about stopping, absolutely nothing was done. Their values and priorities are quite clear.

When Iris expressed agreement with the woman's frustration with Newgon, recognizing how she was being victimized and supporting the principle of resistance against oppressors, Strategist took this as an "endorsement" of her entire message thus more fuel for regarding her as "unhinged" or hysterical or unreasonable, and worthy of mockery, and henceforth demonized her further whenever discussing the incident by portraying her as close to/approved by Iris and thus to share a similar pariah status as Iris, who was at the time experiencing harassment and smear campaigns from Newgon. This was in spite of the fact that Iris has barely ever interacted with her, does not know her personally at all, and dislikes pro-contactism in general (she mentioned being pro-c in her message several times).

StefiBeaLipton continues to gloat over the incident today, parading around the past evidence of her distress, such as in a fediverse post on May 21, 2024. In reply to Stefi's post, Hina colorized the image for further meme-like effects and said, "tales from PCMA".

PCMA is also transphobic in cases not strictly related to the map community:

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  PCMA members make fun of Twitter activist's transness

In the tweet linked by mappymeal, celebrity kid, a youth liberation activist on Twitter, vented about the transphobic parental abuse they experienced as a child and promoted trans pride/liberation, saying:

happy trans day of visibility!

despite pushing boundaries as a kid, by 12 my "family" had all but ensured my gender expression got buried deep inside a well of shame. big mistake! grateful to the trans community for helping me be ME again. liberate trans kids! youth lib now!

In the tweet, they also shared a photograph of themself being visibly gender-nonconforming. mappymeal and satoko mocked their gender expression and their trauma. Clearly, PCMA does not take transphobia or child abuse seriously.

Ageism

Newgon promotes anti-minor sentiments. It pejoratively refers to Map Wiki editor Iris as "a mentally ill teenager" in an attempt to discredit them. It extends this line of criticism to young adults and younger activists in general as well. (Newgon never highlights an adult's adulthood, or the fact of someone having an older age, when trying to portray an opponent in a negative light.)

JohnHolt insults "naive young idiots who [rail against the norm] on Fediverse" in a BoyChat post:

Those of us who are accustomed to BC will know that you are most certainly coming from an egosyntonic place, but you might do well to recognize that impotently "railing against the norm" is one of the first stages of grievance/coping in egodystonia.

One thing I'll give you over the naive young idiots who do this on Fediverse, is that your analysis is couched in some experience and thus some historical literacy.

So we do not see, for instance the absurdity of a 19 year old MAP who rails against the demonization of paedophiles while praising victimologcal [sic] constructs such as satanic abuse and DID that contributed to that popular demonology.

But the similarity is eery.

In its article "Child Sexual Abuse," Newgon denies that child sexual abuse exists/is a valid concept:

Empirical Invalidity

A large, but not yet critical number of experts now hold that the concept of CSA is empirically invalid and pseudoscientific. This view is also unsurprisingly held by a number of Minor Attracted People and is also sometimes expressed in a round-about way by laypersons - particularly those who lived long before contemporary CSA panics. This article will argue from such a position.

Newgon's page "Debate Guide: Power disparity" tries to debunk the anti-contact argument that "The child or adolescent is invariably in a position of lesser social or physical power/status. Considering this, any sexual contact will function only in the interests of the more powerful partner. This is why we call it abuse." Its first arguments are that the youth can have "more physical, financial, institutional or bargaining power than the older person." Then, it argues that "power differentials can favor both sides in different ways" because youth allegedly have "power" over adults to threaten them legally and to "use their features"/attractiveness in the pursuit of adults. Then it argues "even the youngest child can always say 'no' - often in the most expressive of ways," therefore "basic physical/sexual relations" would also not "negate a young person's strength of will." It does leave open the possibility that a youth's ability to say "no" may at times be constrained, in the case that the adult uses "threats," but it tries to diminish the responsibility of these abusive adults:

If the adult, on the other hand is using threats to subvert the minor's power, then we are again in cyclical argument territory, since it is the stigma and laws that likely cause some people to threaten and silence young people. What we are seeing can thus be interpreted as an adverse consequence of age of consent laws.

i.e. if there is a power imbalance Newgon is willing to recognize, it must be the youth having power over the adult; if there really is a power imbalance by the adult over the youth, then surely it also goes both ways; and if there really must be a unilateral power imbalance by the adult over the youth Newgon will grudgingly admit to, then it is insignificant, not really the adult's fault/the adult still isn't the one in the most power (that would be "the stigma and laws" actually), and the adult still cannot be condemned for exploiting it. This trivializes CSA by providing false excuses for perpetrators who threaten and silence their victims.

Debate Guide: Power disparity: #4: Difference between revisions as of 15 March 2023 and 29 August 2023

Newgon has also trivialized nonsexual abuse of children in school and the home. Up until August 29, 2023, the "Debate Guide: Power disparity" page claimed that "Finally, while it can not be excused, it's no safe bet that an abuse of power will lead to any physical or psychological harm. This is something we should be happy to point out, and should continue to encourage by erasing societal stigmas." Since the purpose of the page's creation was to argue in defense of adult-youth sexual contact, and this passage compares it to nonsexual child abuse, it may be useful to examine known pro-contact rhetoric and talking points to analyze what Newgon means here regarding nonsexual child abuse. The first clause resembles a common tactic used by people with a goal of promoting pro-contact views but who hedge about their real views for the sake of appealing to anti-contact audiences is that adult-youth sexual/romantic involvement is technically wrong, but even though it's wrong, it is still harmless, or usually harmless apart from a few random exceptions, or harmless unless society causes the youth believe it is wrong. This allows the person to deflect accusations that they are defending such behavior, just that they are "empirically" sharing "facts" about its supposedly assumed harmfulness being overstated, and that in fact audiences should be happier that it isn't actually (so) harmful, because don't you want less people to be traumatized? Newgon used a similar tactic when it opened this paragraph with a reassurance that it is not actually excusing "abuse of power," just denying its harm, although everything after it contains excuses.

The passage is vague about what exactly is allegedly being "stigmatized," declining to directly state what these "stigmas" are of, but given the context, it is indicated that the editor wants the societal stigmas against abuses of power to be erased in order to encourage that there be less harm from the abuse. This resembles the common pro-contact view that adult-youth sexual or romantic involvement is not traumatic to the youth unless society stigmatizes the activity/promotes the belief it is wrong, which would artificially induce trauma in the youth, but it would not be traumatic if everyone accepted it instead. Using "abuse of power" as an analogy for all adult-youth sexual contact seems to be a poor way to argue that the latter is not always abusive and would fall under a different category than "real" abuse, though it would make sense if one already believes both are similarly good or neutral things. It is of course problematic to claim that child abuse should be destigmatized, or that it at all needs to be destigmatized (or to misrepresent it as already particularly stigmatized, despite its frequent occurrence and widespread social and institutional endorsement), because child abuse is wrong and must be understood as wrong to discourage abuse.

"This is something we should be happy to point out, and should continue to encourage by erasing societal stigmas" draws a false dichotomy between believing child abuse is harmful/wanting to stigmatize it and realistically wanting what is best for children's welfare, when in fact the reality is the opposite—acknowledging the harm of child abuse and stigmatizing/prohibiting it improves children's welfare and reduces their suffering.

For examples of these abuses of power, Newgon said:

After all, children suffer in the education system and repeatedly come through beatings and bullying. In playground games (seen by developmental psychologists as crucial socializing experiences) and at bathtime for example, small children are effectively "felt up" against their will, repeatedly and in ways only deemed indefensible when certain "motives" are identified.

Newgon concluded:

Even when applied to very small children, these interactions are never seen to cause mental torture, nor to have lifelong consequences. Thus the view that harms are inevitable is totally unwarranted and only risks becoming a dangerous, self-fulfilling prophecy based on moral hysteria and reactionism.

"'Real' nonconsensual child abuse is harmless too, so how could anything else considered child abuse be harmful?" is certainly one way to argue against a premise of harm for the latter, but it relies on the premise that the former is harmless, which would prevent any categorical distinctions between different acts toward children, which significantly weakens the person's claim that what they are arguing for is really in children's interest. It is strange to conclude, on a page seemingly dedicated to arguing that something doesn't involve an abuse of power so it shouldn't be seen as wrong, that actually if it involves abuse of power that's fine too because abuse of power isn't wrong either.

The view that children "repeatedly come through beatings and bullying" (therefore their suffering from the abuse isn't really that bad) is a common framing in a cultural value system which prizes "strength" as a virtue or obligation and praises those who refuse to show "weakness." This is especially enforced against children, who are further abused if they react to abuse by showing pain instead of stoically soldiering through it. There is a common view that abuse "builds character," that it's good for making people "toughen up" for a better society. Of course many children will manage to barely scrape through and cling to survival if they're left with no alternative, have sufficient motivation, and get lucky. But that doesn't mean this "resilience" is any more than a façade mandated by adultist society. Children who are not able to remain "strong," who are "wimps," "hysterical," etc. are victim-blamed, and children who manage to avoid this still have had their emotions and agency stifled. This only compounds the damage because they have not been allowed to heal. That assault, sexual in content or otherwise, sexually motivated/interpreted or otherwise, is so common in such normal childhood experiences as "playground games" or "bathtime" is only further testament to the fact that children's boundaries are culturally devalued and appallingly disrespected, that child abuse is so normalized, that it is much easier to abuse someone one has social proximity to or direct power over than a stranger. It is not an argument to uncritically accept the trivialization; quite the opposite.

Of course, "non-consensual play," "beatings," "bullying," "discipline," and other abuses of power over children are harmful and traumatizing for children, often with lifelong negative consequences. That this is not recognized in much of society is a testament to the pervasiveness of adultism and child abuse culture, not evidence that there is no harm. Claims that these are usually harmless (nevermind always) further the oppression and silencing of victims by denying the trauma they experience. Pretending they are harmless will not magically make the harm go away. It is also not even true that this pervasive, severe harm is simply invisible/difficult to notice as a result of adultism hiding it. Society is rife with mental health difficulties, suicide, and other suffering, much of it stemming from childhood trauma. Countless child abuse survivors have spoken out, published their stories, and fought for awareness. News stories, studies, statistics, etc. have provided extensive evidence that child abuse is harmful. This is denied only because child abuse apologists believe what they want to believe, not what could be reasonably concluded from what is visible or available. It is cruel that many would rather blame an external cause (e.g. moral hysteria and reactionism) for the harm rather than examining how the abuse of power is the thing at fault and supporting survivors' self-understandings that they were wronged when they were abused.

On August 29, 2023, after the passage was criticized as child abuse apologia by NNIA users and by this wiki page, Newgon hastily revised the section. Instead of "Finally, while it can not be excused, it's no safe bet that an abuse of power will lead to any physical or psychological harm," Newgon now said, "Finally, while abuse of power (beatings, bullying by adults or other children) can not be excused, it is perpetrated daily against children without any apparent physical or psychological harm." Newgon removed the sentence "This is something we should be happy to point out, and should continue to encourage by erasing societal stigmas. After all, children suffer in the education system and repeatedly come through beatings and bullying." In replacement, it transformed the section to instead say, "Acknowledging this fact isn't a taboo as such - we just ignore the abuses of power to justify them, and thus skirt around the issue as there is no considerable societal stigma on violence or discipline. So what if we were to remove the societal stigma on erotic play, if consented to?"

Fortunately, this version no longer actively promotes the diminishing or erasure of societal stigma against child abuse. This time, it says there is no considerable "societal stigma" against nonsexual child abuse, and implies this is an issue, instead of (selectively) implying such stigma is large, or too large. However, it still suffers from most of the same basic problems as the original. Though it no longer says that line about children "coming through" violence and abuse in school, the rest of the rhetoric still functionally promotes the same myth, even still classing (location-unspecified) "beatings" and "bullying" as part of the abuse being discussed. Even if it is no longer "happy" to point out (or acknowledge) that child abuse is allegedly not harmful, it is still claiming that this alleged harmlessness is a "fact," when it very much is not.

"So what if we were to remove the societal stigma on erotic play, if consented to?" seems to be a non sequitur. Yes—so what? Why is it relevant? What conclusion would logically follow from the previous claims—and more importantly, why (according to a pro-c point of view) would trends for nonsexual child abuse automatically correlate with sexual contact (in rightfulness or in harmlessness resulting from stigmatization status, presumably)?

It is possible Newgon's argument here is that the extension (of results for nonsexual abuse as something which would logically also accompany sexual contact with children in some way) is adequate because both are acts or events involving children or youth, therefore both involve youth psychology and the impacts of events, therefore a similar effect (of harmlessness) would be observed? (Though this is a vague chain of logic.) Or, that if even "severe"/"unambiguous" child abuse is (mostly) harmless, then "consensual contact" must be even more likely to be harmless, because it is "more consensual." However, if it is relying on this argument—of harmlessness being a fact, thus it can be transferred to "consensual contact" as well—then it cannot also at the same time portray itself as disagreeing with and condemning the societal view that nonsexual child abuse is harmless. This also would not logically follow from the comments about "stigma" or an implied condemnation of abuse culture. Unless it is simply claiming that more stigma causes there to be more harm, therefore if sexual contact were destigmatized like nonsexual abuse is, it would also be harmless, so anti-cs' fears about inherent harm are unfounded. But this would still consider nonsexual abuse to not be inherently harmful, which would still, again, agree with society's abuse-apologist views. Unless Newgon considers the abuse apologia to be in society believing nonsexual child abuse is moral/ethical, irrespective of harm. But if this is true, it still begs the question of why Newgon would believe nonsexual child abuse is wrong or something to be destigmatized, if it believes it is basically harmless and stigma only makes it harmful.

Its view could be that there is a particular mechanism or ontological status which distinguishes "nonconsensual" and "consensual" acts in terms of actual, inevitable, or inherent harmfulness, but the manifestations of experienced (or perceived) harm levels are mediated by society's views/interventions (e.g. stigma), which would change the results somehow, though consent violations would still be categorically different in some ways and still be unjustifiable. However, this would require several additional factors which are not present. Or, it might not be saying anything about actually experienced harm at all, only society's perceived harm: that it is possible for a society to widely agree that a certain act or range of acts as harmless, even if they could be controversial otherwise; thus, it would be possible for society to achieve this state with adult-youth sexual contact as well, and the instinctive perception of harm/moral intuition isn't a static state or inherent to societies. This still would not explain why society should view the sexual contact as harmless, though, unless Newgon is hinting that if society agrees on something, it must be more true (which would circle back to apologia claiming nonsexual child abuse is actually harmless, contradicting its claim of opposing society's view). Alternatively, it could be a view that harmlessness is a sort of natural "end state" or "default state" which social possibilities ultimately trend toward and which happens if people don't try to think too much about it or add on new values, but that it can and/or should be mediated by other factors such as consent levels or wrongness, so that nonsexual abuse could be harmless in some societies but might still be/might become harmful in an improved society which would also have harmless "consensual sexual contact" between adults and youth. This would contradict with the implied and previously expressed preference for less harm whenever possible, though.

Perhaps the most generous possible interpretation of this passage is that it is merely highlighting that societally perceived harm (or lack thereof) and actually perceived harm (or lack thereof) can be different, therefore just as the actually harmful child abuse is viewed as harmless, so is the actually harmless "erotic play" viewed as harmful, and the indicators otherwise are mere accidents of suboptimal phrasing. However, this would still contradict the final "self-fulfilling prophecy" comment (which was explicitly about changed effect, not just perception/confirmation bias) and would require so many coincidences of error as to be completely improbable.

(There is a possibility that the addition of "apparent" to "any physical or psychological harm" was not just to suggest/imply/signal a more survivor-friendly outlook, but to outright mean that the editor believes there is harm and the societal harm-deniers are certainly wrong. However, it is not apparent why Newgon would keep the previous as a "while" clause if it meant the latter, because of its implication of contradiction with the "inexcusability" claim. Furthermore, this begs the question of the viewer's standpoint: Does "apparent" mean apparent to the adultist society, or apparent to any rational/accurate observer? Why are children's/survivors' own counter-hegemonic perceptions not considered worth mentioning or regarding with equal weight?)

Keeping in mind the later passage, there is clear evidence for the interpretation that Newgon is starting from the premise of nonsexual child abuse as harmless: "Even when applied to very small children, these interactions are never seen or expected to cause mental torture, nor to have lifelong consequences." Not just "expected," but also still "seen." Newgon did revise the original phrase "never seen to cause mental torture, nor to have lifelong consequences" by adding "or expected," but is unclear how this is any improvement on the former. It still denies that "mental torture" (i.e. suffering, trauma) from assault and abuse is ever seen in children. Newgon does not actually distinguish itself from the child abuse apologists who falsely expect child abuse to be harmless; it still agrees with them. (There is a slim possibility that the use of "seen" was to keep open the possibility that it was only about adultist society "seeing" the trauma, i.e. "it is traumatic, but they don't see it because they're biased/abusive," not as in "it never happens." However, that would still carry the same issues criticized above in the analysis of the use of "apparent.") Newgon completely fails to adequately justify that the claim that "Thus, with respect to consensual sex play, the view that harms are inevitable is totally unwarranted and only risks becoming a dangerous, self-fulfilling prophecy based on moral hysteria and reactionism" logically follows from this. The addition of "with respect to consensual sex play" (i.e., not (also) about nonsexual child abuse, so it's not child abuse apologia/claiming child abuse is (at a baseline) harmless) puts this new sentence at odds with the rest of the passage, which is relying on the analogy and the assumption that the harm status of the "sex play" is at least somewhat related to the harm status of nonsexual child abuse. Otherwise, there would have been no point in anything that was written before.

Apart from that, the final paragraph remained the same in both versions:

Whilst there is a clear hypocrisy in the way we celebrate and encourage non-consensual play among/discipline of "our" children, we should also ask about the social context, i.e. are we creating the need to protect children or minors in general? The cyclical paternalism argument will help address this.

It would seem at first that this is a statement against child abuse: ("there is a clear hypocrisy in the way we celebrate and encourage non-consensual play among/discipline of 'our' children") i.e. "society celebrates nonconsensual actions, which are actually bad, while condemning consensual actions, which are good, which is hypocritical because they treat the two so differently, and it should be the other way around." However, the choice of the opening "Whilst" (since edited to "While") deflects its conviction in this by implying a contradiction between the two parts. "We should also ask about the social context"—what social context? How would better understanding social context diminish the hypocrisy/wrongness of current views? (Unless the editor is trying to say, or suggest, that "social context" could make child abuse less wrong situationally.) "i.e. are we creating the need to protect children or minors in general? The cyclical paternalism argument will help address this.": This part, especially with the specification of in general, could not only be referring to the prohibitions on sexual contact as "creating the need to protect children or minors." It seems that Newgon weakens its own statements by declining to fully stand by them, because it also needs the point that actually "real child abuse" is not that bad either.

More confirmation can be found in the article linked on the words "cyclical paternalism," titled "Debate Guide: Cyclical paternalism," which says, "Paternalist/adultist practises in society create 'dumb' infantilized minors, who in turn must be treated as vulnerables. This argument (in relation to the concept of consent) is summed up by Chin-Keung Li: wrongfulness of adult-child sex → need to protect child → need for paternalism → children's lack of sexual knowledge and freedom → children's inability to consent → wrongfulness of adult-child sex [etc.]". The above paragraph in "Power disparity" would not make any sense unless it was intended to mean that considering nonsexual child abuse, along with adult-child sex, as wrong creates a problematic paternalism cycle that must be prevented. Newgon seems to reach for any argument that people should try less hard to prevent child abuse.

Thus, it does not seem that Newgon can make any case using the above-discussed passage without also invoking nonsexual child abuse apologia in some way and relying on the existence of certain social/psychological mechanisms which would only exist given adultist premises. Of course, the arguments themselves, self-contradictory and bordering on nonsensical, barely have substance. The sentences are a disjointed, confused, incongruous mess, and much is missing in the claims, which are difficult to interpret as part of a coherent whole except as convoluted possibilities. Given these factors, it does seem more like something quickly scrambled together to look less terrible in the face of public scrutiny, coming up with whatever random things seemed like they'd stick to barely save the passage, but by someone clinging too much to the original passage, unable to fully part with a fundamentally shaky argument although the page would probably be much easier to add information or arguments to and make much more sense if this was removed in its entirety. It seems like a few shallow adjustments awkwardly pasted over text not meant to contain them, making a passage which was never meant to properly make sense, much less to be able to stand on its own without relying on child abuse apologist premises in at least some way. And as usual, it leaves open enough ambiguity for multiple different interpretations to make it easier to escape accountability, with the possibility of claiming whichever option is most convenient if called out. (Other Newgon opponents have documented use of this tactic by Newgon before.)

The addition of the phrases "it is perpetrated daily against children" and "we just ignore the abuses of power to justify them, and thus skirt around the issue" on August 29 would seem to be an attempt at using more progressive-sounding language, probably to appear more friendly/less hostile to anti-abuse activists and survivors to divert criticisms. This motive/trend is also reflected in the few edits to the passage since then: Instead of being the fourth in a numbered list, this argument is now under a subheading "Our society normalizes abuse," and the sentence "As they are socially normative traditions, we ignore these abuses of power, permitting violence and physical discipline." was added, very likely a nod to common terminology used by anti-abuse activists who understand abuse as social oppression and take it seriously, what the reactionaries in Newgon/PCMA (including the editor) would ordinarily deride as "woke," "cringe," or "soy"—not wording they would ever consider using in any other setting. "Without any apparent physical or psychological harm" has become "without any observation (or acknowledgement) of physical or psychological harm." "Observation" is still quite questionable, although slightly less ambiguous than "apparent"; "acknowledgement" would hint at an anti-oppressive sympathy. "Are never seen or expected to cause mental torture" has become "are not thought to cause," removing the unambiguous endorsement.

None of this window dressing addresses the elephant in the room, which is that the actual arguments in the text are absurd (and/or have very alarming implications). The conclusions themselves are still not justified, and the core of child abuse apologia is retained.

"Lifelong consequences" now hyperlinks the article "Scarred for life", which pokes fun at the idea that childhood sexual victimization would scar victims for life: "'Scarred for life' is a common trope of child victimology and abuse literature, based on the idea that when 'prematurely sexualized' by adults, minors will always bear lifelong 'mental scars'. It is an extension of the 'defiled forever' trope used in reference to the supposed fragility of female virtue in pre-Victorian Britain and its derivative cultures. Recent research does not support this idea, although there are still attempts by some psychologists and professional associations (including NGOs) to present lists of sequelae relating to Child Sexual Abuse. These are based on flawed sampling and hasty generalizations." Whether "these interactions" includes only the aforementioned "playground games" and "bath time," or also includes the "beatings," "bullying by adults or other minors," "violence," and "physical discipline," it would be contradictory to link such an article to refer to such events if one's goal were to differentiate unwanted from wanted contacts to argue that the latter are harmless because they're unlike the former, and would only be used if the editor also looks down on nonsexual child abuse/assault survivors or their allies as trauma-exaggerators in a similar way.

(Interestingly, there is one other change which also does not seem to serve the goal of making the article more "politically correct" (so to speak): "… small children are effectively 'felt up' against their will, repeatedly and in ways only deemed indefensible when certain "motives" are identified." is now "… small children are effectively 'felt up' against their will. This happens repeatedly, and in ways deemed totally indefensible when certain 'motives' are identified." The new phrasing is even more awkward and confusing than it already was, and would seem to make the message less strong and less clear, though perhaps the editor thought it was worth it to play up the allegedly hysterical quality of the alleged societal sexual exceptionalism.)

For further context, it might be worth examining the original version of this passage, dated at December 17, 2008, created by "Rez":

It is also no safe bet that an abuse of power will lead to any physical or psychological harm. Children suffer and repeatedly come through beatings and bullying, so to expect that being felt up against one's initial will, by a self - interested family friend, will torture a child for the rest of their life, can only be dangerously conterproductive [sic] as a social idea. Regardless of the general ethical soundness of such behaviour, a child may eventually enjoy such an experience, or it may at least help them overcome any socially instilled fears or doubts about being touched. The difference between 'adult leadership' or 'one way mentoring' and 'one way abuse' is unfortunately determined by our morality. In fact, the abuse of power gaps is often inspired by entirely or partly socially constructed gaps between, say, rich and poor, or adults and children. As well as child emancipation, what we need is a more intimate, sex - positive culture, to reduce the need for this occasional abuse of power, which can also be pursued for confidence, psychopathic satiation and social rewards, as well as the traditionally stressed sexual gratification. At the moment, morality is unhealthily crushing the human libido.

(emphasis added)

The next edit of the page—by Jillium, in 2009—only altered the spelling of one word, not changing this section at all. The next edit after that was by JohnHolt on October 8, 2021. From then on, the page has only been edited by JohnHolt or TheAdmins. The passage makes much more sense when one sees that the original "abuses of power" being downplayed explicitly included sexual contact which the editor considered nonconsensual, not just nonsexual abuses—with no mention of "bath time," which is where JohnHolt's edits sublimated the discussion of children being nonconsensually "felt up" into a situation which could be plausibly construed as nonsexual by some and thus not part of an argument explicitly defending the "undefendable" overtly nonconsensual sexual contacts; and the rudimentary, surface-level changes attempting to clean up the more unsightly, outdated-seeming instances of rhetoric on the wiki began when Newgon began earnestly trying to build a public image which was slightly more palatable and seemed less fringe (by the Strategist's perception), after a shift in leadership, though he appears to have had no problem working alongside such content before. It seems reasonable to conclude that all of these recent clean-up edits have been for public relations purposes rather than motivated by a sincere, principled opposition to all child abuse (sexual or otherwise), given JohnHolt/Strategist's consistent patterns of behavior, the fact that improvement edits always follow external pressure and potential (or perceived) risks of losses, and what he is willing to tolerate elsewhere, as well as the numerous other instances of overt abuse apologia which are very clear from the wiki.

"Debate Guide: Power disparity" also argues:

Stockholm Syndrome is often applied to adult-minor relationships in social media debates that touch upon the power disparity argument - and has been used to support victim narratives in general. We describe it as absurd and well past its sell-by-date, because it takes a theory originally intended for actual hostages/abductees and tries to apply it to personal relationships, sometimes even years after the fact.

"Stockholm Syndrome" is indeed a problematic term and concept, because it was coined in a misogynistic, fraudulent context and wrongly pathologizes functional responses to abusive circumstances as a single, medical "syndrome"/illness. However, the phenomena of trauma bonding, brainwashing, "false consciousness," and internalized oppressive beliefs as experiences (in a more social/political sense, not rigid/medicalized diagnostic categories) do exist and occur similarly to some victims in interpersonal relationships as well as "actual" hostage/abductee situations. The above paragraph does not only claim "Stockholm Syndrome" (used to mean any possibility that a victim might believe a situation was not abusive or harmful when it actually was) shouldn't be applied to adult-minor relationships it perceives as consensual and thus harmless/non-victimizing; it says applying such a theory to "personal relationships" in general, especially "years after the fact," is always problematic (implied because only real hostage situations would be severe/traumatic enough to be able to cause such feelings). It is a common abuse-apologist myth that relationship abuse isn't as bad or as abusive as more "violent" crimes. This contributes to widespread societal misunderstandings of how abuse and trauma work and diminishes survivors' political standing. It relies on outdated patriarchal notions of a distinction between the public and private/domestic spheres and of the latter being politically insignificant/inherently less impactful. More expansive abuse/violence theorists understand that interpersonal relationship abuse functions like a hostage situation as a wider context of coercive control is created—in fact, understanding this fact is crucial to understanding abuse at all.

In a fediverse post, Strategist criticized "2018 [anti]-contact Tumblr MAPs"' alleged "over-engagement" with the idea of youth liberation, cynically portraying them as excessively "lofty," "idealistic," and "signaling" (i.e., performative), as if more youth liberationism isn't desperately needed in this current societal climate of hegemonic adultism.

• 

The "Debate Guide: Newgon's History" page reproduces an "Interlude commentary" by Strategist which criticizes the growing subculture/community of anti-contact, pro-paraphilia-label, leftist/anarchist youth liberationist maps as (inferiorly) "young," too SJW, impractical, and too radical about their youth liberationism instead of adopting Strategist/Newgon's views about "incremental freedoms" and "pragmatism." Newgon tries to portray anti-contact youth liberationists as both more and less (e.g. with the point "despite ultimately opposing even broad-sweeping Age of License rights reforms such as our own proposal") of real/internally consistent youth liberationists at different parts. These youth liberationists, who have formed an increasingly significant opposition to Newgon and creating a radically oriented culture over the past few years, have also incurred a great deal of ire from rightwing Newgon members.

The referenced proposal is a reformist one in which youth would be able to "sign up to emancipate themselves" and be granted rights if "assessed by a doctor as mentally competent - broadly in line with their peers" (though Newgon emphasized its priorities: "With respect to adults and emancipated minors, this will include legal consent to physical/sexual relations. Other important rights may be included, however, we will not campaign on most of these issues until there are signs of an emerging policy consensus"). Of course anti-contacts would oppose a pro-contact proposal. But, moreover, youth liberationists in the map community found it to be problematic also because it is an absurd misinterpretation of the very concepts of "rights" and "emancipation."

One of the early beginnings of the rift between Newgon and the left-, anarchist-, progressive-, and youth liberation-leaning segments of the pediverse-concentrated map community was in Twitter arguments against official Newgon accounts and Newgon members where the former applied general leftist or progressive principles to analyze youth liberation activism, and the latter countered with typical centrist/conservative/reactionary arguments about social movements, applied to youth liberation to argue against radicalism/for incrementalism and believing oppressed groups must depend on the state for favors. The "Age of License" proposal was a key topic of discussion here; it was also criticized by leftist maps for having ableist implications, which Newgon was dismissive of.

"Debate Guide: Newgon's History" claims the accusation that Newgon has a "Selective and 'self-interested' adoption of Youth Liberation Philosophy" is clearly false because "we haven't explicitly adopted or endorsed Youth Lib ideas in the first place." It then proceeds to repeat the claims about needing more "incremental youth rights" instead of immediate liberationist activism and denies youth agency by interpreting youth rights and liberation through an adultist lens.

On June 7, 2024, @doublejjackson posted the following on the fediverse instance rape.pet:

Greetings everyone! I am an ex-newgon admin (YouthRightsActivist). Before I say anything else, let me tell my long story short:

I was with newgon ever since they've used discord and just started to do twitter trolling. I've helped them make various graphics or infomemes, offered input towards certain decisions, as well as twitter trolling itself.

The first hint that newgon wasn't what they seemed was when they neglected to help a fellow map who was going through life's struggles from being a known map, such as job loss. While we weren't really friends, we certainly agreed on certain things, and with their help, I've made I'm not sure where they are now, but they've weren't really out. Regardless, that didn't stop certain individuals from saying "they should've known better".

The next hint that newgon wasn't what they seemed was their shakey-ness with anti-capitalism. This was mostly evident with the moderation, partially an admin I was in a 'relationship' with. (While at the time I did love them, I never sent or received anything 'illegal', and since they lived in another country have way across the world, I never really got to spend time with them.) Whenever I would bring back progress of my own anti-capitalist radicalization (which was at the time via videos), or ask questions or make statements of an anti-capitalist nature, they of course would make the typical excuses supporting capitalism and the state. One of the biggest arguments I got into was about toy industries and Lego. (How toy industries profit off of the oppression of youths and how selling them an "get them all" mentality is toxic. The admin kept bring up car industries and how "well, it's not worth targeting them bc they have nothing to do with maps".).

The last and final hint was the norbert/nelson thing. I don't really know 'why', but they really didn't help much or handle it as well as they should've. They had an article about it under the page about them, and they made a half effort meme, which honestly, most people would just glaze over. From what I can tell and remember, they kept saying how irl protests don't work and how "we're not there yet". I left newgon forever, leaving one of the admins I was in a somewhat down spiraling relationship with, with the thought that I probably killed myself.

My one of my biggest disappointment now are four things: The guy who was supposed to make the book about norbert and nelson died, and newgon never had plans on continuing his work; A friend of mine wanted them to do mutual aid, but from his words, newgon in short rejected the idea; I tried starting a conversation on what irl youths need, they then banned me for what essentially meant 'rocking the boat'; and finally, just them being anti-trans and supporting the incel map notion of love meaning sex uber alles. Sigh.

After attempt and attempt of trying to persuade them to be different, I got tired of being rejected, ignored, and banned. I just felt betrayed. And so, I stopped trying with newgon. If I could go back in time, I would probably have tried harder to convince them to be different, infact, I kinda blame myself for abandoning them so soon. One if my biggest regrets is that if I stayed as an admin, I might've been able to change their mind.

("Newgon admin" refers the fact that he had created a space on the Yesmap server for discussing his radical anti-capitalist ideas, and thus was a space admin for a space on the Yesmap server.)

In a later part of the ensuing thread, the following exchange occurred:

@[email protected] (a friend of doublejjackson's):

I see the "efforts" getting undermined by authoritarians and anti-c tankies to be rather unfounded if Anarchist strategy with a clean slate was pursued. This is already what is happening anyway and the organisation isn't even slightly anarchist, not that I am aware of. On the contrary, more pro-cs would probably join the cause because of it, even if you people don't implement a fully "anarchist" approach.

As it is right now, there's at least a meaningful proportion of pro-cs who does not like Newgon/PCMA at all and the anti-cs absolutely abhor what you people are. If activism was left behind by you guys then I'm glad that's the case, but if "a discussion group is to ever come into order" you have a great deal of "reform" to do indeed.

@[email protected]:

The only thing Tumblr-MAPs were successful in doing was disrupting its ability to outrage reactionary hiveminds - the work I was doing.

The discussion group itself is still active and more unmoderated than ever.

You don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about, do you?

@[email protected]:

Do YOU? Not even a single time did I mention the Tumblr people, nor am I associated with them. Once again, you fail to comprehend ANYTHING I say. I had enough.

@[email protected]:

You are one and the same.

@[email protected]:

Reading comprehension moment. Typical Newgoner. And this is why your organisation will fail.

@[email protected]:

I do not care much for the views of an inactivist.

@[email protected]:

Huh? Bro, all you do is alienate more and more people. You are the fed/glowie here. You're [sic] alt-right/far-right group is why maps are handicapped to be, well, problematic. If you'd just listen to what we're trying to say, you'll find that we're being more than reasonable.

Also, please do not call us 'inactive'. We are people who are going through alot, so sorry if we do not make the time to become burnt out on twitter trolling.

Edi: I also want to say, that some of us are still suffering from the childhood abuse your organization refuses to address or handle.

@[email protected]:

Who indoctrinated you into this victim bc [sic]?

As can be seen, the most directly aggressive ad hominem here occurs at the very end of the thread, after doublejjackson has discussed struggling from childhood abuse, which makes adhering to Newgon's expectations harder. Jim replies with no further content but a single contemptuous question, assuming that a child abuse survivor who says they are a child abuse survivor must have been "indoctrinated" into believing "victim [bs?]" (i.e., that they have been a victim—which is factually true—that life is harder for them because of it—clearly true—and that they have a right to speak about it and be respected and accommodated with it—also true).

This mirrors a common pattern among former members disillusioned with Newgon: being drawn in and misled into thinking it is a good organization, being repeatedly confronted with reactionism and/or malicious behavior, repeatedly trying to persuade them to improve, having one's proposals for change being repeatedly rejected, and then finally giving up and leaving, whereupon it no longer sees value in the member and becomes openly hostile, rude, and condescending to punish the dissent.

On its page "Debate Guide: Newgon's History," Newgon displays an image captioned "An example of some of the banter-level nonsense that must persist on pediverse due to the deliberate spreading of misinformation." It contains screenshots of two NNIA replies to someone else by Lecter: "I recommend against citing Newgon uncritically. Their page you linked has multiple bigoted entries. While trying to call out mapmisia, they sometimes fall into misogyny, fatphobia, fascist 'anti degenerate' rhetoric." and "I'm aware some people are trying to fix this, and I expect to see bigoted content removed sometime in the following months. Till now, though, it's a questionable source."

@[email protected] replied,

@comrade_lecter @[redacted] Jim Burton here [Strategist], again intervening to correct misinfo from NNIA, and confirming there are no plans to remove some of the memes from Newgon.net because they, or those who designed them are deemed "problematic".

Nor is that even a consideration for my oversight, as the page referred to exists as a *mirror* for the broadest possible conversation.

Lecter would know this. Since one of the very first memes we published on that index was not only one of his, but one I *explicitly disagree with*, and I made that point when uploading it.

Then idea that we cannot work effectively with people [and even ideas] we sometimes strongly disagree with is unhelpful, and fast becoming an embarrassing cliche of certain younger intellectually dogmatic parts of the Pediverse that engage with others of their own ilk, but not members of the wider public.

Please do better for yourself.

He quote-posted his own reply several minutes later to say "Once again, to correct this nonsense being deliberately peddled into other spaces."

Lecter was not misinformed. That there were "no plans to remove some of the memes from Newgon.net because they, or those who designed them are deemed 'problematic'" was true for Strategist, who certainly had no such notions, but he was not the only member of Newgon at the time. The "some people" was not including him. There was at least one member who promised in private to try for changes removing bigoted and abuse-apologist content, especially instances of harmful rhetoric targeting specific known survivors, defending adultist abuse of youth. They did not successfully remove any bigotry from Newgon because they were shot down by the leadership. Months afterward, they expressed dissatisfaction with Newgon's management and that they were on a hiatus from Newgon activity because of its issues. Changes attempting to scale back some small amounts of bigotry only began to occur long after, when the bigotry began to be more frequently and permanently documented in public, e.g. on this wiki page.

In PCMA, there were originally some small contingents of people relatively friendly to the idea of youth liberation. These pro-c's clashed with anti-c youth liberationists and anti-c interpretations of youth liberation. They also tended to conflate pedophilia with adult-child sexual contact and regard condemnation of one as condemnation of the other, so they lumped in anti-c youth liberationists with anti-maps. Some tried to appeal to non-map anti-c youth liberationists or map allies as part of Newgon's broader campaign to win over more people to its pro-c and pro-map causes. The workgroup with the most responsibility with this was "LCAA," a private subsection/chat for PCMA members with a specific anarchist and youth liberationist orientation, in contrast with the alt-right edginess and hostility to leftism more prevalent throughout the rest. Core Newgon members would sometimes recruit and direct newcoming anarchist/youth liberation-leaning individuals to LCAA to better suit their ideals. However, according to more recent news, LCAA seems to be mostly defunct by now. Anti- youth liberation hostility crowded out even the most well-meaning youth liberationism even when it was allotted a separate space to pursue divergent goals, as the rightwing culture and toxic norms of the community predominated.

• 
• 

The first screenshot demonstrates how PCMA members could mostly tolerate non-pro-c and non- contact-discourse-participating youth liberationists if they remained appearing to be neutral or didn't say anything anti-c, but if they began to express an opinion, especially if they stuck to it and fought for it, PCMA would quickly turn hostile and view the person as an enemy instead of an ally, e.g. in this early 2023 discussion of the Twitter anti-c youth liberationist celebrity kid (who is not a part of the paraphilia communities). poikarn90 uses the term "victimological" to describe their view that children are "sexually available to adults" as a result of adultism. PCMA members deny the claim as merely a form of mapmisia, although celebrity kid arrived at that conclusion based on the evidently high rates of child sexual abuse by adults in society according to research and lived experiences. The Newgon Strategist suggested tactics to try to win them over, perceiving their youth liberationist views as providing an inherent "adjacency" to pro-contactism. In the part of the conversation shown in the second screenshot, the rhetoric became overtly toxic, as Strategist misgendered celebrity kid (a nonbinary person) as "he" (although their Twitter profile very clearly stated that their pronouns are "it/they," and others in the server managed to gender them correctly) and suggested guilt-tripping them with their own values to "tease" them for adopting "CSA victimology." That Strategist can be so casual about weaponizing anti-adultist social norms in youth liberationist spaces, which could minimize people's trust in and willingness to adhere to them, shows how he cares more about his/Newgon's own agendas than being considerate to youth issues. Elsewhere, his lack of consideration/willingness to sabotage youth liberation efforts has been even more clear. The more moderate, less hostile members of the above discussion have since diminished in influence in Newgon/PCMA. Without many (relatively) serious youth liberation advocates left, in the months following, (more) overt neo-Nazism took hold in Newgon/PCMA, as well as normalized acceptance of overt adultism/opposition to youth liberation.

(On June 17, 2024, in yet another complaint about celebrity kid's Twitter youth liberation activism, Strategist/JohnHolt/Jim Burton misgendered them with "his" pronouns again, this time in a BoyChat post.)

Regarding LCAA, Jim Burton has said:

Now on to the Yesmap server (this is what I, NEWGON, fund).

During my time running Matrix on that server, I put out repeated appeals, showing I was willing to help set up separate workgroups:

1. For left-wing initiatives.
2. For youth-rights initiatives.
3. For Libertarian-right initiatives
4. For anti-c's initiatives and anything related to differing discourse.

I clarified those positions on Fedi.

As it happened, ONE such initiative sparked into life.

This was a left-wing, pro-youth-lib group for which there were two members of staff (Spaceheater and Tristen) willing to permanently maintain it. I do not remember this being during your time, but it lasted for a few months before they gave up on it.

This group planned to do the following:

1. Set up a website.
2. Mail a letter to people incarcerated for sexual offenses (I helped draft it and have a copy)
3. Organize youth-rights initiatives.

It only got so-far as 1. , which I believe came to nothing. There was no demand for this group, nor any clarity as to how MAPs could help with youth-rights organizing without endangering it, or endangering themselves.

It will have been clear that such a group existed, and I was providing server space for it to exist. But nothing comes of it, because once again MAPs have no will to do even anonymous activism.

This is the letter I mention, as drafted by LCAA under Yesmap letterhead (their insistence) and cleaned up by myself. It got no further - whoever was finding the recipients gave up and the group folded/became inactive.

https://wiki.yesmap.net/wiki/images/LCAA_Yesmap_Registrant_Letter.pdf

Unlike in the above now-burnt-out initiatives, many PCMA members openly look down on the concept of youth liberation and youth liberation movements. For example, in one discussion of youth liberation, one person compared youth liberationists to "MRAs" (Men's Rights Activists) and complained that "they keep bitching about everything and anything" rather than only caring about a single issue, such as PCMA's "one and very clearly defined goal, that is to reduce the Age of Consent." satoko replied, "those who proclaim the ideology of 'youth liberation' are almost invariably cringe" and "it's a gay buzzword." They clarified that they were using "gay" in the homophobic sense, as in derogatory slang "used to express dislike: 'lame, uncool, stupid, burdensome, contemptible, generally bad.'"

• 

  A PCMA discussion on youth liberation

Ethnonationalism

Antisemitism

Newgon uses antisemitic caricatures in attempt to prove its points. One of its "Memes and Graphics" is tagged with the antisemitic dogwhistle "lizard people".

In attempt to deflect from accusations of having a "New-Right/Alt-Lite Philosophy," Newgon says that it has metaphorically "'holocausted' antisemites and a whole variety of race-obsessed people, including some left-wing racists immediately," comparing violent mass genocide to (supposedly) banning someone from a chatroom.

In its "Archive" page of material it believes "has value," Newgon recommends the defunct Wordpress blog "Holocaust21" to read for the "Antifeminist perspective". The version of the blog saved on the Wayback Machine proclaims that it was about "resisting the coming 21st century holocaust – Men's Rights, Youth Rights, Sexual Rights" and "promoting the idea that teenagers are adults and feminist inspired anti-sex & anti-children's rights legislation cloaked in the warped rhetoric of 'paedophile hysteria', 'rape hysteria' & 'child protection' is leading to a holocaust of men, kids & ironically even women. Why are there so few other blogs like this? Because men are scared of being murdered by feminist political predators, that's why." One article visible on the page begins, "As the UK descends further into a level of insanity that even those who lived through a Nazi concentration camp could not have predicted, the feminists have committed their first direct political assassination. The current wave of sexual harassment allegations…" This page, promoted by Newgon, appropriates the history of the Holocaust and Nazi concentration camps in its crusade against "feminist bitches," "the feminist disease," and "feminist oppression" of "incels".

PCMA members like to promote the notion of the "ZOG" ("Zionist Occupied Government"), an antisemitic conspiracy theory about an alleged shadowy international Jewish cabal controlling Western governments. One user even uses the antisemitic k-slur to refer to members of this "ZOG," whom he alleges use "special powers" to "defend Jewish interests."

• 

  Search results for "ZOG" in the PCMA server

• 

  Another "ZOG" comment

The casual use of the k-slur is common in PCMA. See, for example:

• 

  Antisemitic from the start.

PCMA welcomes Nazi imagery and memes. In one instance, a user made an edit of four anime girls in Nazi uniforms superimposed on the Newgon inverted map flag edit. Another user, "Sōryū," replied with an edit of the third Nazi character over Stenna's general map flag. Sōryū posted a meme of the "Brazil Mentioned" meme template, featuring the character Yui Hirasawa from the anime K-ON! celebrating with a bottle of champagne in her right hand, edited so that she is saying "Columbine mentioned." "Columbine" is a reference to the mass shooting at Columbine High School in the USA in 1999, perpetrated by Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, murdering twelve students and one teacher and wounding twenty-four others. Both shooters admired Nazis and held Nazi beliefs. Yui's bottle has been labeled "propane cocktail bomb," a reference to the Molotov cocktails and propane bombs the two attempted to use in the attack. The glass normally in her left hand has been replaced with a gun, and she wears a hat which says "I ❤️ Dylan." Her clothing has been edited into a white t-shirt with the text "Natural Selection" on it in black, like the shirt Harris wore during the attack. "Natural selection"/survival of the fittest was also a frequent motif in Harris's writings as he advocated eugenicist views and mass murder of disabled people, partly inspired by the Nazis.

Another person replied to the meme, saying "Lanza is goated." "Lanza" is a reference to "Adam Lanza," a school shooter who murdered twenty young children and adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the US in 2012. "Goated" is slang meaning that something is considered the "greatest of all time". A non-insignificant fascist sector of PCMA seems to worship school shooters and treat the mass murder of children very casually, along with other forms of violence against children.

• 

  PCMA Nazism and school shooter worship

Many PCMA members agree with antisemitic conspiracy theories, including blood libel, but may add a pro-contact twist to the traditional claim, blaming Jews for higher age-of-consent laws.

• 

  "We're not antisemitic, but (we're actually antisemitic)"

Similarly, in the below screenshot, user "zera35" claims that "zionists invented cp" (given the context of the reply, most likely as in the concept of child pornography in terms of it being a category to condemn, not the child pornography itself). Another user replies, "Nope. That were 'feminists' and conservatives." They also make a strange (arguably questionable, given the context) claim that Zionism equals "islam-fundamentalism." zera35 replies with what was probably intended as a negative commentary on leftism or leftist movements ("leftims"). When the term "Zionist" is used in a pejorative sense to refer in overbroad, vague, conspiratorial terms to negative events unrelated to the actual ideology of Zionism, it is generally an antisemitic far-right dogwhistle blaming an alleged international Jewish conspiracy for some perceived social ill.

• 

Through the Newgon Wiki, the moderators of PCMA released an "official statement on the 2023 conflict between Israel and Palestine" packed with numerous antisemitic tropes, dogwhistles, factual inaccuracies, and problematic arguments, exploiting the current Palestinian genocide to spread antisemitism. Among these include the wildly revisionist claim that "It should be noted that all scholars of the Holocaust acknowledge that the decision to annihilate European Jews and the planning to carry it out was kept top secret by the Nazi state. No statement from Hitler, public or otherwise, exists where he admits his intention to exterminate the Jewish people entirely. At this late date, we can say with firm confidence that such a statement will never be found; one also struggles with great difficulty to find openly genocidal public statements from other top Nazis," and suddenly inserting the claim that the French president Emmanuel Macron is "a former Rothschild banker," drawing on common antisemitic tropes. They attempt to exceptionalize genocide perpetrated by Israelis as uniquely and incomparably horrific among all other genocides and Israeli settler-colonialism as uniquely protected and powerful out of a false, antisemitic belief that Jewishness would lend special, unmatchable, overwhelmingly stifling strength to a state because Jews are somehow disproportionately powerful in society and have control over Western governments.

One of the signatories of the statement, "AnonymousLover," has made it more clear in social media posts that he believes anti-Israeli speech is censored and Western nations enact repression in support of Israel's violence because "Jewish billionaires and voters across the West largely support Israel.… Israeli intelligence is effective because Israel has Jewish sympathizers throughout the world it can draw on" and that Israel's backers in the American establishment are "super rich Jews." He dismisses the notion of critiquing antisemitic conspiracy theories and argues that posts claiming "anti-zionism isn't antisemitism" are merely "cope posts" (i.e., false), but indicates that he considers himself anti-Zionist, which implies he is admitting that he is antisemitic.

Racism/white supremacy

Newgon refers to Indigenous peoples as "primitive". It takes issue with the fact that "most online MAPs, particularly of the younger generation, strongly reject ethnonationalist ideology and wish not to be associated with it in any way, nor even to share a space with it," arguing that "ethnonationalist ideology" is insufficiently harmful to warrant such ostracism. It claims that "non-violent" "white identitarianism" should be considered a valid "freedom of conscience".

The Newgon member "GothboyAL" (a.k.a. AnonymousLover/anonymousluverrr) has often casually and cordially interacted with open far-right white supremacist fascists, including members of the neo-Nazi cunnyborea.space pediverse instance. For example:

• 

  Nazis.

In PCMA, anonymousluverrr proclaims himself a "race realist":

• 

  Nazi discussion in PCMA

PCMA member "broken_lightbulb" says of anarchism:

anarchism is neat but it gets a bit too woke for me

ime [in my experience] when i was in an anarchist server it felt like i had to walk on eggshells so i didnt "appropriate aave" or something really mundane

or be "ableist" by saying that having 30 different voices in your head is a bad thing

"Woke" is "a political slang adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) originally meaning alertness to racial prejudice and discrimination. Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism, and denial of LGBT rights.... By 2020, the term became a sarcastic pejorative among many on the political right and some centrists in Western countries, targeting various leftist and progressive movements. Woke was seen as offensive by commentators who felt it disparaged advocates of identity and race-related ideologies" (specifically, racist or otherwise bigoted ones). "Woke," when used as a pejorative, is a typical right-wing, racist dogwhistle, as is complaining that social movements against antiblackness are excessively powerful and censorious/unfair to perceived antiblack racists (ableism, and complaints about anti-ableism efforts, are also likewise bigoted and reactionary).

• 

  broken_lightbulb's comments

In a conversation in the PCMA server, multiple individuals made racist comments about Indian people, promoting harmful stereotypes:

• 

  PCMA discussion promoting racism against Indians

In another conversation in PCMA, multiple individuals, including one of its moderators ("HinamizawaShokogun22"), positively discussed a fediverse user with the username "AryanBoylover1488." ("1488" is a well-known Nazi dogwhistle.) One user (broken_lightbulb) said, "aryanboylover1488 sounds like a cool guy I wonder what their takes on race are." Hina replied, "he did support israel," posted a screenshot of a report on one of AryanBoylover1488's posts, and said, "this isn't what got him banned, it was hilarious af."

• 

  PCMA members discussing AryanBoylover1488 and racist comments about Palestinians

• 

  The screenshot

The screenshot shows AryanBoylover1488 saying,

"I stand with Israel because they are white. It's that simple. If I see a video of a white person being killed by a non-white person, my complete and full support is toward the white person. Leftists and libtards constantly call Israelis white colonizers and call for the end to Israel because of it."

The post contained a meme image with one individual accusing, "Y..y…you are anti white!" and another responding with a Hebrew approximation of the letters "TND", a far-right antiblack acronym standing for "Total [n-slur] Death".

Other instances of racism against Palestinians from users permitted on the server include various genocide-apologist messages sent by an Israeli user:

• 

  Israeli in PCMA glorifies Israel; other user agrees

• 

  Israeli in PCMA posts racist and genocidal memes; no one intervenes

• 

  Auto-translation of the first meme's Hebrew text

• 

  The second meme

• 

  Auto-translation of the second meme

• 

  The third meme

• 

  Auto-translation of the third meme

• 

  Auto-translation of the fourth meme

• 

  Israeli in PCMA jumps in following a racist conversation, posts a meme where one person says "Palestinians" and then he and another person throw their heads back and laugh

The user was not penalized in any way.

In light of this, it appears additionally insidious and hypocritical that Newgon chose to host a reactionary statement feigning genuine concern for the plight of the Palestinian people, when elsewhere its members are perfectly willing and permitted to endorse violent racism against them as well as other non-white people.

The statement also encourages harmful and racist views toward the Palestinian struggle by denying the crucial role of Western geopolitical interests in motivating state support for the Israeli occupation, instead implying that Israel is only supported by the West because it is a Jewish state and that meaningful oppression is only enacted based on supposed Jewish interests. It claims that "Israel is not an asset to the US or the EU even from the perspective of their own strategic resource-based interests, but a massive strategic liability. And real discussion of that point is not only systemically kept out of the media, but gate-kept out of even pro-Palestinian leftist spaces by politically-correct leftists". AnonymousLover/GothboyAL makes this sentiment even more clear in a childlove.space post which completely denies Israel's importance to U.S. foreign policy or that "Israel is a White Supremacist State," calling these "politically correct room temperature leftist takes". These comments utilize the right-wing trope of complaining about leftist "political correctness," a line strongly associated in the current political climate with racists who believe that a "cancel culture" unfairly stifles racist speech and portray racial minorities as the ones who ultimately control society and discourse (or a Jewish cabal which promotes the interests of racial minorities). By trying to shift pro-Palestinian activism further to the right, trying to graft an ultimately white supremacist framework onto a struggle against white supremacist oppression, as individuals notorious for a history of other racist behavior themselves, the writers and signatories of the Newgon statement take efforts which would divert and weaken pro-Palestinian activism if they took hold, discouraging people from correctly identifying the causes of Palestinian oppression and thus effectively fighting against it. Their denial of the white supremacy in play in Israel's genocidal campaign and Western endorsement of it when white supremacy is in fact present amounts to apologia for white supremacy and Western imperialism.

The statement says, "It appears that the European elite cares more for the state of Israel than it does about Democracy, Free Speech, or even their own countries! Citizens and residents of Britain, France, and Germany appear to be free to denounce their countries as racist colonialist oppressors with no redeeming qualities that should be burned to the ground but when it comes to Israel? Now that's a different story!", showing a dismissive attitude toward the struggles of other racialized peoples, portraying them as much more safe and privileged than they actually are, and downplaying the tremendous oppression which the European colonial powers have enacted and continue to enact upon them.

Further callous exploitation of Palestinian trauma can be observed as the statement veers from criticizing U.S. President Joe Biden's backing of the genocide to attacking the Democrats for introducing a bill "that ends the statute of limitations at the national scale for real and perceived victims of CSA." The statement subtly invalidates CSA survivors by claiming that accusers falsely "perceive" abuse where there was none. It tries to portray accused child sexual abusers as widely disadvantaged, threatened, and oppressed and assumes an automatic, necessary connection between child sexual abuse perpetrators (or individuals who would be accused of CSA) and "real or perceived MAPs" (and refuses to allow the possibility that it could be anyone else). The authors weaponize genuine Palestinian grievances to shoehorn in a reactionary, fearmongering agenda against an imagined threat of widespread false CSA accusations and unjust legal ruin, using language which promotes bigotry against both CSA survivors and maps. They clumsily attempt to appeal to an audience of "MAPs" (whom they seem to conflate with CSA perpetrators, aspiring perpetrators, apologists, and/or a group functionally indistinguishable from actual perpetrators) and portray themselves as heroic representatives of a heroic, homogenous demographic of "MAPs" because "That the decision to release a statement on the Israel-Palestine conflict met unanimous assent from our moderation team is a solid indication of where MAPs stand," with a contrived argument that their posturing about Israel is specifically relevant to map issues (which they conflate with preservation of CSA's hegemonic status, along with several things that are actually children's issues, although interpreted through a narrow and ultimately anti-child lens) because "MAPs and all caring people should note that Gaza's population is extremely young, with 44% of the population being 14 or below. The planned expulsion and even extermination of at least a million children should provoke outrage and hatred in every child lover.… MAPs should refuse to fight wars for a system that hates them, especially wars on behalf of Israel. MAPs should speak out against child killers, including the child killers of the Netanyahu government" and that "MAPs residing in Western countries" apparently will likely be "propagandized or drafted to fight in this escalating conflict" so they apparently needed to share a dissuading "statement"—all while doing nearly as much as they can to back ideologies and policies which would actually harm children, especially Palestinian children.

At various times, other PCMA members have praised the statement in discussions, completely overlooking its problematic aspects such as its racism, antisemitism, child sexual abuse apologia, and overall ignorance. During one such discussion, another member—a self-proclaimed "anti-Semite"—criticized the choice to publish the statement and made genocidal comments about the Palestinian people.

• 

  Antisemitic, philosemitic, conspiratorial, promoting spurious myths about Jewishness and CSA, and anti-Palestinian—all at once!

Months later, none of the above messages have been altered or removed. Very few were even condemned at all by any other user—none when the person was a popular, more regular, or longer-term member. No action was taken against any of them by the moderation. All of the aforementioned racists remained in the server and were permitted to carry on with activities in the group without especial notice or concern.

PCMA members are also often Islamophobic. For example, in one discussion, two users, milow_ and HandsomeJack, complained about Muslim communities and Islam, making light of their religion and portraying them as problematic wholesale, e.g. because "Islam is more focused on God than getting a cute loli GF." milow also says, "But you know, I think we should outreach and associate with Muslims more. They are becoming the majority." Muslims are not remotely the "majority" of the population, nor are they "becoming the majority," although this is a common Islamophobic claim, based on the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory. Even if a false claim based on racist premises and normally promoted for racist purposes is not explicitly accompanied by expressions of hatred or aggressive antagonism, it is still racist. To add insult to injury, another user claims they passed out copies of the PCMA mods' shallow, racist, antisemitic, child sexual abuse apologist "statement on Gaza" "to people at the March on Washington, who were largely Muslims," seemingly seeing no problem or conflict with Muslim people's interests in this "statement." They reply to milow's comment about Muslim outreach but completely brush over the blatant Islamophobia in the rest of that discussion. Islamophobia seems unremarkable to PCMA.

• 

  PCMA Islamophobia

Fatphobia/body-shaming

Newgon also frequently uses fatphobia and other body-shaming. Some examples also involve insulting an opponent's lifestyle as "unhealthy" and "unnatural", or even using fascist terminology such as "degenerate," "mental defective," and "inferior physiognomy".

Ableism

Newgon has taken part in spreading incorrect information about a subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder that causes intrusive sexual thoughts about children and claimed it can be equated to finding children attractive.

• 

  A Newgon graphic

Newgon claims that Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a "fanciful idea" "formerly or presently promoted to aid in categorizing 'ideal' victims and perpetrators". While labeling the (mapmisic) anti-CSA psychologist Joyanna Silberg as a "hostile" "pseudoscientist" and "unsympathetic activist" in its page of people who have "spread misinformation about pedophiles or promoted the ideology of Child Sexual Abuse in public," Newgon cites as its reasoning that she is an "advocate of Dissociative identity Disorder". Newgon recommends Bruce Rind's analysis that the Leadership Council, a (mapmisic) organization Silberg is a member of, provides inaccurate information about mental health issues because its members "advocate for the validity of repressed memories and multiple personality disorder (MPD)," labeling these as "alleged" problems. Newgon states that it has a "skeptical treatment of DID, a highly controversial and lucrative diagnosis whose purported existence is likely a function of personality types and sociogenic factors, rather than the traumas said to underpin it".

• 

  Strategist elaborating on his DID-denialist views

• 

  Ableist stalking/targeted harassment of a system

Newgon uses the term "mentally retarded" to refer to cognitively disabled people. Newgon hosts an image file "Retards.png," titled "Retarded or perturbed pedophile myth," and titled in the graphic itself as "The Retarded and Perturbed… 'Pedophile Degenerate.'" The text of the graphic seems to be trying to prove that pedophiles are more acceptable and less "degenerate" because they have relatively "normal" or greater intellectual capacities and executive functioning. In a guide to "Social Media and Trolling," Newgon recommends that users insult an opponent as "mid-witted, with an IQ between 80 and 110" and "retarded". Newgon says of two antis, "Achievement 'retard' unlocked".

Generally, according to Newgon's ideology, adult-youth sexual involvement is not harmful or abusive, and to bolster this claim, Newgon argues that these cases are usually mild, nonviolent, and basically normal, contrary to the popular stereotypes of all such behavior involving an extremely violent, threatening, deviant adult, which is allegedly required to sustain a view that all of it is wrong. Newgon does sometimes acknowledge that "real abuse" involving "actual" nonconsent or violence occurs sometimes, though it generally claims these events are rare, outliers to the norm, carried out by a few deviant individuals, or unfortunate mistakes resulting from adults being "driven" to abuse by society's allegedly excessive stigmatization of CSA or other unrelated situational stress factors. Since it lacks a political analysis of child sexual abuse as a function of oppression, it instead tends to choose a class of "psychopaths" to scapegoat for more "extreme" intentional offenses, believing that a mental illness or neurodivergence such as "psychopathy" must uniformly be their cause, such as in this sentence: "Psychopathic crimes are of course a completely different class from the aforementioned two, and thankfully very rare." Newgon has an entire research page dedicated to buttressing its ableist, biased views about "psychopathy" and other "abnormal psychology" or mental illnesses being problematic and tying mental normality or healthiness to virtue.

Newgon's article "Debate Guide: Abuse of language," which argues that "child sexual abuse" is a problematic term which manipulates people into authoritarianism, contains the following:

See Wiki: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak Newspeak].

[[File:1984.png|thumb|[[Wikipedia:Nineteen Eighty-Four|Nineteen Eighty-Four]]]]

While [[Debate Guide: Misdefinitions and Rhetorical Manipulation|misdefinition]] and rhetoric may expose some degree of abuse, this article will deal briefly with associations found within phrases (or "slogans") of the CSA advocacy movement.

Abuse of language - for example, Newspeak and phrases with false associations can often be found in the [[Child Sexual Abuse|CSA]] and pedo-hysteria discourses. Contrast, for example with retailers and advertisers taking advantage of retail therapy, which associates spending with a higher state of consciousness.

Now let's look at [[Child Sexual Abuse|CSA]] ( child | sexual | abuse ).

• Consider each word independently:

• Each of these words is loaded with and defined by present day social values.
• Each of these words has a definite visceral impact. Each pulls at an emotion.
• Yet when we read it out as one, not one of these emotions is triggered per se. We just "know" what CSA is (thru [sic] imagery), know that it is "wrong" and know that virtually everyone agrees that it is wrong.

By combining these three highly emotive things (childhood, sex, psychopathy), into a banal, medicolegal concept, we institutionalize a set of visceral reactions within an authoritative belief system.

Broken down into its constituent parts, a term such as ( child | sexual | abuse ) contains far too many overheated social contingencies to be a serious, scientific concept with good external validity. However as "CSA", it reads so easily that we don't have to think twice, to know exactly what it is.<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness Truthiness]</ref>

You might also want to consider 'sex abuse', 'sexually perverse' and 'sexually violent' along similar lines. If two different things such as sexuality and psychopathy can become gramatically intertwined, and the phrase is repeated enough, ways of thinking can be altered on a social scale.

Its conflation of abuse with "psychopathy" is ableist.

Jim Burton (a.k.a. Strategist/JohnHolt)'s old Wikipedia user page, archived on the Newgon Wiki, also makes a similar ableist comment, trying to portray a group of people as deserving of respect or superior because they are not "psychopathic" or mentally ill:

Personally, I communicate with pedophiles on a regular basis, and speaking from experience, I can assure others that they are ultimately like any other people. They only make up a small fraction of child sex offenders, being on the whole, perfectly capable of staying within the law - even if they don't agree with it. The pedophiles that I know show no signs of psychopathy or mental disorder; some even making excellent Wiki editors and admins! The assertions that I make here are not only backed up with anecdotal evidence, but in formal studies and statistics provided by academics, law enforcement and even endorsed by organisations as high (and supposedly anti) as the British Home Office.

(emphasis added)

Now, on BoyChat, JohnHolt insults "woke ASPD antisocial activists off Fedi". He tries to denigrate and discredit various left-leaning map activists for supposedly being so-called "psychopaths" and attacks them for identifying as mentally ill. On June 7, 2024, JohnHolt published a diatribe attempting to debunk Lecter's anti-contact youth liberationist positions which devolved into ad hominems attacking him for having ASPD (antisocial personality disorder) and blaming this for allegedly bad activism. The Newgon Wiki attempts to denigrate and discredit Iris for describing themself as mentally ill. It insults its critics for supposedly having "OCD character traits".

One of the "Informational memes" on the "Memes and Graphics" page, titled "Minors Beware" and tagged with "antis," "warning," "minors," "consent," "advice," "youth," and "guide", says,

MINORS - BEWARE THESE RED FLAGS! 🚩

Please memorize these red flags for sex-phobic, ageist hysteria. They will help you avoid mentally disturbed and manipulative personalities online."

🚩1: Those who refer to your or someone else's relationship as "grooming" or "harmful".

Their goal is to invalidate your freedom of choice and lived experiences. In other words, "gaslighting".

Newgon claims that "mentally disturbed" people are inherently to be avoided, conflating mental illness or pathology with being "manipulative" or problematic, and scapegoating them for perceived harms caused by anti-contact ideology along with various talking points popularly associated with anti-contact ideology.

It is also notable that Newgon claims any instance of someone else telling a minor a relationship is grooming or harmful is "mentally disturbed," "manipulative," engaging in "sex-phobic" "ageist hysteria," displaying a red flag, and dangerous, as if abusive, coerced, or forced relationships do not exist, as if no one at all would be helped instead of harmed by ever being told their or someone else's relationship is grooming or harmful. This implies that Newgon believes grooming and harmful relationships simply do not exist, and that any attempt at criticizing a relationship (even one clearly constraining a person's freedom of choice and causing suppression or erasure of their own subjectivity and lived experiences) would actually constitute an attack on freedom. It seems to be implying that victims of abusive relationships and gaslighting should simply be left to struggle on their own with indifferent bystanders instead of having access to help, any attempts at which would instead be an excuse to diagnose the critical individual as hysterical or insane.

The fifth "red flag" listed on the meme is "Those who group voluntary relationships and abusive relationships together": "They are not the same. If they attempted this with adult relationships, they would be accused of trivializing abuse." Yet, hypocritically, Newgon in fact does this itself in its first line, with no regard for any minors encountering the infographic who may be experiencing abusive relationships, who would suffer less harm if they were able to escape but might discard this option after being discouraged from heeding any critiques of their relationship.

According to a BoyChat post by JohnHolt, also the uploader of this meme on the wiki, he apparently believes this is a serious behavioral "guide for minors" providing meaningful and insightful advice.

Intracommunity bigotry

Paramisia

Newgon is dismissive of paraphilic identity labels it perceives as "new," "fringe," or based on "social justice theory".

• 

  Newgon invalidating zoosadism pride and a newly-coined chronophilia label

JohnHolt takes issue with NNIA for "celebrating" various paraphilic identities, including "erotophonophilia," "biastophilia," "biastomaps," "aptomaps" (maps attracted to the concept of "grooming"), and "zoosadism".

• 

  JohnHolt invalidating paraphilias

After seeing JohnHolt's post, the NNIA user who had coined "aptophilia" and "aptomap" discussed Newgon's paramisia. @[email protected], a fediverse account used by JohnHolt, quoted the thread with derogatory commentary. Newgon also hosts an image file with a caption accusing fediverse users who discuss aptophilia positively of being "disruptors".

• 

  on aptophilia

• 

  Newgon members misrepresenting aptophilia

• 

  Newgon commentary on aptophilia

Newgon attempts to denigrate and discredit Map Wiki editor Iris for being a "self-describing biastophile (rape fetishist), and sadist - including in relation to animals". Newgon continues to promote conspiratorial "suspicion" about the coining of and creation of a flag for aptophilia, as well as the zoosadist identity. Newgon claims that rape fetishist or biastophilic maps are even more problematic than Nazis/fascist maps.

Mapmisia

JohnHolt claims that boylovers "are not persecuted as a group" and "are rarely persecuted as individuals," and is dismissive of "online groups of people with shared trauma" from mapmisic abuse who believe this statement does not reflect reality. To elaborate on this, the article references a BoyChat post titled "BL 'persecution' clown complex" where JohnHolt says that "Boy Lovers are not being 'persecuted', and never have been. If you believe this shit, calm down, and realize that you are part of a culture war and not a real war." He claims antis "want [boylovers] to survive and prosper" and that boylovers "will probably go through life with nothing worse than a lonely boner." He accuses boylovers who reject "working with people they hate," "don't understand" that positive change "will necessarily be gradual," and do not "support gradualist initiatives" of "refusing to reconcile radical philosophy with moderate demands" and "not behaving rationally". Newgon's "Ethos" page also describes its organizational approach as "radical philosophy, moderate demands".

Anti-radqueer views

Newgon is disdainful toward radqueers and believes them to be insufficiently serious, as shown in a recent thread where the Newgon Strategist argued with several radqueer fediverse users.

Strategist has a tendency to condescendingly offer "advice" and "help" on how to do activism to community members of opposing and unaffiliated political sub-factions, then express incredulity and resentment when they inevitably refuse him, although it is clear that any "advice" or "help" he offers is filtered through his own ideological biases or an active attempt to co-opt a dissenting trend into being more manageable for Newgon which would clearly go against their own values and goals. In the aforementioned thread, he mentioned he has done this to anti-c's and radqueers: "Ah, that's a shame. I offered the anti-c's free hosting - they refused. And now the 'radqueers'". The issue of Newgon/Strategist offering unhelpful activism "advice" which would have them copy Newgon's methods and become more like it has already been analyzed and memed by anti-c's, e.g.:

• 

In the thread arguing with radqueers, Strategist also tried this tactic of arrogantly giving out unsolicited "Free advice" about how radqueer politics allegedly work/can work better. In the meantime, he insulted their community multiple times:

Free advice: Here's what separates MAPs in 2007 from radqueers in 2024, and why one of them has become a success and attracts high quality individuals.

Social Invalidation vs Identity.

Your community needs to center social invalidation when choosing its allies, and drawing its battle lines.

You can be radically queer, you can be invalid, you can have it all. As long as you are fighting for something people *actually give a damn about in the real world*. Something of substance - a life or death matter.

i.e., effectively labeling radqueers as unsuccessful, low-quality individuals, and fighting for something without substance that people don't actually care about in the real world. ("MAPs in 2007" is a reference to Newgon and adjacent map activists during the time period around its founding.)

But on that topic [playing pranks], he [Lecter] just about sums you up. To be something of import, something of substance, you need to get over your lecter-ass, fandom-tier allergy to the *real world*.

You can have your radqueer, you can have your wheelchairquior warrior complex, as long as you have your *priorities*.

Try focusing on another group who are genuinely socially invalidated. Like, idk, pro-c Zoos.

Basically, anybody Lecter hates.

And,

Make them radqueer by making radqueer about their fight and yours.

And dialing down the shits and giggles silliness 99.9% of the human population find *boring*.

Strategist and other Newgon members commonly use derogatory parodies of radqueer views as casual humor, using various catchphrases such as ones about a perceived focus on "invalidation." They seem to associate radqueer ideology and communities with "Tumblr" fandom culture, microlabel identity subcultures, "validity" politics, social justice norms, and soft aesthetics, which they hold in contempt, as a sort of polar opposite to the aggressively offensive edginess of places like 4chan.

Disinformation campaigns

Exaggerating own importance

Newgon has recently attempted to join the modern map community and map activism. In this, they made false claims about the map community and their own role in its history.

We have introduced new writers to NewgonWiki – founded in 2007 – the birthplace of the modern MAP Movement

- Newgon's Strategist on FreeSpeechTube

Founded in 2007, as the information center for the MAP Movement (coining the term and originating a flag concept);

- NewgonWiki as of 4 August 2022

We started the whole "MAP" thing

- NewgonOrg on Twitter, currently suspended

• 

  Newgon's Twitter account

Both these claims are not true. See: the history of the term "MAP" and the origins of the MAP flag.

Flags

In 2009 Newgon attempted to hold a contest for a map flag. The contest received several entries, but never reached the voting stage. None of the flags presented for the contest were used till 2021, when Newgon reemerged from the hiatus. On their wiki they made a claim that one of their entries was the original concept the MAP flag was based on and referred to the latter as a "contrast version". After questions and criticism, they reinforced their statement:

Initial tests on the "relative luminance" difference between the two outside blue bands in the 2018 and 2009 flags, reveal those differences to be almost identical (within 0.5-1%) suggesting that the former could be a very slightly darkened and tinted adaptation of the latter, with respect to the blue portion of the graphic.

- The article MAP Flag on NewgonWiki as of 15 Dec 2022

The linkage to the 2018 NOMAP Flag is contested by Map-Wiki, however the rationale given for our 2009 design is eerily similar to the 2018 NOMAP Flag. To say that the probability of the concept being copied/adapted is around 80% would probably be an understatement, but ultimately, we will never know if the flag was copied.

- The article Debate Guide: Newgon's History on NewgonWiki as of 1 Feb 2023

Currently these phrases, as well as the word "version", are removed from NewgonWiki, and the edit history of these two articles is erased (the MAP Flag article in particular has a note that "older edits on this article are being used to make false claims offsite").

Simultaneously with implying plagiarism, Newgon developed a merged edit of their flag and the map flag. Initially titled "yesmap" as a pun on the NOMAP identity, it was renamed to "united map flag" around May 2022.

• 

  The 2021 "yesmap"/"united" flag

Eventually a separate, exclusively pro c, flag was made for the "yesmap" label.

• 

  A 2022 "yesmap" flag

Newgon continued promoting their flag under the "united" brand till August 2023, when it was renamed to "2021 version" with a note denying its previous name.

• 

  This screenshot was taken before the edit history was deleted.

A new flag edit, titled "MAP union", was then posted to NewgonWiki.

• 

Misleading terminology

Other Newgon initiatives include trying to rename "pro-contact" to "pro-choice," possibly as an attempt to use the positive connotations of the latter.

Pro-contact (or simply "pro-c") is a term used to describe a person - often an [sic] MAP or ally, as favoring the permittance of minor-adult physical/sexual relations - at least hypothetically.

- "Pro-c" on NewgonWiki as of 27 September 2021

Pro-c, (pro-consent/choice or contact) is a term used to describe a person - often an [sic] MAP or ally, as favoring the permittance of minor-adult physical/sexual relations - at least hypothetically.

- "Pro-c" on NewgonWiki as of 24 May 2022

This text by JohnHolt refers to anti-contact maps as "anti-choice".

• 

  JohnHolt's text

On its Twitter accounts NewgonOrg and NewgonOrg2007, Newgon claimed to be "pro-choice" in lieu of labeling itself as "pro-contact."

On the same page with responses to accusations Newgon has claimed: "'Pro choice' (which some of us do use) was an initiative of Allyn Walker, and possibly even the MAPs they were referring to in their book". The book is unambiguously pointing towards maps as the source of this term.

When I asked them about this label during interviews, those who were referred to as pro-contact by anticontact MAPs pushed back against being labeled as such, preferring the term pro-choice.

- Allyn Walker, A Long, Dark Shadow

That claim has also been removed after criticism from the wider community.

On its Twitter accounts and "Ethos of Newgon" page, Newgon has claimed to be "anti-offending" to mean being against contact when it breaks the law (although still pro-contact for when it is legal). However, "anti-offending" is typically used in contact discourse synonymously with "anti-contact."

False accusations

Newgon promotes far-fetched conspiracy theories about NNIA and Map Wiki being secretly funded by antis. Neither NNIA nor Map Wiki is funded by any antis.

• 

  Newgon members promoting conspiracy theories

Strategist has used sexist commentary to falsely portray Lecter as a groomer who manipulates NNIA as a cult.

• 
• 

  Strategist trying to have "the whole idea" "disappeared"

Tragically for Newgon, his plea was completely ignored.

During the time after these events, he completely dropped the polite, supplicating persona and turned on Kay, promoting smear campaigns and hostile actions against her.

Afterward, the Freak University website went down.

Enabling CSEM

In 2023, several Newgon members, including Strategist, were planning to create a new fediverse instance more in alignment with their ideals. When the pro-contact-run instance youjo.love was suspended, allegedly for hosting illegal content, Newgon members moved their plans forward, as they also wanted a replacement instance for posting on the fediverse when previously they had mainly been using youjo.love. According to their fediverse discussions, Strategist left the effort when it was decided that the server's name would begin with the word "childlove," which he did not want in the URL. The others launched childlove.space, an instance which openly hosted two Nazis on its very first days, permitting them to disseminate numerous instances of violently bigoted rhetoric and content, and only took any action after a wave of criticisms from left-leaning pediverse members when a Nazi's behavior escalated into sufficiently extreme and "personal" harassment. Childlove.space also permitted users to post sexual photographs and videos of children. Multiple moderators participated in posting, liking, reblogging, or commenting on such posts and refused to curtail the content as it popped up almost immediately. Dozens of such images were posted during the time childlove.space was online. After around four weeks, the childlove.space server was suspended. Shortly after, several of its admin team created childlove.su, intended to be a replacement from childlove.space. Users quickly began posting CSEM there too. Other Newgon members, including Strategist, created accounts on childlove.su. A few days later, childlove.su was also suspended.

A subsection of Newgon's page "Pediverse," "Pediverse socials and our Official Guidance," contains a note linking to a subsection of its "Ethos of Newgon" page on what an "Official Guidance" constitutes:

Official Guidance

We occasionally publish guidance on important topics such as:

Paraphilia
Coming out
Communicating with 'minors'
Fediverse servers an [sic] their safety

These sections will always be described as 'official guidance' and are subject to group consultation - primarily within communities we support. Therefore, an official guidance section can be considered as a loosely stated organizational position on various topics, but not a central part of our platform as such.

(emphasis added)

"Pediverse socials and our Official Guidance" says,

MAPs have been proactive in setting up federated/decentralized communication platforms, because of well-founded fears centering on censorship and harassment, mental health and validity policing.

Front-ends/user interfaces include Mastodon, and Pleroma, but the information being shared remains the same regardless of what server you are accessing it from, and what software is being used on the server.

The better-known federated social (ActivityPub) instances are listed below underneath their advisory ratings. These ratings are to be read as a guide only, and the factors determining how an instance is rated by us, are in constant flux.

All such servers permit communication with one another (with a few exclusions such as NNIA's defederation of Youjo and Childlove), and prohibit CP sharing and other illegal activity.

Some of these servers host other platforms, such as decentralized video sharing (Peertube).

Generally considered safe

• Childlove.su - formerly Childlove.space (runs on Mangane)

…

(emphasis added)

Newgon's claim that all of the listed servers, including childlove.space and childlove.su, "prohibit CP sharing and other illegal activity," is blatantly false. Multiple pediverse admins and other individuals have testified that childlove.space and/or childlove.su contained unchecked illegal content, including media failing the Dost test. This destructive behavior on part of the childlove.space/childlove.su admin team and users, which has both sexually exploited children and potentially led unwelcome law enforcement attention onto pediverse users who were not engaged in illegal exploitative behavior, is whitewashed by Newgon, which calls them "safe" and borderline recommends people to join in, many wholly unaware of the dangerous environment they would be walking into.

• 

  Newgon on childlove.space/childlove.su

Afterward, in PCMA, people mocked pediverse users for being distressed by childlove.space/.su's harmfulness and allegedly attempting suicide over this.

• 

  PCMA gloating over causing possible suicide attempts