MAP visibility on Twitter

Twitter.com, founded in 2006, has seen above-average levels of MAP visibility for most of its lifetime. In some instances, this has been because of controversies surrounding MAP communities, researchers, and MAP sympathizers present on Twitter.com. In others, MAPs or trolls have carried out sometimes elaborate hoaxes in order to gain publicity. This is perhaps surprising, given that early on in its development, Twitter even hired a former Perverted Justice volunteer as "Trust and Safety" personnel. Ultimately, Twitter.com is seen as the "purest social" in concept (an open town-square for political debate), and perhaps this is what has most attracted MAPs to the medium. Over this period, MAPs and MAP activists have faced varying levels of censorship from Twitter moderation, bonding and even intermingling with other marginalized communities, and continue to create new accounts.

It is important to mention, that Twitter operates a double standard, not only in relation to those who habitually harass MAPs, Zoophiles and other invalidated minorities, but by favoring "other" groups such as Lolicons. One poplular Lolicon account @CunnyDatabase has, as of 2021, repeatedly posted obscure memes attempting to distance itself from MAPs, while baselessly accusing other members of trading in pornography in a prolonged campaign of libel.

The "NOMAP" years

Twitter has had self-identifying MAP accounts for some time, and a NOMAP contingent ever since said movement was founded. Validity policing and harassment is known to take place, but this has not stopped groups of MAPs forming communities; often with private accounts. A small, select group of MAP activists are also well-seasoned social media debaters, searching the site for threads to engage with. Long-time self-identifying boylover, Steve Diamond wrote the following in 2021:

I am a MAP, and a human rights advocate. I've had a Twitter account for over ten years, in good standing. I observed and followed Twitter's TOS, rules and policies with great care. This account was very active for at least six years, where I was interacting with a wide range of people on a wide range of subjects. I actually had over 1,500 followers. As to MAP activities, I simply left myself open to discussing them with those who willingly approached me. I helped share and exchange studies/research and news articles relevant to MAP issues. And I did a lot of good nature participation in a hashtag called "#mappositivity", posting things so mild, humorous and uplifting, nobody in their right mind would actually be able to take issue with it.

Enter the "Pride and Joy Only Belongs to Us" LGBTQ Twitter Mafia, and waves of nasty abusive, threatening Holier That Thous, who maliciously flooded MAP hashtags like #mappositivity with graphic gore (pictures and videos of people being murdered), violent threats, dehumanization of MAPs, and endless calls for banning MAPs from Twitter (even in the face of the fact, that we were in violation of no Twitter rules or policies). This went on for about a year, at the hands of these lunatics. An endless onslaught of abusive provocation and threats. I took up reporting them, and even had a thread on Twitter where I was posting screen captures of the responses from Twitter...They used to thank me, over and over, for "helping to keep Twitter safe"...and I helped take down several hundred accounts of these nasty people.

In addition, despite what some of these people may tell you today, there were a number of us MAPs (including myself), who were also reporting and trying to get out of our hashtags anyone who was seemingly offering anything illegal (MAP hashtags were never for this purpose). Again, Twitter used to thank me for being this sort of guardian on it's platform.

Twitter had seen fake MAP publicity efforts in the 2010s, such as the ludicrous Clovergender and Heart Progress, which displayed all the hallmarks of right-wing attempts to smear liberals and the LGBT community. Bernie Najaran (an independent researcher of social media trends) wrote voluminously about this period in the MAP Movement's development in 2018 and 2019.

Genuine MAPs and NOMAPs were also banned in the 10s, but overall MAP membership saw a boom in the time leading up to and during the MAP Flag publicity of '18 and '19, after various professionals lobbied Twitter to permit MAP discourse. Twitter also saw an influx of anti-contact Tumblr MAPs, following purges in mid to late 2018. MAP Activist, Katie Cruz wrote a guide in 2019, which described the state of play as reasonably tolerant. Unfortunately many were banned in the months following, and by October 2020, "promoting or normalizing sexual attraction to minors as a form of identity or sexual orientation" was defined as counter to the T+C, and purges continued.

2021 and onward: The pro-c renaissance

Small groups of determined sock puppeteers nevertheless persisted, and tended to be banned after a number of reports mounted up. In late 2021 and early 2022, a mini-resurgence was underway, and tweets by well-known MAPs and allies were known to have attracted over 20 likes and were retweeted over 1/2000 times (mainly by hostile actors). By this point, a considerable "gooning" community had also emerged - i.e. people who use social media to exchange taboo sexual fantasies, which often involve age-dynamics.

Newgon Organization, upon its reopening in 2021, pivoted to a strategy of funding a chat server to organize the setting up of multiple politically-geared Twitter accounts, in an effort to increase MAP visibility. Their Twitter account's official "arrival" in 2022 was met with over 30 likes on some posts, but the account was repeatedly banned and recreated. On one occasion, when a member of the server checked his analytics, a tweet gained over 1 million impressions and 40,000 engagements after it was retweeted by culture war icon, Jordan Peterson. This was something that server members would repeat on multiple occasions over the following months and years. By mid-2022, "groomer" panic and attacks on the LGBT community had forced Twitter to once again purge their MAP user base, with major casualties including the years-old accounts of Marthijn Uittenbogaard (despite the account being used to contest his incarceration in Ecuador) and Virtuous Pedophiles. Following Musk's takeover of the platform, it became even more fashionable than ever, for bohemian/intellectual Twitter MAPs to "private" their accounts - hoping to go public if and when the situation improved. Eventually, however, Musk's cuts to moderation, trust and safety were felt, and further examples of MAP-generated content went on to gain over 1-2M views. 2022 will be remembered as the year that MAPs as a topic of contention went mainstream, with multiple controversies (listed under "normalization") never far away from trending on Twitter.

Gallery and examples

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  Enderphile (an early political NOMAP) was active under multiple accounts from early 2015.
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  2017 political NOMAP discourse example
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  Mid 2018 political account
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  Another account in mid 2018
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  An early outrage thread concerning the migration of political Tumblr MAPs to Twitter
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  The updated Terms and Conditions of Twitter (as of Oct, 2020) would entirely prohibit the MAP Movement, if they were enforced strictly. Ironically, what followed was the slow birth of pro-c political activism on Twitter.
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  When political messages are presented to "gooning" (taboo masturbation) accounts, they tend to get far more likes, and result in less suspensions. Agreement with these messages is debatably underpinned by sexual fantasy and deviance fetishism.
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  A similar thread, liked by gooners
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  Peterson's "last frontier" (the tweet itself was said to be at 1M impressions by its writer)
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  "Bigger balls" bait (Twitter)
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  Jamal Ross "suck it up" tweet
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  Andy Parkinson asks for advice (Twitter) on April 18, 2022, a day of rolling controversies concerning political MAPs
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  Jamal Ross cap-tweeted by Jack Posobiec on April 18. This series even made the news.
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  Hysterical April 18 "ultimatum" LGBT bait from Andy Parkinson (Twitter)
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  The gooning trend continues.
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  More likes in 2022
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  3M view transage tweet referencing adjacency to MAPs
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  Similar meme adapted by a Newgon account, and response
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  2.2M mega-tweet by a MAP
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  Jordan Peterson and James Lindsay helping to send around 2M impressions to a pro-MAP sex-ed teacher. This incident led to multiple news articles in the right-wing press, described as "hysterical".

Organizations and their visibility

Various organizations with either a MAP/part-MAP membership, or an adjacency to MAP discourse, have tried, with varying degrees of success, to maintain an official presence on the platform.

• Virped from October 2015-August 2022^✝ They are now known to run the private @VirpedSpeaks account.
• Prostasia Foundation from March 2018.
• B4U-ACT from August 2019.
• Newgon has been involved with tens of accounts (as early as 2009, but primarily 2022 onwards), a handful of which were official, resulting in bans.
• NAMBLA is said by its present leadership to excuse itself from social media on "principled grounds".