Newgon
Newgon Organization (aka Newgon also related to the Yesmap campaign) is an informal activist organization first set up at Newgon.com by Daniel Lievre and Jillium on Jun 8, 2007. Newgon, which has no official membership, was founded after Google's censorship campaign against a number of MAP blogging sites, and was most active until around 2010 and again after 2021. The organization's purpose is to produce concise information resources relating to MAPs and minor-adult sex, for the use of online guerilla activists and trolls. It has also hosted forums for general discussion of these themes, private forums to organize information campaigns, and helped organize groups of MAPs and allies who seek to raise awareness online. The organization's projects are maintained by the Newgon Support Team. Any websites it publishes are registered and hosted with high-end freedom of speech providers and proxying services for the purpose of privacy.
The Newgon.net domain hosts the informational wiki you are currently reading, along with an archived webmagazine/blog. A public forum will return in early 2022, with the aim of organizing MAP activism using the Wiki and its subprojects as base material for a publicity campaign.
Notability
Newgon is notable for being the first website to host an article defining a MAP. As detailed in the article, Newgon's cofounder, Daniel Lievre and supporting contributor, BLueRibbon were the first authors to regularly use the term, on a now defunct blog known as ANU/ATC (AttractedToChildren.org) in early 2007. The term became somewhat popular in the community, entering academic parlance via organizations such as B4U-Act (who had already popularized the parent term, "Minor Attracted Adult"). MAP entered the public lexicon in 2018 via social media. Newgon is also first place the concept underlying a gradient MAP Flag was seen, with the current flag's predecessor being submitted to a seemingly incomplete 2009 competition for a united symbol.
Pre-2014 Archiving
- In an article that quoted the producer of Law and Order: SVU, the gay news site afterelton.com claimed that a 2009 Hardwired edition featured a "pedophile rights group" based on Newgon.[1] Our founder was portrayed as the "pedo-rights kingpin" Kevin O'Donnell, played by Garret Dillahunt.[2]
- The group is probably most famous for its 2007-8 subversion of Wikipedia via a private mailing list, private forum and guerilla sockpuppet infiltration campaign. Our article, Wikipedia censorship of MAP related topics covers some of those activities.
- Newgon was mentioned in the article "Creepedia" by American Greatness[3] and in an edition of MalcolmOutLoud. It is often compared, albeit in pejorative terms to Wikipedia.
- The site was a favorite with Google Groups polemicists and has been criticised repeatedly on Wikipedia itself. It has in the past been listed on the Hidden Wiki (onion site).
Post 2021 Reopening
- Materials produced by the site have been shared by some alternative right trolls in an effort to sow confusion and division among their opponents (often mainstream Liberals and the LGBT community). This is a developing trend at this point.
- MAP awareness raising on Twitter saw an increase in Newgon.net references and meme usage. The organization is often suspected of being involved in pro-c agitating within the MAP Movement. In reality, it advises and provides resources and information to an activist cell called PCMA, which seeks to make it easier for MAPs to conduct awareness-raising campaigns online.
- An experimental publicity/engagement campaign is planned under the Yesmap banner, under which the public forum will also operate. The aim of this campaign is to refine knowledge and hone skills for future efforts.
- In early May, 2022, Newgon briefly ran a Twitter account at @NewgonOrg - gaining almost 100 followers over a 3-day period, and 15-35 likes on some of its content. Despite posting a mixture of research, anti-stigma and moderate pro-choice material, the account was soon suspended after a mass-report campaign. Newgon re-created their Twitter account in August 2022.
Gallery
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Original May 2022 Twitter Account -
Typical content that followed
Potted history
Daniel Lievre, a homosexual ephebophile, states that in 2005, his interest was piqued by a mention of NAMBLA on Rotten.com an old-fashioned, now defunct website featuring comment threads on shocking and bizarre content. He found out about Vereniging MARTIJN after some research and volunteered to proof-read a couple of their English articles. He then set about perfecting his debating abilities in multiple explosive threads on a forum which we are almost certain was the IIDB (Internet Infidels Discussion Board). This inspired him to set up a Debate Guide on Google's free hosting service, with a collaborator from the Netherlands. To make his writings more accessible, he then set up the now de-archived debateguide.blogspot.com and another blog that riduculed "anti pedophile" vigilantes. After just a few months, this blog was removed in a general purge of 30-50 similar blogs after mass reporting campaigns. His google pages were then removed as well, although he did have some success address squatting for others who lost their blogs.[4] After a few dead-ends, Lievre was directed towards NearlyFreeSpeech.net, a paid host that (at the time) was only concerned with the legality of its content. Using this service, and the help of another web administrator, Jillium, he rehosted his Debate Guide, which was soon to be followed by a blog, wiki and forum.
After ceasing blogging activity, NewgonWiki then hosted a webmagazine, which provided a digest of news articles, activist updates, academia, as well as editorials. Organisations such as Absolute Zero and SOSEN were frequently ridiculed. This ran for over a year, as the general projects expanded. However, from around 2010, the project seemed to go into decline, with forum outages, administrative departures and lower participation in core projects. In 2013, NearlyFreeSpeech.net posted a warning that they would terminate site services due to the politically sensitive nature of the content, but a new host and administrator could not be found at the time. This resulted in Newgon.com going offline for a while, but the site was re-hosted by an anonymous person in late 2013, after which it was shuttered due to lack of activity and archived at Newgon.net by mid 2014.
In late 2021, previous associates of Newgon.com and its network of activists launched a plan to rebrand Newgon.net and open the forums, with a start date of late 2021 or early 2022. Instead, a private forum opened, and a public chat room was hosted in order to meet the demands of modern communication. A forum may still open under the Yesmap branding acquired in 2021, although the order of this work an a variety of other ongoing concerns is currently being consulted upon.
Individuals
From what little information we have, there seems to have been a few individuals who frequently volunteered for Newgon in the early years. They were all linked to the early MAP blog ANU/ATC, thus playing an important role in coining and popularizing the MAP neologism and founding this website in their teens:
Daniel Lievre (Founder/Originator/Admin)
He is enigmatic and hard to research, because he often used pseudonyms to mock his trolls, or female pseudonyms to extract information - for example, from Wikipedia Admins. According to his written profiles, he was 19, and a University Student from Plymouth, in the UK. We know he was preoccupied with community-building and site moderation, and tended to be a forward-thinking activist and troll who created multiple identities on news sites, Wikipedia and various online fora. He was an occasional BoyChat poster.
Jillium (Founder/Admin)
Jillium was another young activist, who started at around 17 years of age. His location was unknown, and he tended to be very quiet on forums, preferring to compile large anthology lists for the Wiki. He was known as a competent web admin. Jillium also posted on GL forums and was a very effective Wikipedia activist, with a deep knowledge of the MediaWiki software and interface.
BLueRibbon (Contributor)
Another blogger (ANU founder) in his late teens - he was non-affiliated, but submitted a lot of information to our legal sections. Also known as a BoyChat poster, he was known to be active in the wave of Wikipedia MAP activism some of our current contributors took part in. First person known to regularly use MAP.
Newgon Organization's position youth
Newgon was founded by the above a group of teenage MAP activists, and maintains an unusual and nowadays unique line on the subject of youth (at least for an MAP/ally-led organization).
While Newgon opposes all offending, their pro-youth rights agenda favors a revised elective age of consent at 12. Newgon maintains that what for MAPs is a self-interested position is nevertheless "evidence-based" - pointing to the testimony of MAP Allies and researchers. The website makes repeated references to adults' positive testimonies of sexual relationships in their youth; controversially arguing that they should be treated as de-facto youth-advocacy. Youth perspectives are also encouraged and permitted in public discussions, since the site has strict controls against "adult material" and is supported by international conventions and other human rights agreements operative in the relevant jurisdictions.
See also
- Ethos of Newgon - Positions (binding and non-binding) and press-releases.
- Editing Portal - Inner workings of NewgonWiki.