Fake News

The far right and Trump are always saying “fake news” about any news that isn’t favorable to them but they also create their own “fake news” against those who oppose them and the LGBT community is the newest target.

Does This Image Represent a ‘MAPs Pride Flag’?

Rumors holding that MAPs (Minor Attracted Persons) created a pride flag in an attempt to join the LGBTQ community originated with a troll experiment on Tumblr.

SNOPES

CLAIM

MAPs (Minor Attracted Persons) created a pride flag

RATING

FALSE

ORIGIN

A number of fear-mongering campaigns over the years have attempted to link pedophilia to the LGBTQ community, despite an utter lack of scientific proof of any such connection. In December 2017, for instance, internet trolls spread a false rumor that the letter “P,” representing “pedosexual,” was being added to the initialism LGBT (for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender”).

An eerily similar rumor was spread via social media in June 2018 in the form of an image purportedly showing a “MAPs (Minor-Attracted Persons) Pride Flag” supposedly created for Gay Pride Month:

When pictures of this “MAP flag” began circulating on Facebook, the posts typically included messages warning other social media users to be wary of anyone displaying this flag:

This is a Minor Attracted Person (MAP) (polished term for pedophile) flag. If you happen to see this flag on any Social Media Profile or someone using the term MAP in their bio, please REPORT the Pedophile running that account.
Do your bit.

Websites such as the Daily Caller and “Attitude” picked up on this alleged “MAPs Pride Flag” and reported that pedophiles were “rebranding” themselves as “Minor Attracted Persons” in an attempt to be accepted by the LGBT community:

Paedophiles are trying to gain acceptance to the LGBT community by rebranding themselves.

In a bid to gain acceptance, they have rebranded themselves as MAPs or “Minor Attracted Persons” and have gone so far to even create a rainbow “Pride” flag for Gay Pride, but Twitter user, Communist Fish, posted a picture back in June to warn children to stay away.

The group attempt to claim that paedophiles are misunderstood people and if they do not act upon their attraction to children, they shouldn’t be marginalised.

Sites like The Prevention Project have started to post testimonials from paedophiles who are seeking help with their attraction, claiming everyone “needs support”.

Pedophiles did not coin the term “minor attracted persons” (or MAPS) to rebrand themselves in 2018 in order to gain entry to the LGBT community. Organizations such as B4UAct have been using the term “minor attracted persons” for years to refer to “adults who experience feelings of preferential sexual attraction to children or adolescents under the age of consent.”

The far right are trying to discredit us and are trying to attach the pedophile label to all LGBT people by spreading the lies.

Snopes went on to say…

We also found no evidence that this flag originated in earnest as a MAPs Pride Flag. We reached out to the “Prevention Project, who told us they had never heard of this pride flag: “We’re experts in treating MAPs who have zero desire to harm anyone but want support to deal with the stigma of being a pedophile, hebophile or ephebephile. MAPs encompass these 3 terms. None of the MAPs we know (we know a lot) have talked about this [flag].”

So far it hasn’t  stuck except for in the conservative media like Fox and the mainstream media hasn’t used the label yet…