MSC's Official Blog

Hi!

I'm writing you with mixed news that you will want to sit down for. On May 13th, one of our staff members in MAP Support Club, a peer support chat designed for minors, notified us that there was a claim that a relatively new MAP ally on Twitter killed themselves. We were initially skeptical.

The MAP ally's name was Randy, and for the past two to three weeks, they were taking abuse and harassment simply for supporting minor attracted people like myself and those in our community. That led to their death. I know this because one of our allies, Rusty Warner, put a call into an FBI agent he knows, and confirmed on May 14th that they are investigating his suicide, which happened on May 9th. Randy was 19 years old.

As an administrator of MAP Support Club, I am devastated to hear that Randy and those close to him didn't have the support he needed because our support chat, which we run through a partnership with Prostasia Foundation, is well equipped to advise people on how to stay safe on social media and provide support when people need it. We have the proper rules and privacy policy in place.

Until last month, we have kept our chat very private, only telling trusted allies of our existence for fear of being infiltrated by trolls and haters. In the month since we've gone public, we haven't had many trolls. While that can always change, as administrator, I believe it is time that MAP Support Club stops hiding and starts helping. But we can't do it alone.

We don't have therapists in our chat. Our staff doesn't have and doesn't know how to access crisis training resources to help us be more effective in helping people. We don't have the ability to scan our server for illegal images and report offenders. We don't have the ability to actively monitor minor direct messages for possible exploitation. These things take time, connections, technical expertise, and of course, money.

We need your help. If you run an organization with a website, please consider listing our blog page, and stay tuned for that to update to a website in the next few months. If you are a therapist, please consider donating your time. If you have financial resources, please consider sharing them. If you talk to minor attracted people, please talk about our community. If you're not already in our community, please consider joining. All I need is an email with a username you'd like to go by in our chat, and for you to fill out the attached PDF (if you are currently in MSC, please fill out the attached form and email it back as a reply all).

Randy was only trying to help minor attracted people and spread awareness of the challenges and hatred that we face. For that, he was bullied into suicide. Please help us so we can help prevent more people from harming themselves.

Thank you for your time,

—

Timothy N. Fury

Advocate for the Primary Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse

Administrator in MAP Support Club.