Sarah Mei

>Why do you believe the FSF and MIT didn't investigate? Many people have called this the straw that broke the camel's back.

To be honest?

If they had, I'd have expected an official rebuttal, and a call for either calm, or a full retraction.

Since neither has happened, I see it as a duty to dig up, and try to propagate the facts as far as possible.

To that end a compilation of accusations, rebuttals, and sources follow.

Specifically, Stallman has been accused of

(1) Defending Jeffrey Epstein (while in reality Stallman was defending Marvin Minsky);

(2) Describing Epstein's victims as entirely willing (while in reality Stallman was arguing that one specific victim of Epstein, Virginia Giuffre, was presented to Minsky as entirely willing because she was coerced by Epstein, not that she was entirely willing);

(3) Defendinf pedophilia (while in reality Stallman was arguing that age doesn't matter in a case of rape because rape is always a terrible act no matter the age of the victim);

(4) Defending pedophilia in the past (while in reality Stallman already countered his controversial claim from 2006 -in which he expressed skepticism in case of consensual sex- with a comment in 2013, where he said that children can't really be consensual);

(5) Condoned sexual assault (while in reality Stallman was arguing that the term "sexual assault" does not fit the description of Minsky's act towards Virginia Giuffre since she wasn't assaulted by Minsky but coerced by Epstein; Stallman…

Throughout this whole brouhaha, I’ve been astonished at how nobody in the mainstream press, nor any of those in tech calling for Stallman’s head, ever challenged the statement that Stallman said Epstein’s victims were “entirely willing.” Indeed, quite the opposite.

From the Medium post that kicked the whole thing off [1]:

…and then he says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be “entirely willing”.

And from Vice [2, 3]:

Famed Computer Scientist Richard Stallman Described Epstein Victims As 'Entirely Willing'

Stallman said the “most plausible scenario” is that one of Epstein’s underage victims was “entirely willing.”

And the Daily Beast:

Renowned MIT Scientist Defends Epstein: Victims Were ‘Entirely Willing’

Here’s what Stallman actually wrote:

We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she [Epstein’s victim] presented herself to him [Marvin Minsky] as entirely willing.

In other words, Stallman isn’t saying she was willing, but rather that she likely acted as if she were willing. Lest there be any doubt, the next sentence reads:

Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.

So Stallman explicitly acknowledges the likelihood that Epstein coerced these girls and coached them to pretend to be willing to have sex with Minsky and others in Epstein’s circle. At no point does Stallman say they were willing—rather, he suggests the exact opposite.

Regardless…

https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794

From the article:

"The announcement of the Friday event does an injustice to Marvin
Minsky:
“deceased AI ‘pioneer’ Marvin Minsky (who is accused of assaulting
one of Epstein’s victims [2])”
The injustice is in the word “assaulting”. The term “sexual assault”
is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation:
taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as
Y, which is much worse than X.
The accusation quoted is a clear example of inflation. The reference
reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein’s harem.
(See https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jeffrey-epstein-sex-trafficking-island-court-records-unsealed.)
Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it).
The word “assaulting” presumes that he applied force or violence, in
some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing.
Only that they had sex.
We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that
she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was
being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her
to conceal that from most of his associates.
I’ve concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it
is absolutely wrong to use the term “sexual assault” in an accusation.
Whatever conduct you want to criticize, you should describe it with a
specific term that avoids moral vagueness about the nature…

> I would also like to clarify that in some headlines, including this Daily Beast one, Stallman is said to have defended Epstein, which is not technically true. Rather, Stallman was defending Marvin Minsky. I directly emailed and corrected reporters who used that language if I myself had given them any comments or information. I say this to show that I never intended to “inflate” anything, because there was absolutely no need to.

It goes further than that. According to the original email presented by the author, this is what RMS wrote:

> We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates.

https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794

From this statement, the Daily Beast produced the title: "Renowned MIT Scientist Defends Epstein: Victims Were ‘Entirely Willing’"

RMS is defending Minsky by saying that for him the most likely scenario was that the person in question presented herself "as entirely willing." Whether or not the person was willing is a completely different question.

So the article is wrong on two counts, and no amount of righteous anger or revulsion around RMS as a person can justify it.

In the mad dash for clicks at all cost, the Daily Beast has really made a mess of this thing.

I think the negative effects spread further because they skew the field more. I think women are more likely to avoid FOSS because there are few women, even without knowing who RMS is, than men are likely to go into FOSS because of RMS or someone who was inspired by RMS. That's an assumption on my part, but I think making tech more equitable for all people is a worthy goal in itself, even if that doesn't increase the total number of contributors.

> Which things specifically, and in what way?

Saying that we shouldn't call sexual assault "sexual assault", and implying that there's any way a rich, famous, 73-year-old man can "have sex with" (rape) a 17-year-old girl, whom he has extraordinary power over, and who, in in this case was his friend's trafficking victim.

The idea that Minsky's "honour" is in any way more important than harm in what happened to Giuffre perpetuates rape culture. It perpetuates the idea that women are worth less than men, and that it's okay for famous men in CS to rape girls. That emboldens other rapists and makes CS very unwelcoming for rape victims.

Minsky should have known. Implying there's any way what he did was okay creates an unwelcoming environment for women, especially young women and girls at MIT.

(Background and links from https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 )

Bypassing for now the merits (or not) of his arguments, which will certainly get a deep philosophical treatment on a site where long comment threads are impossible to navigate and are really only active for a day or less anyway...

RMS's de facto role in the FSF has been spokesperson and public figure. This isn't the first time he's put his foot in his mouth [1][2][3] (figuratively or literally, according to some accounts). That's simply not a role to which he is suited, and that at least should be an argument most can agree with, if reluctantly.

We all make allowances for bad behavior from our favorite people, as long as that bad behavior isn't too repugnant or doesn't undermine the role we appreciate them for.

In RMS's case, at the very least his behavior keeps distracting people from the issues that the FSF was formed to address.

Let RMS return to roles for which he is better suited, and like Eric S Raymond's frequent bouts of insanity, we can all go back to appreciating that at least he manages to stay out of the news cycle.

[1]: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/10/10/1227229/richard-stallmans-dissenting-view-of-steve-jobs

[2]: https://www.datamation.com/osrc/article.php/3830651/Richard-Stallman-Leadership-and-Sexism.htm

[3]: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e784f88