I've been an associate member of the FSF since 2012; an attendee of LibrePlanet every year since 2013; and using, developing, and advocating for free software longer than that. I have other organizational affiliations, however I am writing in my personal capacity and opinions expressed herein are my own. Also, my apologies to those on this list who want this thread to just be over, but there have been many false statements around this issue that are important to correct. With all that said...
The Vice article takes one specific quote out of context and removes key words from it to change the meaning into a clickbait headline and story. The article explains that Stallman insists that Epstein's victims were "entirely willing" to be trafficked, which is a blatant misquote. What Stallman actually wrote in the e-mail thread [1] is that, because Virginia Giuffre was coerced by Epstein, Epstein would have surely forced her to conceal the coercion from people like Marvin Minsky. Therefore she would have presented herself to Minsky as "entirely willing" and Minsky would not have needed to force himself onto her. The article's headline and entire premise that Stallman claimed that Giuffre was "willing" to be trafficked is completely disproven later in the thread when Stallman wrote, in no uncertain terms, "We know that Giuffre was being coerced into sex -- by Epstein. She was being harmed." He also wrote on his Web site a month ago [2] that he believes the accusations against Epstein of sex trafficking and that rape is unconditionally wrong. More recently he also agreed [3] that Joi Ito had to resign after admitting to covering up Epstein's donations to the MIT Media Lab (the original subject of the thread in question), and he clarified and reiterated that he always condemned Epstein [4]. The purpose of Stallman's message is his usual pedantry, to point out that "assault" is vague. Since the sex between Minsky and Giuffre was non-violent and Minsky may have believed Giuffre to have given him consent, Stallman's argument is that Minsky's actions don't necessarily rise to "sexual assault", a term which implies violent non-consensual sex. (I don't intend to defend Stallman's argument here -- only to clarify it.) The center of Stallman's pedantry here reads, "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." Anyone on the csail-related mailing list or otherwise who doesn't regularly read his Web site or the GNU "Words to Avoid" Web page or who isn't familiar with his linguistic prescriptivism may very easily misunderstand this statement as condoning non-consensual but non-violent sex. But based on his previous condemnations of rape, I fully believe that he condemns any form of non-consensual sex, even if non-violent. I suggest that he should have been clearer there to avoid such an easy misunderstanding. Of course, his defense of Minsky (after presuming he indeed had sex with a minor) appears to rely on his unpopular but somewhat well known belief that "voluntarily [sic] pedophilia" doesn't harm children [5]. He seems to have taken for granted that Minsky should have had no reason to hesitate over having sex with a minor, as long as she appeared to him to be willing. Reportedly though, Stallman's views "changed significantly" by 2016 [6], and he confirmed on Saturday that "personal conversations in recent years" have convinced him that sex between an adult and a child is wrong [7]. This timeline between changing views in "recent years" and this thread from last Wednesday would in fact suggest that he didn't necessarily intend to exonerate Minsky at all. Instead, it suggests to me that Stallman's only intention was to seek clarification of exactly what Minsky had done. Minsky engaged in non-violent and seemingly consensual (but actually coerced by Epstein) sex with a minor. While such an act is ethically and legally wrong, Stallman is arguing that violent non-consensual sex is worse. He, pedantic as he is, wanted only to avoid conflating Minsky's actions with more violent assault. (Again, I'm explaining, not necessarily defending.) Now, we could have had a reasonable debate around whether Minsky's actions do rise to the level of "sexual assault" or we should be more specific in our terminology. We could argue that all forms of non- consensual sex are equally wrong, with or without physical violence or the appearance of consent, and that Stallman is wrong to try to disambiguate such forms. This is certainly a debatable topic, however the media immediately shut down any useful debate by going off in a completely different direction with sensationalized false claims of something Stallman definitely did not say. It's just a frustratingly and obviously absurd clickbait straw man, and one that wasn't even at all necessary in order to find controversy in what Stallman said. There was already a decent story in there, without having to lie about it. Some people have also taken this opportunity to bring up some of Stallman's other social and technical behaviors. While I share some of these concerns, this is not the time to conflate so many issues. Let's focus for now on the accusation at hand. So, I'll express some of my own pedantry by urging readers to consider not the sophistry woven by Vice, but what Stallman actually said. Base your decisions not on the false premise that he defended Epstein and insisted that Epstein's underage victims were "entirely willing" to be trafficked, but instead on his pedantic disambiguation of the term "sexual assault". Read the source material and reach your own conclusions, ignoring what Vice puts out to maximize their advertising revenue. I, for one, will not be ending my FSF associate membership over this incident. Despite any other concerns I may have regarding Stallman's leadership of the GNU Project and representation of the FSF and the broader software freedom movement, I will not be demanding his departure as FSF President over the recent csail-related e-mail thread. On a personal note, nothing in my message should be construed to imply that I in any way condone any form of non-consensual sexual encounters, by any name. While I thankfully have no first-hand experience and can't imagine the trauma endured by the victims, I do have a certain emotional connection to child sexual assault and would neither take the issue lightly nor defend someone I believe to be a sexual assault apologist. I also cringe at every knee-jerk reaction against accusers (for example the term "SJW"), so I ask that we all remain civil about what is (understandably) quite an emotional subject for everyone. And thanks to anyone who managed to read this far. [1]: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6405929/09132019142056-0001.pdf [2]: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#11_August_2019_(Jeffrey_Epstein_committed_suicide) [3]: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#13_September_2019_(Epstein_donations) [4]: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September_2019_(Statements_about_Epstein) [5]: https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05%20June%202006%20%28Dutch%20paedophiles%20form%20political%20party%29 [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard&diff=727727586&oldid=727703442 [7]: https://www.stallman.org/archives/2019-jul-oct.html#14_September_2019_(Sex_between_an_adult_and_a_child_is_wrong) -- Patrick "P. J." McDermott: http://www.pehjota.net/ Lead Developer, ProteanOS: http://www.proteanos.com/ Founder and CEO, Libiquity: http://www.libiquity.com/ _______________________________________________ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss