Sarah Mei

It's notable that all of these anecdotes are from back in the '90s and before; since I assume Stallman's accusers dug around very hard for material and this is the best they could find, it stands to reason that he probably has long since improved in that regard. Moreover, the same cluster of people among others has seriously been arguing (https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e7… that a mattress in the office of someone whose every public profile involves a mention of how he slept in the office for years to develop GNU is unambiguous sexual innuendo (quote: "He kept the door to his office open, to proudly showcase that mattress and all the implications that went with it."). I am not sure how trustworthy their accounts can be considered to begin with.

The follow up to the original blog post includes a few quotes (they start in section 2): https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e7…

https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e7… It has quotes you might be able to follow up on.

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 )

>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…

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-dis… [2]: https://www.datamation.com/osrc/article.php/3830651/Richard-Stallman-L… [3]: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e7…

Out of curiosity, do you have a link? I read: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 And from a cursory search I didn't see him exactly advocating.

This medium article talks about a few people (though mostly anonymous). https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e7… April Glaser on Twitter specifically talks about accusations against him: https://twitter.com/aprilaser/status/1174093253433380864 Here's the reality though, every woman who steps up and admits publicly is probably going to get harassed. Some fuckheads on the internet are going to bother her and harass them. I imagine the # of public complaints is going to be pretty low.

As one of the people he asked out mentioned, his response to the rejection was anything but appropriate (he threatened to kill himself) [0]. 0. https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e7…

I suggest you read the articles linked in the posted link, and also this story by Steven Levy: https://www.wired.com/story/richard-stallman-and-the-fall-of-the-cluel… Threatening to kill yourself if someone won't go out with you is terrible behavior at a bunch of levels: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e7… (search for "When I was a teen freshman"). It's clear that Stallman was not just "trying to joke around and be charming". Even if that were his actual intent, acceptable intent does not justify bad behavior.

"When I was a teen freshman, I went to a buffet lunch at an Indian restaurant in Central Square with a graduate student friend and others from the AI lab. I don’t know if he and I were the last two left, but at a table with only the two of us, Richard Stallman told me of his misery and that he’d kill himself if I didn’t go out with him." https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e7…

RMS is being used because of cluelessness of the person who called for his removal: "This was not, actually, all that much about Richard Stallman. Stallman was just the last straw. This was really about all the times I have heard about a classmate’s advisor crushing her dreams, about Seth Lloyd mocking female students, the number of women alumni that were too jaded to feel surprised by this revelation, the story I read from a 1987 alumn about the trauma she experienced at the MIT and the world of that era. This was really about everything that has come out before and after the Epstein revelations, before and after Richard Stallman’s emails. Did I even really know who Richard Stallman was before those emails? To be honest, not really — I’m a mechanical engineer who didn’t pay enough attention, apparently." https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794

Vice has the full transcript and it's long, which is part of why people aren't quoting snippets. Quoting snippets is not better in this case than talking about what you think he meant. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist-ric… See also: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794

I agree it's very confusing and to me sudden. Here are a couple of links to get you started anyway: vice article summary: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist-ric… which has a link to this blog post (which is somehow central): https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 Doesn't anyone sleep on anything any more?

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

Lots of citations at https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e7…

> Stallman seems to consider Epstein a serial rapist (possibly for that fact?). He seems to be more pushing back on the pedophilia accusations. Wait, what? I thought he was objecting to the claim that Marvin Minsky assaulted one of Epstein's victims. https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794

Good riddance. Aside from his recent comments regarding sexual assault that he claims are missunderstood, MIT alum contributed stories of him being a pervert throughout the years. This type of person does not belong at MIT or in Tech. His contributions to the field do not excuse him. “He literally used to have a mattress on the floor of his office. He kept the door to his office open, to proudly showcase that mattress and all the implications that went with it. Many female students avoided the corridor with his office for that reason…I was one of the course 6 undergrads who avoided that part of NE43 precisely for that reason. (the mattress was also known to have shirtless people lounging on it…)” — Bachelor’s in Computer Science, ‘99 https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e7…

Yes. The first time I remember was the 2009 speech where he advocated that men go off and deflower emacs virgins: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.datamation.com/amp/osrc/article.php/3… However, incidents apparently go back to at least 1981: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e7…

Welcome to online witch hunt. Anyone defending the witch is probably a witch as well. How about a rational debate concerning factual things? I have allmost no background information, knew RMS only as the weird FSF guru .. and it is very hard for me to find facts. Most of the debate is about other stuff, than what actually happened. edit: so apparently all of it started with this: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 A rant by a female MIT student, offended by something she rad of RMS she did not know before. She writes very emotional, but much better, in terms of facts, than what vice etc. made out of it

More information on‒what I guess‒is the relevant backstory (RMS making reprehensible statements related to the Epstein scandal) can be found (among other places) in this blog post [1] by Matthew Garrett (original source referenced in the post is [2]). [1] https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/52587.html [2] https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794

Context: RMS waded into the MIT Epstein scandal https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 > I’ve concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is absolutely wrong to use the term “sexual assault” in an accusation.

Indeed. Its not like he has decided to keep these opinions to himself. He has emailed a work mailing-list to spout this rubbish. If I had posted this to my work mailing-list: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794 then I'd have been bollocked. If I had a history of posting politics defending something that is pretty indefensible (especially in a role where I would be in loco parentis for minors) I would have limited sympathy if this was expressed privately[1], but its not, its broadcast to all and sundry. [1] but his position is frankly wrong. Its a big ask to justify sexual slavery.

The full thread is public, so folks can read it for themselves: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8b47/two-researchers-resign-in-pr… Scroll down to the inline doc reader widget. Background: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794

Thanks, this article points to that and gives context and links to articles on all sides. Likely the flamewars on that HN post have pushed it off the front-page. For example here's an article from a comment there that got lost in the noise: https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-appendix-a-a7e41e7…

From https://medium.com/@selamie/remove-richard-stallman-fec6ec210794, stallman is quoted saying > “I disagree with some of what the article says about Epstein. Epstein is not, apparently, a pedophile, since the people he raped seem to have all been postpuberal.” He preferred to call Epstein a “serial rapist.” yeeeeeesh

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-epste… 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.