From your link: "suggesting that the financier's victims somehow consented to the sex trafficking scheme"
This is incorrect. He said that the victims would have appeared to Minsky to have consented, because the coercion would have been out of sight. That is an awkward statement in several ways and it deserves pushback. But it is a different statement than the assertion that the victims consented, it is in no sense a defense of Epstein, and pretending Stallman said something he did not say is not helpful.
> There were also his comments about Minsky and Epstein. He is entitled to his opinions, but as a leader of an important org with such stringent beliefs, delving into other topics was a distraction for the org. Being a leader requires focus and direction, inviting controversy with comments on unrelated current events is the opposite of focus.
You're likely aware, but I wanted to take this opportunity to surface that a lot of the coverage of his comments on Minsky and Epstein was misleading if not malicious.
Notably, articles from Vice and The Daily Beast accused him of defending Epstein and asserting that victims were willing, and both of those accusations are false, as can be reasonably discerned from careful reading of the quotes that appear in the articles themselves. Rather, Stallman defended Minsky and said that victims probably appeared to Minsky to be willing even if they were being coerced out of his sight.
In addition to any judgement we're applying over his choice of whether to talk about it in the first place, we should be sure we're judging him for what he said (which I do believe deserves criticism) and not for what some people want to pretend he said.
> I learned last night that Richard M. Stallman (RMS) has articles about him on Vice that are narrowly focused on some of his weighing in on the Epstein case.
Both the headline and the article claim that Stallman said Giuffre was "entirely willing;" a read of the provided emails shows otherwise. He said that she probably appeared to Minsky to be "entirely willing;" that Minsky would have been unaware of coercion, not that there was none.
There are absolutely things to object to in what he said, but we should be objecting to what he said, not the words some (apparently) shoddy journalists are putting in his mouth.
At least in the case of the Daily Beast article by Blake Montgomery, enough context was included that a plain reading of the quoted material makes clear that the surrounding text and headline were radically incorrect. Journalistic malpractice if not deliberate libel. The author has since doubled down. I, for one, won't be believing a damned thing written by the man in the foreseeable future. I encourage you to make your own determination.
Stallman defended Minsky. Judge him for what he said. Don't judge him for a defense of Epstein - he unambiguously condemned Epstein with the rest of us.
Defending Epstein narrowly with regards to the age of his victims might not be off-brand. Defending the coersion and threats would be entirely off brand.
Apparently, neither happened.
The material provided in the Daily Beast article is obviously a defense of Minsky, not Epstein. The article was journalistic incompetence. You can criticize what RMS said, judge him harshly for it, but it was not a defense of Epstein.
This is incorrect. He said that the victims would have appeared to Minsky to have consented, because the coercion would have been out of sight. That is an awkward statement in several ways and it deserves pushback. But it is a different statement than the assertion that the victims consented, it is in no sense a defense of Epstein, and pretending Stallman said something he did not say is not helpful.