For the uninitiated: why was this a bad move by FSF?
At this point one of the participants was appalled and asked RMS if he is aware that the contents of this internal list may leak to the press and if he knows what would happen. He answered[0]:
> The 's' in CSAIL stands for 'science'. The job of scientists is to evaluate evidence and seek truth. We have a social responsibility to do that as well. I hope that we scientists will never evade our social responsibility to seek and defend the truth out of fear that the press will misconstrue our search.
Then someone sent these discussions to the press saying that "Stallman is defending Epstein." Many media outlets published these pieces attributing to Stallman things he didn't say. Most importantly they claimed that his opinion was that the victims were "entirely willing." Nobody ever apologized to him for this and many people still believe this, even on HN.
Moreover, Minsky's wife later said nothing could have happened because they were always together when visiting Epstein's property. But nobody cares anymore, this false story was just used to drown Stallman as many people didn't like him for other things.
* His written defenses of "consensual" pedophilia and defenses of ownership of child pornography, as well as calls for parents of babies with disabilities to have abortions
* An email around the definition of "Rape" with regards to Marvin Minsky allegedly having sex with a 17 year old member of Epstein's harem
* A sign that was on the door of his MIT office decalring him to be the "Knight for Justic (also: Hot Women)"
* Allegations from several women that he would aggressively hit on them and not take no for an answer
After the controversy, the FSF took him off the board. The FSF has now flip flopped on this and put him back on the board.
Just to be clear: the parent commenter doesn't mean to say that RMS owns child pornography, but is instead referring to RMS commenting on other people's possession of it.
Just to be clear: (1) he was quoting a newspaper describing an actual study (that was quite shocking, but nevertheless it was a study) that has some strange conclusions, (2) he backed down later and apologized for his previous opinions.
* he never, ever defended paedophilia in any form.
* he defended the memory of Minsky who never had any sex with any member of the Epstein harem.
* the sign on his door was a prank and wasn't his doing anyway.
The only real thing is that as a neuro-divergent, he has an awkward way to propose, and often behaves inappropriately in public. Knowing that it's pretty rich that the same woke crowd accused him of "ableism".
This all reeks of corporate propaganda. It's incredibly similar to the way Assange has been smeared for years about things he didn't do. It's an agenda to de-fang the FSF, kill Free Software and make it all nice and Microsoft/IBM friendly.
Therefore, my opinion is that it's a plot against Free Software, the FSF and RMS. And I'll fight vehemently against that.
See http://techrights.org/2021/03/27/objective-look-at-phony-sca...
You'll even have a nice picture of some guy named Bill Gates with his good friend Epstein...
This move should be sufficient to get them to understand who their masters are, and to get back in line, though. RMS will be out by month's end, and all will be well again.