Stallman said [1]:
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 of the criticism.
Computer scientist Richard Stallman, who defended Jeffrey Epstein,
resigns from MIT CSAIL and the Free Software Foundation
I want to respond to the misleading media coverage of messages I
posted about Marvin Minsky's association with Jeffrey Epstein.
The coverage totally mischaracterised my statements.
Headlines say that I defended Epstein. Nothing could be further
from the truth. I've called him a "serial rapist", and said he
deserved to be imprisoned. But many people now believe I defended
him — and other inaccurate claims — and feel a real hurt because
of what they believe I said.
I'm sorry for that hurt. I wish I could have prevented the misunderstanding.