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Mere possession of child pornography should not be a crime at all. To prosecute people for possessing something published, no matter what it may be, is a big threat to human rights. – stallman.org, 5 June 2017 “Possession of child porn”
I'll honestly be surprised if he doesn't end up being revealed to be in possession of CSAM.
I knew he had said problematic shit, but this is disturbing.
An anonymous hit job that reads like it was written by Ehmke. We should give this any credence because…?
It looks pretty well cited to me. The fact that it was written anonymously doesn't really take away from that.
It really kind of does. If the author is so ashamed of the work that they won’t sign it, that speaks volumes.
An anonymous hit job
it's literally his own words all the way down here. if it's a "hit job" it's entirely Stallman's own fault for being a freak with morally abhorrent takes. one of the first things mentioned here is that he had to retract the position that "voluntarily pedophilia" doesn't harm children (a category of person he defines as anyone under about 13)! any reasonable person would find this abhorrent and Stallman a horrible person for ever having defended said position in the first place, because it is genuinely abhorrent to defend something like that. that's just child abuse.
Not defending pedophiles, but there was a time when 13 was considered adult. It’s still legal for teenagers to marry in most countries.
Anything can be taken out of context.
Not defending pedophiles, but
you are about to defend pedophilia. rethink this and stop talking.
there was a time when 13 was considered adult.
and? Stallman is not talking about a previous time at any point here. also: that previous time was bad anyways. why would we want to--especially with respect to age of consent--go back to considering 13-year olds and younger to be adults? they cannot meaningfully consent to sexual relations with adults; it's just child abuse. all of this is why Stallman's words are abhorrent.
It’s still legal for teenagers to marry in most countries.
Stallman is not talking about teenagers. he explicitly distinguishes children (again, people <13 for him) from teenagers (people 13-17).
You're free to look at the context that they frequently link to, it doesn't help. His political notes that contain the majority of his public musings are typically very brief and the quotes used typically replicate the entirety of the original text or cut off changes of subject.
Stallman is very clear in his beliefs.
I had heard that his behavior was problematic, but I was unaware of the depth of the issue.
Not just problematic, but consequential too:
Richard Stallman has also embarked upon a decades-long political project to normalize sexual violence. Under his ideological leadership, the free software movement is unsafe, particularly for women. Women represent just 3% of the free software community,2 compared to 23% of industry programmers generally.3 This is no accident. There is a pervasive culture of sexism and a stark lack of accountability in free software, and it begins with Stallman’s unchallenged and reprehensible behavior.