Appendix: Stallman’s idiolectical use of “child”

The main report makes the case that Stallman’s idiolectical use of “child” and “children” to strictly refers to minors younger than 12 or 13, and as such his 2019 retraction does not serve to retract remarks he has made about minors older than this age.

Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it.

Through personal conversations in recent years, I’ve learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per¹ psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why.

– stallman.org, 14 September 2019 “Sex between an adult and a child is wrong”

This appendix collects all of the primary sources which support our interpretation of this retraction and Stallman’s idiolectical use of the word “children”.

Children: Humans up to age 12 or 13 are children. After that, they become adolescents or teenagers. Let’s resist the practice of infantilizing teenagers, by not calling them “children”.

– stallman.org, “Anti-Glossary”

Please do not use the word “children” or “child” to refer to anyone under age 18. A 17-year-old is not a child. A 13-year-old is a teenager.

– stallman.org, 16 June 2024 “Online addictive-feeds law NY”

*Sex education in English schools set to be banned before children are nine.* These guidelines cover education of teenagers as well as that of children, and some topics won’t be allowed until age 15.

A fraction of teenagers find themselves (willingly or unwillingly) in sexual situations before that age. They would be better off knowing some crucial points about birth control and preventing disease, and how to say no firmly but without rejecting the person, before they need to know it.

– stallman.org, 23 May 2024 “Sex education, UK”

I can’t tell whether “children” in her statement refers to the people we normally call “children” — pre-teens — or to everyone under 18.

– stallman.org, 18 March 2024 “Olivia Rodrigo concerns”

It is exciting that SB 976 turns towards restricting recommendation algorithms. But these options should not be limited to minors — every user should have this choice. (Please do not refer to teenagers as “children”; that feeds the US tendency to treat them like children and retard their development.)

– stallman.org, 3 February 2024 “Pushing vs. pulling information”

The intended purpose of that law is to prevent minors from accessing porn sites. To exclude everyone under 18 is unreasonably strict. They try to justify this by referring to all minors as “children”. Even a person of age 17 is a “child” according to them.

To exclude only children – real children – from porn sites might be ok in principle. But how to determine whether a given user is under the specified age? The methods mentioned in the article either directly require a user to identify perself, or indirectly require per to make perself vulnerable to being identified.

– stallman.org, 6 December 2023 “UK age verification for porn sites”

I suspect that figures about the number of “children” killed really count the number of minors killed – which would be much larger, since many minors are adolescents, not children. But if these figures really do count only children, that would place tighter limits on what fraction of those killed could be HAMAS fighters. Some minors will be combatants, but hardly ever will a child be a combatant.

– stallman.org, 27 November 2023 “Gaza kill rate comparable to Bosnia, Syria, and Yemen”

When the media says “children”, we often don’t know how old those people really are. Often some of the “children” are really adolescents. In this case, I don’t think that alters the conclusion. Manipulation like this is done to adolescents, and it is done to adults — it’s abusive and wrong regardless of the victim’s age.

– stallman.org, 8 November 2023 “Junk food advertisers using antisocial media”

These laws are generally called “child labor laws”, but they cover 17-year-olds and they are certain not children. So that name is misleading. I support the substance of these laws, despite the misleading name.

– stallman.org, 6 November 2023 “Urgent: Minors employed in dangerous jobs”

The FBI discovered a right-wing extremist Satanic cult that entraps children as young as 8 and adolescents as old as 17, making them make videos of porn or self-wounding. The leader faces trial.

– stallman.org, 2 October 2023 “Extremist Satanic cult”

However, referring to teenagers under 18 as “children” is propaganda for treating them as helpless and “protecting” them from any agency, even in activities and relationships far less difficult than marriage.

– stallman.org, 26 September 2023 “Michigan raised minimum age for marriage”

Those laws are usually called “child labor laws”, and some of the people who may be put to dangerous work when these laws are weakened are children. But most are adolescents, and they too should be protected from arduous work. So let’s use a fully accurate name.

– stallman.org, 30 August 2023 “Urgent: Reinforce minor labor laws”

I will not refer to teenagers of age 14 and 15 as “children”.

– stallman.org, 26 June 2023 “Urgent: Protect minors from corporate exploitation”

As a side issue, I criticize the article for referring to high school students as “children” — they’d have to be prodigies to be in high school that young. Of course, that has no effect on the issue of emitting dangerous pollution.

– stallman.org, 24 June 2023 “LA ghetto polluter charged”

Please don’t refer to a teenager as “a child” — that is propaganda for constraining their lives.

– stallman.org, 18 May 2023 “London thugs assaulted teenager”

The article focuses on people of age 13, on the border between childhood and adolescence. But I doubt that that algorithm treats older users any better. Why would it?

– stallman.org, 7 April 2023 “TikTok aggression”

The article says “children”, but I expect that means “minors” and that most of the people searched are teenagers.

– stallman.org, 31 March 2023 “Minors searched by thugs in the UK”

I cannot tell whether this literally includes only children, or minors of all ages up to 18.

– stallman.org, 17 February 2023

It’s a side issue, but please don’t refer to 15-year-olds as “children”. They are teenagers — adolescents.

– stallman.org, 3 January 2023 “Young offender prisons”

It is plausible that this is a frequent result of treating adolescents like children, and children like infants.

– stallman.org, 26 December 2022 “American teenagers perceive basic adult activities as risky”

It is wrong to classify designate teenagers as children. We need to give teenagers more freedom and agency, not less.

– stallman.org, 5 December 2022 “Arguments against KOSA bill”

Over 500 million children (or perhaps minors) face frequent heat waves, which tend to damage their health. By 2050, that could rise to over 2 billion.

– stallman.org, 31 October 2022 “Number of children facing heatwaves is rising”

The article says “children” referring to students in “secondary schools”, people who are teenagers, not children. I support efforts to discourage them from using nicotine, but calling them “children” is not going to win their cooperation on this or anything else.

– stallman.org, 10 October 2022 “Vaping vs Smoking”

I am shocked by the idea that anyone under 18 is a “child”. That they should not be soldiers, I agree — but “child”? If someone had called me a child when I was 14 I would have resented it.

– stallman.org, 5 May 2022 “Taliban studying to be police officers”

The London thug department has a history of strip-searching minors who it arrests, and being reproached for the practice.

The word “children” here seems to mean “minor”, under 18.

– stallman.org, 23 March 2022 “The London thug department and its history of strip-searching minors”

Minnesota is considering a bill to prohibit large social media companies from using recommendation algorithms for users that are minors.

(The article misleadingly says “children,” which calls adolescents “children.”)

– stallman.org, 20 March 2022 “Bill prohibiting recommendation algorithms for minors”

The UK government is campaigning against end-to-end encryption, presenting this as a way to prevent “child sexual abuse”.

My understanding is that real sexual abuse of real children is usually carried out by relatives and friends of the family. The abusers don’t use the internet either to carry out that abuse or to meet the children.

Some points in the article suggest that the word “child” is being misapplied to adolescents. What adolescents need is help navigating the area of sex, showing them how to avoid bad trysts and relationships and find good ones.

– stallman.org, 19 January 2022 “UK government aims to stop end-to-end encryption”

Acton Business Fairs give children (and younger teenagers) an easy chance to start a real business on a small scale.

– stallman.org, 2 December 2021 “Fairs give children (and younger teenagers) an easy chance”

Some of those minors were children; others were adolescents. The article lumps them together, so we can’t tell how many were in each age range. Please do not call adolescents “children”; that tends to infantilize them.

– stallman.org, 11 October 2021 “Losing parent or caregiver to Covid-19”

The article says “children”, but in the group of people of age 11 to 17, only a small fraction are children. Please do not refer to adolescents as “children”.

– stallman.org, 1 September 2021 “Adolescents long Covid”

Resistance to family pressure for arranged marriages is growing in India, but inexplicably it veers off target. Instead of defending the right to refuse marriage — which I would wholeheartedly support — this campaign calls teenage minors “children”, then demands a prohibition on marriage for minors.

It’s a side issue, but I disapprove of calling teenage minors “children”.

– stallman.org, 18 July 2021 “Resistance to arranged marriages”

It appears that “children” is being used here to mean “minors”. I can’t let that practice go by without a rebuke. Treating teenagers like children harms them by infantilizing them.

– stallman.org, 21 June 2021 “Law against transgenders”

People age 12-15 are not children. They are adolescents. Please do not infantilise adolescents.

– stallman.org, 25 May 2021 “More harm to children from variants”

In the UK, teenagers (not “children” as the article says) are being recruited to violent right-wing extremism via internet communications.

– stallman.org, 25 September 2020 “Recruiting teenagers”

Please do not refer to teenagers as “children”. We must stop infantilizing them.

– stallman.org, 18 August 2020 “Tasing of teenagers”

Someone quoted in the article calls Hernandez Vasquez a “child”, apparently thinking we will feel more outraged that way. I think the US government should not do that to anyone regardless of per age. Anyway, someone of age 16 is not a child.

– stallman.org, 31 December 2019 “Leaving people die in cells”

Some of these minors were children, even as young as 3 years old, and they can be terribly traumatized by the experience. Teenagers can also be traumatized, especially when jailed in this way for a long time, but it is misleading to call them “children”.

– stallman.org, 23 November 2019 “Number of immigrant minors kept in prison”

The article seems to use the term “children” to refer to minors. I Get the impression that all the captured protesters who were not minors have been arrested.

– stallman.org, 21 November 2019 “Hong Kong students”

I gather that they are all teenagers rather than “children”, but that is no excuse. The law applies to teenagers, too.

– stallman.org, 15 November 2019 “Thugs illegally keep juveniles’ fingerprints”

The article itself refers to all minors as “children”, which is an attempt to exaggerate; but the unexaggerated facts are bad enough.

– stallman.org, 30 October 2019 “Children in danger”

Hong Kong thugs have arrested around 2400 protesters, of who 750 were minors.

I doubt that any of them were children, though.

– stallman.org, 13 October 2019 “Arrests in Hong Kong”

Ali was not a child. He was a teenager, indeed almost an adult. But that makes no difference. Nothing can excuse shooting at medics so they cannot reach a wounded person.

– stallman.org, 27 September 2019 “Sniper”

Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it.

Through personal conversations in recent years, I’ve learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why.

– stallman.org, 14 September 2019 “Sex between an adult and a child is wrong”

Foxconn hires workers 16 years old, then illegally has them working at night and in overtime.

Even worse, their work is to make spy devices intended to seduce users into leaving them on and listening. What Mata Hari only pretended to have done, these devices really do.

This is bad enough when presented without distortion, so let’s avoid the exaggeration of calling 16-year-olds “schoolchildren”.

– stallman.org, 12 August 2019 “Foxconn”

How to relieve the worries some parents have about vaccination.

A bigger and deeper question: how can we fix the systems that make it so easy to stir up conspiracy theories about anything whatsoever, especially if it relates to children, or adolescents being called “children”?

People with damaged immune systems can die from measles even if they were vaccinated against it. They depend on the rest of society to get vaccinated.

– stallman.org, 26 July 2019 “Relieve worries about vaccination”

Tips For Staying Civil While Debating Child Prisons.

Most of the imprisoned immigrants are adolescents rather than children. But they do include children, too. Let’s remember that imprisoning teenagers who are not threatening anyone is roughly equally bad.

– stallman.org, 23 July 2019 “Tips For Staying Civil While Debating Child Prisons”

US citizens: call on the Department of Harshness and Suffering to stop violating the human rights of immigrant children (and immigrant teenagers).

If you sign, please spread the word!

– stallman.org, 30 June 2019 “Urgent: Immigrant children and teenagers”

US citizens: call on the US to stop jailing refugee minors.

The article says “children” but I expect that most of them are teenagers. Either way, jailing them is wrong.

– stallman.org, 8 June 2019 “Urgent: Jailing refugee minors”

I wish Monbiot would not refer to teenagers as “children”. Some of the youngest climate strikers are children on the verge of adolescence, but most of them are adolescents. Greta Thunberg is no child! She is 16 years old.

– stallman.org, 13 April 2019 “Advice for climate strikers”

How accused Palestinian children are treated when arrested.

The 13-year-old was on the border of adolescence. The younger ones were children.

– stallman.org, 17 March 2019 “Children Detained”

It is a mistake to call them “children”. Some of them are 16 or 17 years old, which is too old to be called that.

– stallman.org, 11 November 2018 “Imprisoned refugee minors in Tornillo”

Most of the UK’s undercover “child” agents were actually age 17. The youngest was 15. None of them was a child.

– stallman.org, 8 November 2018 “UK’s undercover ‘child’ agents”

The article says “children”, but I am pretty sure the prisoners range up through age 17. Some are children, and some are teenagers.

– stallman.org, 27 September 2018 “Cuts to Head Start and cancer research”

The article refers to the sex worker as a “child”, but that is not so. Elsewhere it has been published that she is 16 years old. That is late adolescence, not childhood.

Calling teenagers “children” encourages treating teenagers as children, a harmful practice which retards their development into capable adults.

In this case, the effect of that mislabeling is to smear Wilson. It is rare, and considered perverse, for adults to be physically attracted to children. However, it is normal for adults to be physically attracted to adolescents. Since the claim sbout[sic] Wilson is the latter, it is wrong to present it as the former.

– stallman.org, 23 September 2018 “Cody Wilson”

The bully’s² fear agents are now holding 12,000 immigrant minors prisoner.

Some of them are children, and some are teenagers.

– stallman.org, 20 September 2018 “Imprisoned immigrant minors”

Almost 7 weeks after the court deadline to reunite migrant families, over 400 minors remain imprisoned in the US and have not been reunited with their families. There is no way to determine how many are children and how many teenagers but 22 of them are under 5 years old.

– stallman.org, 14 September 2018 “Separation of immigration families”

US teenagers are organizing voter registration campaigns to defeat senators that oppose gun control.

Please don’t call them “children”.

– stallman.org, 28 August 2018 “Defeating gun control opposition”

Australian activists are campaigning to move all refugee children (all minors, perhaps?) from Nauru to Australia.

– stallman.org, 23 August 2018 “Regugee minors in Nauru”

The article refers to them as “children”, but it is generally bad to talk about teenagers that way.

– stallman.org, 21 August 2018 “Order to reunite refugees”

This figure appears to pertain to the children alone, not including the teenagers.

– stallman.org, 14 August 2018 “Reuniting refugee children and parents”

UK thugs pressure juveniles to serve as undercover informants on other criminals.

This can be dangerous for them, and not just the direct danger of violence.

The article says “children”. If any of them are really children, that would be horrible, but that is unlikely. I expect they are teenagers.

When teenagers are eager to do this, perhaps because they want to get even with those that exploited them, and supposing they understand the risks, then I’m all for giving them the chance. But we have to suspect that most of them are coerced. Juveniles that are accustomed to being exploited for crime, or enslaved, would have trouble saying no when bullied by thugs.

– stallman.org, 26 July 2018 “Juvenile informants”

In Paraguay, even children (pre-teens) are forced to give birth if they get pregnant.

– stallman.org, 23 July 2018 “Children forced to give birth”

Leticia, at age 12, is on the border between a child and an adolescent. It appears she was able to stand up to it better — but no one should do these things to 12-year-olds.

– stallman.org, 22 July 2018 “Trauma separation from parents”

As always, I oppose referring to teenagers as “children”.

– stallman.org, 2 July 2018 “Tobacco farm workers”

I use the word “minors” to correct a factual error. Some large fraction of them are children, and the other large fraction are adolescents (teenagers).

– stallman.org, 24 June 2018 “Refugee families”

It is possible that “children” includes minors up to age 17. Not that that would excuse any of this violence and cruelty, which extend into the range of torture.

– stallman.org, 29 May 2018 “Cruel treatment of immigrants”

Some of the victims may be minors but not children. I don’t think it changes the issue much.

– stallman.org, 28 May 2018 “Urgent: Jailing children”

It sounds horrible: “UN peacekeepers accused of child rape in South Sudan.” But the article makes it pretty clear that the “children” involved were not children. They were teenagers.

What about “rape”? Was this really rape? Or did they have sex willingly, and prudes want to call it “rape” to make it sound like an injustice? We can’t tell from the article which one it is.

Rape means coercing someone to have sex. Precisely because that is a grave and clear wrong, using the same name for something much less grave is a distortion.

– stallman.org, 30 April 2018 “UN peacekeepers in South Sudan”

Young gang-members that engage in violence, even killing, are victims as well as culprits.

Calling them “children” is an exaggeration, but we don’t need to exaggerate to recognize that they are not adults, and that adult society has failed to properly raise them.

– stallman.org, 15 April 2018 “Young gang-members”

One point of disagreement: Ahed Tamimi, age 16, is a teenager, not a child. Please don’t treat teenagers as children; teenagers are not helpless and incapable of action.

– stallman.org, 9 April 2018 “Massacre in Gaza”

In Missouri, teenagers are sometimes pressured into marriage by a combination of bad laws and bad religion.

People of age 14 are adolescents, not children — let’s not infantilize teenagers. If they want to have sex, that’s normal; they should. But it is unreasonably young to get married. However, just prohibiting their marriage won’t spare them the factors that pressure them to do so.

The direct source of the problem is the lying law that redefines “rape” arbitrarily to include voluntary sex. This law put Heather Strawn in the position where the only way to protect her boyfriend from prison was to marry him.

However, religious interference with birth control and abortion are also part of the cause. No one of any age should ever “have to” get married because of pregnancy: that’s what abortion is for. With proper sex education and a good medical system, unwanted pregnancy would hardly ever occur.

The patriarchal attitude towards women is also part of the cause, but I don’t need to explain that because the article does.

– stallman.org, 17 March 2018 “Pressure to marry”

However, a minor correction is called for. Roy Moore did not date children. He dated teenagers.

– stallman.org, 21 February 2018 “Bill Clinton and the bully”

It ought to be called the “Rights of Minors”, since it applies to everyone under 18 and it is wrong to call adolescents “children.” However the substance of it is good, and the US ought to sign.

– stallman.org, 5 February 2018 “Rights of the Child”

The FBI has arrested around a thousand prostitutes, as part of an annual operation supposedly intended to “recover children” from trafficking, except that it hardly ever finds any children. Not even many adolescent minors. It finds prostitutes and arrests them.

– stallman.org, 2 February 2018 “Prostitutes arrested by FBI”

The article says “children”, but clearly intends teenagers as well; the French prohibition on using smartphones in school includes high school. If we want teenagers to become capable people, we should not infantilize them by calling them “children”.

– stallman.org, 15 December 2017 “Banning smartphones for children”

Senate candidate Roy Moore tried to start dating/sexual relationships with teenagers some decades ago.

He tried to lead Ms Corfman³ step by step into sex, but he always respected “no” from her and his other dates. Thus, Moore does not deserve the exaggerated condemnation that he is receiving for this. As an example of exaggeration: one mailing referred to these teenagers as “children”, even the one that was 18 years old. Many teenagers are minors, but none of them are children.

The condemnation is surely sparked by the political motive of wanting to defeat Moore in the coming election, but it draws fuel from ageism and the fashion for overprotectiveness of “children”.

– stallman.org, 27 November 2017 “Roy Moore’s relationships”

High school student Corey Walgren committed suicide just after he was told he might be put on the sex offender list, for recording the audio of having sex with another student.

It is wrong to record sex with someone else who has not consented to the recording. But it shouldn’t carry a penalty of lifetime loneliness, homelessness and unemployment, which is what the sex offender list does

The article repeats the customary falsehood of calling Walgren and other high-school students “children”. They are not legally adults, but they are certainly not children.

– stallman.org, 14 September 2017 “The sex offender list”

Overprotective parents don’t stop with children, or even adolescents. Now they are demanding their offspring as college students shrink from the world of college.

– stallman.org, 8 July 2017 “Overprotective Parents”

Raising the minimum age for marriage would avoid a lot of money and slow population growth.

However, calling people of age 17 “children” is a very bad idea. It leads to treating them as generally incapable of responsibility, and encourages repressive sexual policies towards adolescents.

– stallman.org, 7 July 2017 “Marraige”

Kurdish forces are accused of torturing prisoners accused of supporting PISSI.

The article talks about “children”, but it really means “minors”. Given the age range of 11 to 17, it is clear that some (most?) of the prisoners are teenagers, but some are really children.

I point this out to avoid a frequent kind of error, but it makes no important difference in this case. Torturing teenagers is just as wrong as torturing children. Likewise for torturing adults.

– stallman.org, 6 February 2017 “Kurdish forces accused of torture”

The boundaries of “child sexual abuse images” are subject to a lot of stretching, and I don’t know what those men had in mind when they answered, or whether they were shown a specific definition. We must not label everyone under 18 as “children”, nor assume that sex for someone under 16 or 18 (take your pick) is invariably “abuse”, nor treat images of fictitious children as real “abuse”. But real children are sexually abused for real, and I support laws against that. Efforts against the business of making and distributing images of that are justified — but these must not be done by dangerous methods.

– stallman.org, 9 November 2016 “Child sexual abuse images”

The people in jail are minors but they are not children. It is important to avoid infantilizing teenagers. However, the point of the article remains valid.

– stallman.org, 30 September 2016 “Syracuse teens in jail”

The FBI claims that every time someone looks at a photo of sexual abuse of a minor, the minor suffers fresh harm. So how can it excuse distributing those images for months as a sting? Wasn’t this a bigger crime than the crime it was trying to catch?

If all we know is that a photo is prohibited, we should not assert it is “child pornography”. That may or may not be true.

We should not assume that the people appearing in those photos were children. I suppose many of them really were children, but not all. Surely some were minors (under 18) but sexually mature, thus not children. Surely some were adults who looked like minors, or else the photos were retouched to make them appear to be minors.

– stallman.org, 3 September 2016 “FBI’s distribution of photos of sexual abuse”

In the UK, 2000 minors have been reported for “crimes” involving nude photos. We must suppose that most of them either made the photos of themselves, or received them from minors that photographed themselves.

(The article calls them all “children”, but most of them are surely teenagers, too old to be considered “children”.)

I hope society relaxes and stops making a twisted fuss about nude photos. As a plus, we wouldn’t need to prohibit “revenge porn” if the “victims” didn’t care.

– stallman.org, 3 September 2016 “Nude photos”

A Pennsylvania man has been imprisoned for receiving nude photos from his 16-year-old girlfriend, and will have to register as a sex offender, but “only” for 15 years.

The willfully blind law pretends there is no difference between a teenager and a child.

– stallman.org, 30 August 2016

US-supported Syrian resistance groups intentionally kill civilians and prisoners, though Assad’s forces do it more.

One of them beheaded a captured enemy child soldier in cold blood.

The prisoner was just 12 years old — a child, not an adolescent. However, killing even adult prisoners is wrong.

– stallman.org, 29 July 2016 “US-supported Syrian resistance groups intentionally kill civilians”

In a summer camp in the US, 12-year-old girls were not allowed to do anything alone — not even go to the toilet.

A normal person of age 12 is not a child, but even children should not be treated like this.

– stallman.org, 04 July 2016 “Overprotection in a summer camp”

The UK is moving to decriminalize sexting for teenagers.

The article contributes, however, to the general practice of infantilizing them by calling them “children”.

– stallman.org, 15 June 2016 “Decriminalization of sexting”

Some of those minors are so young that they really are children. Others are adolescents, and I don’t think we should call them “children”, but it is still wrong the way Israel treats them in prison.

– stallman.org, 13 May 2016 “Urgent: Protect Palestinian minors”

Everyone: call on Niger to raise the age for marriage so that teenagers are not forced into marriage.

It is wrong to refer to teenagers as “children” — that tends to encourage people to disrespect their rights. They are adolescents. Forced marriage is bad enough that we need not exaggerate by calling the victims “children”.

– stallman.org, 30 April 2016 “Urgent: End forced marriages”

Distribution of “child” pornography is now hidden on sites that normally appear to have only adult pornography. The result is that people trying to download the adult pornography may get “child” pornography they did not want. They could be jailed for this.

This is yet more proof that it is intolerable to prosecute people for having downloaded something, or having a copy of something — no matter what that something is.

Be careful not to take the term “child abuse images” on face value. It’s accurate for some of the images, which are photos of real sexual abuse of real children, but not all of them. Some of the “children” are adolescents, or even adults that appear to be adolescents, and others are not real people at all.

– stallman.org, 26 April 2016 “Hidden distribution of child pornography”

Teenagers in Colorado have not increased their use of marijuana since it was legalized for adults.

We should not call teenagers “children” — they are adolescents. That error encourages treating them as incapable and trampling their rights.

– stallman.org, 24 April 2016 “Legalization of marijuana”

I don’t want to call teenagers “children” because I think that will support the idea of limiting their rights.

– stallman.org, 20 April 2016 “Homeless teens in Delhi publish newspaper”

I reject the practice of calling teenagers “children” merely because they are minors, but these are 12 years old, not even teenagers. They really are children.

– stallman.org, 28 February 2016 “Schoolchildren face felony charges”

PISSI is using children of 12 as suicide bombers, as well as teenagers.

– stallman.org, 20 February 2016 “PISSI using child suicide bombers”

Some US states punish technicians that notice “child” pornography on a client’s computer and don’t report it.

Keep in mind that “child” includes teenagers of age 16 or 17, who in Massachusetts can legally have sex. It even includes women of 18 or older, if they look younger or have small breasts.

It includes photos that teenagers take of themselves having sex (but “only” 10% of them get prosecuted).

A law against possessing a copy of some sort of publication, no matter what kind that is, is tyranny and leads to more tyranny. It must be repealed.

– stallman.org, 29 January 2016 “Punishment for ignoring child porn”

I support prosecution of those that perpetrate real abuse (sexual or not) of real children. By “real” I mean specifically that I do not follow states’ definitions of these terms. In fact, some states stretch the terms to the point of absurd injustice. There is a tendency to define adolescents as “children” and define all sex involving adolescents as “sexual abuse”. Infantilizing adolescents is harmful to society in many ways.

Since this is an ethical question, not a legal one, the question of the right definitions is for us to consider, not for states to dictate.

– stallman.org, 2015-2016 “Witch Hunt”

Israel jails Palestinian minors as young as 8 in painful conditions and arbitrarily hampers them from talking with their families.

I expect that most of these minors are teenagers, but some really are children.

– stallman.org, 22 November 2015 “Jailed Palestinian minors”

A United Nations human rights expert strongly condemned the U.S. on Tuesday for being the “only State in the world that still sentences [minors] to life imprisonment without the opportunity for parole.”

The expert actually said “children” but we don’t need to stretch that word to make this point.

– stallman.org, 16 March 2015 “UN human rights expert condemns US”

Here, as in general, I decline to use the term “children” to refer to teenagers. For many issues, what’s right for children is different from what’s right for teenagers. However, that doesn’t affect the substance of this issue: torture like this is wrong for teenagers, for children, and for adults too.

– stallman.org, 7 February 2015 “Torture in Israli prison”

A UK minister says, if the government could watch all communications, it would find more “pedophiles”.

They are not talking finding and imprisoning men that have sex with children. They are talking about finding and imprisoning men who have or redistribute copies of images that depict sex with children, or perhaps with adolescents labeled as children; they want to imprison them because there is some chance they would have sex with children, or with adolescents. I don’t believe that should be done at all.

This campaign, unjust in itself, is presented as an excuse for total surveillance of everyone. That power would of course be used against other targets — journalists’ sources, dissidents, anyone who gets in the way.

– stallman.org, 2 January 2015 “Watch all communications”

I object to referring to teenagers as “children”, though. That is misleading.

– stallman.org, 19 December 2014 “Smoking in a car with minors in it”

There are laws that dishonestly claim that every time someone under 16 or 18 (depending on where) has sex, it is “rape”. Calling willing sex “rape” does not make it rape, and calling a 17-year-old who wants to have sex a “child” does not make that teenager a child.

– stallman.org, 11 September 2014 “Rapists protected by UK thugs”

The article says “children”, but adolescents are not children, so I won’t use that word. Advertising tobacco to adolescents is arguably even worse than advertising it to children, since children are not likely to start smoking whereas adolescents may well do so.

– stallman.org, 21 July 2014

The article says “children”, but it is clear the article means “minors”. Only some of them are children. But how do 6-year-olds cross the border illegally? Not alone, surely.

– stallman.org, 20 June 2014

The next excuse for snooping on everything on the Internet will be “child” pornography.

The term “child abuse images” is deceptive: I think in practice it includes teenagers labeled as “children”, and stretches the word “abuse” too. However, some of these images will show real abuse of real children.

The government should focus on protecting the children themselves, not on censoring (and surveilling) all communication.

– stallman.org, 20 November 2013 “The next excuse for snooping on everything”

There are two arguments for prohibition of “child pornography”. One is that “it was made in a real act of sexual abuse”. In some cases, that is true. However, in many countries, the “child” may be an adult, or even nonexistent, since the censorship extends even to drawings. Meanwhile, in the US, the “child” may be 17 years old and taking the photos. This argument does not apply to those cases.

– stallman.org, 16 May 2013 “Distribution of child pornography”

I doubt that “child” pornography, even when it really depicts children and not postpuberal teenagers, plays a big role in leading people to sexually abuse children, because adults have done this for a long time even though porn was not available. In any case, the main risk to a child comes from people in the family.

– stallman.org, 11 June 2012 “World-wide Internet censorship”

I see nothing to criticize in the FBI’s methods in getting evidence against Cafferty. It steered well clear of entrapment. The characters in its nonexistent videos were described as unambiguously children, not stretching that term to the postpuberal. My only objection is to the idea that people should be imprisoned for having a collection of images based on what subject matter they depict.

– stallman.org, 29 April 2012 “The FBI”

I put the term in quotes because US law dishonestly defines images of young adults even of age 17 as “child pornography”, despite the fact that most Americans of age 17 have had sex. Perhaps in the UK the term is limited to children.

– stallman.org, 9 March 2012 “Pornography”

The term “child pornography” is the basis for a demonization campaign that equates cartoons with rape and sexually active 17-year-olds with children.

– stallman.org, 15 February 2012 “Canadian Child Pornography”

In the US, if two 17-year-olds have sex and take a photo of it, they can both be imprisoned for “making child pornography”, but only a twisted sex-hater would say they “abused” each other. This is why I put quotes around the word “child”. Once humans are sexually mature, it’s normal for them to have sex, and with cameras ubiquitous it’s normal for them to take a photo.

– stallman.org, 6 December 2011 “Germany Eliminates Filtering”

I put “child” in quotation marks because that word is part of the dishonesty. It is meant to suggest that only a pervert would find them attractive. Many of these “children” are old enough that they could legally get married in some states — and most normal adults will find them attractive.

– stallman.org, 9 August 2010 “Demonization of child pornography endangers US national security”

The first target of this censorship is sites and newsgroups that supposedly contain “child pornography”. This term is dishonest, since the law defines “child” as “anyone under 18”. For instance, Americans of age 16 are hardly children. They are sexually mature, almost half of them have had sex, and any normal adult will find them attractive. But our government calls them “children”, with the implication that being attracted to them makes you a pervert.

– stallman.org, 23 June 2008 “Internet censorship & child pornography”

Some Finnish ISPs censor foreign “child” pornography on a government-maintained list. Recently a Finnish site which discusses the issue was added to the list, and thus censored too.

If the term “child pornography” were applied to images of prepuberal humans, it would at least be honest. But it is common to pervert the term by applying it to images of sexually mature humans, sometimes as much as 17 years old.

– stallman.org, 20 February 2008 “Finnish ISPs censor foreign child pornography”

A UK police chief dared to note that post-puberal females, age 13 and up, are not accurately labeled as children.

– stallman.org, 26 November 2007 “Labeled as children”

Two teenagers in Florida were prosecuted for taking sexy photos of themselves together. It is legal for them to have sex, but if they take a picture, that is “child pornography”. The judges argued that they should be punished now because the photos might be released some day, even if it were against their will.

Meanwhile, this case reveals the dishonesty of the word “child” in the expression “child pornography”. When they use that term, they want us to think of 10-year-olds, but then they apply it to sexually mature young adults.

– stallman.org, 14 February 2007 “Teenagers prosecuted for sexy photos”

The UK wants to extend censorship by banning the possession of artwork that present “abuse” of children. (I suspect their definition of “abuse” refers to sex, not violence.)

In the 1980s, US officials arguing that “child pornography” (involving “children” of ages up to 17) was evil because it was always made by “abusing” a “child”. Then the US government made a mockery of that argument by prohibiting all art depicting “children” having sex, even when made without a real “child”. But this law was rejected as unconstitutional.

– stallman.org, 14 December 2006 “Extend Censorship”

Sometimes adults are in a position of power over teenagers (or even children) and use that power to pressure them into sex. That is wrong because it is coercion. Sometimes they manipulate or trick inexperienced people into sex they didn’t want. That’s not right because it is not honest.

– stallman.org, 6 April 2006 “DHS spokesman sex scandal?”

I have not seen these photos, but 15 years is several years past the average age of puberty in the US. Calling her a “child” is an exaggeration almost as dishonest as accusing her of “abusing” herself.

– stallman.org, 8 April 2004 “Child Pornography”

I think it is an exaggeration to call 15-year-olds “children”, but it makes no sense to keep them in a prisoner-of-war camp.

– stallman.org, 1 February 2004 “15 year old POWs”

As usual, the term “child” is used as a form of deception, since it includes teenagers of an age at which a large fraction of people are sexually active nowadays. People we would not normally call children.

– stallman.org, 25 May 2003