Stallman's remarks were made on an MIT mailing list, where he wrote that 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".

He was referring to deceased AI pioneer Marvin Minsky who has been accused of assaulting one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre who was 17 at the time. Epstein committed suicide some weeks ago while in jail for alleged child trafficking offences.

The FSF said Stallman had quit on 16 September. "The board will be conducting a search for a new president, beginning immediately. Further details of the search will be published on fsf.org," it added.

In his MIT resignation, Stallman wrote: "I am resigning effective immediately from my position in CSAIL at MIT. I am doing this due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterisations."