https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ documents how RMS's words were twisted. The reporting was without doubt careless

https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ https://sterling-archermedes.github.io/ documents how RMS's words were twisted. The reporting was without doubt careless and misleading. Specifically, his she presented herself to him as entirely willing was re-phrased to then he says that an enslaved child could, somehow, be "entirely willing". 'Presented as' and 'be' are subtly, but critically different, so paraphrasing him like that is a lie. At the same time, it's close enough that it could be argued it's an honest mistake. Given how short the original quote was, I highly suspect the decision to trim it to a mere two words was malicious. But convincing a court it wasn't an honest mistake/misinterpretation would be difficult, and it's close enough to the truth that "reckless disregard for truth" wouldn't apply, I assume. Other publications repeated this, with titles such as Renowned MIT Scientist Defends Epstein: Victims Were "Entirely Willing" - which is again false, as he neither defended Epstein (if you must interpret his statements as a defense, it was only for Minsky), nor did he claim the victims were willing. In sum, the reporting contained damaging false statements - did you have some specific reasoning why this wouldn't be libel (even if difficult to prove intent in practice)? Edit: Yes, I agree, merely quoting the initial article wouldn't be libel. However, many articles repeated the creatively re-contextualized RMS quote themselves, without attributing it to the original medium post, and made it look like it was something they themselves were stating.