Reddit Co-Founder Aaron Swartz Dies at 26 13 January 2013, by Verena Dobnik

Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz dies at 26 13 January 2013, by Verena Dobnik

A co-founder of Reddit and activist who fought to political action group Demand Progress, which make online content free to the public has been campaigns against Internet censorship. found dead, authorities confirmed Saturday, prompting an outpouring of grief from prominent But Swartz struggled with depression. voices on the intersection of free speech and the Web. "Surely there have been times when you've been sad," he wrote in a 2007 blog post. "Perhaps a Aaron Swartz, 26, hanged himself in his Brooklyn loved one has abandoned you or a plan has gone apartment weeks before he was to go on trial on horribly awry. Your face falls. Perhaps you cry. You accusations that he stole millions of journal articles feel worthless." from an electronic archive in an attempt to make them freely available. If convicted, he faced Swartz wrote that "depressed mood is like that, only decades in prison and a fortune in fines. it doesn't come for any reason and it doesn't go for any either." He was pronounced dead Friday evening at home in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood, said Among Internet gurus, Swartz was considered a Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for New York's pioneer of efforts to make online information freely chief medical examiner. Police went to the available. apartment after receiving an emergency services call from Swartz's girlfriend, who found him. "Playing Mozart's Requiem in honor of a brave and brilliant man," tweeted Carl Malamud, an Internet "Aaron's insatiable curiosity, creativity, and public domain advocate who believes in free brilliance; his reflexive empathy and capacity for access to legally obtained files. selfless, boundless love; his refusal to accept injustice as inevitable—these gifts made the world, Swartz aided Malamud's own effort to post federal and our lives, far brighter," Swartz's family in court documents for free online, rather than the few Chicago said in a statement Saturday. "We're cents per page that the government charges grateful for our time with him, to those who loved through its electronic archive, PACER. In 2008, The him and stood with him, and to all of those who New York Times reported, Swartz wrote a program continue his work for a better world." to legally download the files using free access via public libraries. About 20 percent of all the court Swartz was "an extraordinary hacker and activist," papers were made available until the government the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an international shut down the library access. nonprofit digital rights group based in California wrote in a tribute on its home page. The FBI investigated but did not charge Swartz, he wrote on his own website. He "did more than almost anyone to make the Internet a thriving ecosystem for open knowledge, Three years later, Swartz was arrested in Boston and to keep it that way," the tribute said. and charged with stealing millions of articles from a computer archive at the Massachusetts Institute of Swartz was a prodigy who as a young teenager Technology. Prosecutors said he broke into a helped create RSS, a family of Web feed formats computer wiring closet on campus and used his used to gather updates from blogs, news laptop for the downloads. headlines, audio and video for users. He co- founded the social news website Reddit, which Experts puzzled over the arrest and argued that the was later sold to Conde Nast, as well as the result of the actions Swartz was accused of was the

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same as his PACER program: more information "more than 4.5 million articles" publicly available for publicly available. free.

The prosecution "makes no sense," Demand Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights Progress Executive Director David Segal said in a reserved. This material may not be published, statement at the time. "It's like trying to put broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. someone in jail for allegedly checking too many books out of the library."

Swartz pleaded not guilty to charges including wire fraud. His federal trial was to begin next month.

According to a federal indictment, Swartz stole the documents from JSTOR, a subscription service used by MIT that offers digitized copies of articles from academic journals. Prosecutors said he intended to distribute the articles on file-sharing websites.

He faced 13 felony charges, including breaching site terms and intending to share downloaded files through peer-to-peer networks, computer fraud, wire fraud, obtaining information from a protected computer, and criminal forfeiture.

JSTOR did not press charges once it reclaimed the articles from Swartz, and some legal experts considered the case unfounded, saying that MIT allows guests access to the articles and Swartz, a fellow at Harvard's Safra Center for Ethics, was a guest.

Criticizing the government's actions in the pending prosecution, Harvard law professor and Safra Center faculty director Lawrence Lessig called himself a friend of Swartz's and wrote Saturday that "we need a better sense of justice. ... The question this government needs to answer is why it was so necessary that Aaron Swartz be labeled a 'felon.'"

Swartz's family blamed prosecutors for his suicide.

"Aaron's death is not simply a personal tragedy," the family statement said. "It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's office and at MIT contributed to his death."

JSTOR announced this week that it would make

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APA citation: Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz dies at 26 (2013, January 13) retrieved 2 October 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2013-01-reddit-co-founder-dies-ny-weeks.html

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