Forwarded from Late-Stage Capitalism Things
And for those who have no idea who he is:
Aaron Swartz helped develop RSS, Creative Commons, and fucking markdown of all things. He lived his life believing that information should be free to all.
In 2011, he was arrested for breaking and entering an unlocked closet. He used his JSTOR account provided by MIT to bulk-download thousands of educational documents hidden behind JSTOR's firewall.
US prosecutors continued to come after him as a show of force, to prove that they back corporate interests (to no one's surprise). He committed suicide rather than falsely plead guilty to 13 federal crimes.
There is a wonderful documentary on his life, and a more complete telling of the events listed above, called "The Internets Own Boy" [wikipedia page linked below]. At time of writing, this documentary appears to exist on a popular video streaming service for free, however I will not link to it in hopes that it stays up longer for more people to watch it. I highly recommend it to everyone, particularly those skeptical about piracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz
Aaron Swartz helped develop RSS, Creative Commons, and fucking markdown of all things. He lived his life believing that information should be free to all.
In 2011, he was arrested for breaking and entering an unlocked closet. He used his JSTOR account provided by MIT to bulk-download thousands of educational documents hidden behind JSTOR's firewall.
US prosecutors continued to come after him as a show of force, to prove that they back corporate interests (to no one's surprise). He committed suicide rather than falsely plead guilty to 13 federal crimes.
There is a wonderful documentary on his life, and a more complete telling of the events listed above, called "The Internets Own Boy" [wikipedia page linked below]. At time of writing, this documentary appears to exist on a popular video streaming service for free, however I will not link to it in hopes that it stays up longer for more people to watch it. I highly recommend it to everyone, particularly those skeptical about piracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internet%27s_Own_Boy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz
❤🔥2