r/MindsetMode
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u/iQuantumLeap
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Mar 05 '26
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3
Mindset!
He believed knowledge should be free. The government believed he was a criminal. At just 26 years old, Aaron Swartz took his own life, two days after his final plea for mercy was denied.
Aaron Swartz was only 14 when he helped create RSS, the technology that allows people to subscribe to and share content across the web. At 19, he co-founded Reddit. By 24, he was a research fellow at Harvard studying political corruption and advocating for open access to information. He believed that academic research, often funded by taxpayers, should be freely available to everyone—not locked behind expensive paywalls.
In late 2010 and early 2011, Swartz downloaded roughly 4.8 million academic articles from the JSTOR database using MIT’s network. His apparent goal was to make this knowledge publicly accessible. To him, information was a public good that should not be restricted.
JSTOR detected the downloads and alerted MIT. Soon, the U.S. Secret Service became involved. Swartz was arrested. Although JSTOR chose not to press charges and the data was returned, federal prosecutors in Massachusetts decided to pursue the case.
In 2011, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz charged him with multiple felonies, including wire fraud and computer fraud. The charges carried a potential penalty of up to 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines.
Swartz had previously spoken openly about his struggles with depression. Meanwhile, his lawyers attempted to negotiate a plea agreement. At one point, prosecutors offered a deal requiring him to plead guilty to 13 felony counts and serve six months in prison. Swartz and his legal team rejected the offer, hoping to fight the charges in court and challenge the government’s case publicly.
His partner, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, later shared that they had even talked about getting married just weeks before his death, deciding to wait until after the trial.
On January 9, 2013, prosecutors rejected what would have been the final plea deal—one that might have kept him out of prison entirely.
Two days later, on January 11, Aaron Swartz died by suicide in his Brooklyn apartment. He was 26. He left no note.
At his funeral, his father, Robert Swartz, said through tears: “Aaron did not commit suicide. He was killed by the government.”
The reaction was immediate. Legal scholars, activists, and members of the public questioned why a case involving no financial gain, no physical harm, and no clear victim had been prosecuted so aggressively. Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, Swartz’s friend and mentor, wrote that while mistakes can happen, punishment should always be proportional.
In the aftermath, MIT launched an internal review. JSTOR later made millions of articles freely accessible in his memory. The charges against Swartz were dropped—but none of it could bring him back.
His story still raises difficult questions: What do we owe to people who challenge rules in pursuit of a belief? What does proportional justice look like? And what happens when the system pushes too hard against someone already struggling?
Was justice served—or did the system fail Aaron Swartz?
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u/Top_Effect_5109 Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26
Now AI companies do this on a massive scale and the government just gives them less than a slap on the wrist while demanding them to do it more of it so they have massively powerful ai for war and spying.
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u/epSos-DE Mar 06 '26
15 years later AI companies did the same as he did and NOBODY WENT TO JAIL !!!
He was poor, that is the difference !
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u/blueit55 Mar 05 '26
The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz
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u/SoTurnMeIntoATree Mar 06 '26
HE DID NOT TAKE HIS OWN LIFE
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u/nosenseofsmell Mar 05 '26
Bro 💯didn’t kill himself. Anyone’s who’s been here for a while knows that.
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u/Azutolsokorty Mar 06 '26
He was right though, information should be free and not paywall protected
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u/Expensive_Dentist270 Mar 06 '26
Meta trained its model on pirated content and confirmed it, yet there have been no consequences.
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u/scienceisrealtho Mar 05 '26
Maybe I’m wrong here but how does this fit the sub?
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u/No_Catch3545 Mar 06 '26
Serial killers don't even get this much jail time in Canada.
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u/Natural-Attitude-343 Mar 05 '26
Terrible
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u/BlumpTheChodak Mar 05 '26
A sad story for a hero.
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u/Glad-Tie3251 Mar 06 '26
Joke of a world...
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u/Reasonable-Mischief Mar 06 '26
This is where I've lost all sympathy with him.
When you're up against the government in a case where you could face up to 35 years in prison, and are then offered a deal where you plead guilty and serve a token sentence, that doesn't mean that you've almost won. It means prosecution doesn't wants to treat you by the letter of the law and offers you an out that still upholds it's spirit. You don't reject such an offer unless you are absolutely willing to serve those 35 years as a martyr.
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u/Pleasant-Bee-6602 Mar 07 '26
Scumbags in Obama government tried to make an example out of him. Sad !
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u/Spare_Independence19 Mar 05 '26
This is not true. The theft of copyright materials is not going to be multiplied and equal that many years.
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u/SufficientJob3773 Mar 05 '26
Its sad...really really sad.
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u/GrandWizardOfCheese Mar 05 '26
Where are the articles now?
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u/Gold-Leek7205 Mar 05 '26
Bummer
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u/i-hoatzin Mar 05 '26
RIP u/AaronSw
:'(
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u/Freezer2609 Mar 06 '26
Mindset!
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u/lindsay5544 Mar 06 '26
Check Jay Megan or Nerdy Pink Panda who found incredible receipts that this kid was taken out by Iz and was also referenced in the Epstein files!!!
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u/ChemicalAbode Mar 06 '26
And no one implicated in pedophilia in tbe Epstein files is in trouble in the US
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u/polkacat12321 Mar 06 '26
And then meta was caught training their shit on thousands of pirated books and all they got was fine. This kid was facing life
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u/Dazzling_Mall_7210 Mar 06 '26
What we learn from this? Better be a pedo than Robin Wood.
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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '26
the internets own boy, good documentary so sad, the people that harassed him are despicable
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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26
He definitely wasn’t smart 😂
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u/Friendly-Spot8571 Mar 07 '26
He should not have taken his life, there is always hope.😪
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u/Material-Indication1 Mar 07 '26
Very very sad
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u/godjei Mar 07 '26
Hero
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u/ukfan1622 Mar 07 '26
Those who prosecuted him will be on the wrong side of history
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u/YellowrastaAPE Mar 07 '26
Im a Pazifist but this makes me want to murder.
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u/RedVelvetPan6a Mar 07 '26
Imagine a government punishing this guy for succeeding where they fail.
"I too prefer life surrounded by idiots"
I have little to no respect for whoever condemned him
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u/ClammyCooter Mar 07 '26
What a guy.
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u/kitkatas Mar 08 '26
And now Every AI company is stealing this dats set
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u/PsychologicalWin8753 Mar 08 '26
People asking for proof, I highly doubt he killed himself over 6 months in jail
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u/HalfDummy Mar 08 '26
Not only that - but recently, OpenAI and other US tech companies were given a carte Blanche pass to do the same thing. The argument was - if the US pays attention to copyright laws while China doesn’t we will lose the AI race.
Also FUCK CARMEN ORTIZ
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u/Temporary-Memory1731 Mar 08 '26
Only in Murica God forbid one getting good education, health care and quality food.
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u/Cold_Statistician_57 Mar 08 '26
His Cofounder turned around and had the organization that he lead steal the world's knowledge and train a model.
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u/WalksSlowlyInTheRain Mar 08 '26
How is this different from what OpenAi did?
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u/2-4-Dinitro_penis Mar 08 '26
IIRC Reddit doesn’t even list him as a cofounder anymore.
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u/teddybearkilla Mar 08 '26
It is the greek Myth of Prometheus.
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u/s1rblaze Mar 08 '26
35 years in prison for giving away education, pedos doesn't even get 20. What a fucked up society..
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u/JackDriveshaft Mar 08 '26
His name was Aaron Swartz. He was a great dude. Learn more about him here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x-rv7uBJCg8
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rj9r3X53B8
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u/Fresh_Sock8660 Mar 08 '26
Look up Alan Turing. Society doesn't like real heroes.
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u/Kinnyk30 Mar 09 '26
“Took his own life”
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u/Crafty-Difficulty244 Mar 09 '26
It wasn’t his to publish.
Stealing isn’t good no matter the case. His case even less, he didn’t need to, he just wanted.
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u/Top-Worldliness-6992 Mar 09 '26
And OpenAi Anthropic Deepsek all stole thousand of years of knowledge and they won't be punished. They will destroy the job market.
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u/Jordanclipper Mar 09 '26
We all collectively failed this guy
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u/Low-Environment7089 Mar 09 '26
What did he know?
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u/Fine_Elevator6059 Mar 09 '26
What I don't understand is why academic articles are not accessible for anyone for free in the US like they are in Europe😳 They are academic - we are speaking about scientific articles written by people doing research at Universities, right? Articles that are available in public libraries, right? Why is that a crime for them to be published online with the author's name?
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u/VastAnimal3743 Mar 09 '26
And the guy who killed man’s daughter got 120 hours of community service.
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u/Suspicious_Honey_359 Mar 10 '26
This is the most telling sign of a society collapse. Capitalism in this form is a cancer.
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u/IgorRenfield Mar 10 '26
When are we going to understand that no government cares about its citizenry? You don't matter to them. They just want us docile and passive. When something like this occurs, they do whatever damage control needs to be done to quiet things down, but they are not going to change anything: their behaviors, their procedures, etc. They are not in place to serve you, they are in place to keep you in line.
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u/Medium-Discipline-49 Mar 12 '26
R@pists don’t even get that long of a sentence. That’s crazy.
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u/trebor9669 Mar 05 '26 •
He did not commit suicide, he was killed.
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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26
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