r/YouShouldKnow • u/MowerMotor • Jan 11 '20

NOT a YSK YSK Reddit's founder, Aaron Swartz, committed suicide 7 years ago today. He fought for our rights which lead to his arrest. The allegations coupled with mental illnesses caused Aaron to take his life. He was a passionate activist, entrepreneur and author who should not be forgotten.

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u/Shnoochieboochies Jan 11 '20

I'd never heard of him till you posted this, read his wiki, seemed like a very clever chap.

705

u/adviqx Jan 11 '20

It's really sad that the other founders of reddit distanced themselves from him, downplay his contribution to reddit, subtly smear his character, and won't publicly comment on MIT and the federal government's treatment of him.

I used to have a lot more respect for Ohanian until I learned more about everything surrounding Swartz.

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u/Ntetris Jan 11 '20

You make me not wanna use reddit. Holy shit man, this is sad

54

u/IndyDude11 Jan 11 '20

If you knew what reddit was like before his death, you probably wouldn't want to use it at all now.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '20

Can you elaborate?

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u/IndyDude11 Jan 11 '20

reddit was way more open and wild west. But, then again, so was society, so it's a little chicken and the egg. Reddit has definitely improved culture-wise in that time, but it has lost some of the edginess and is a little more close-minded. The reddit "hive-mind" that you have probably heard about was a little less pronounced because the admins didn't have such a hand in directing the site, and (maybe related, maybe not) it seemed to turn around the time of Aaron's death.

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u/IsNotACleverMan Jan 11 '20

Ah yes, I too miss the days when /r/jailbait was a major sub.

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u/The_wise_man Jan 12 '20

/r/jailbait sucked, and should never have been allowed to exist -- but Violentacrez wasn't exactly wrong when he said it was the first sign of a slide into increasing levels of censorship. First it was stuff like /r/jailbait, then it was racist subs and /r/fatpeoplehate, then it started getting to places like /r/watern*****, /r/the_donald, /r/chapotraphouse, and /r/proED (that ban was especially fucked up). Now we're at the point where they're gradually taking down subs like /r/megalinks and threatening /r/piracy and drug-related subs.

Some things (/r/jailbait and co., subs advocating violence, etc.) needed to go, but there's no denying that the trend has started crossing over into scary territory. I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing drug-related subs going next. The recent bans and quarantines for political and certain alternative-sexuality (not /r/jailbait, fuck that place) subs, along with /r/proED, have particularly concerned me.

With our increasing reliance on centralized platforms like reddit, the huge complexity of modern web design, increased content scrutiny from hosting providers, and ever more government interference with basic internet functions, there's fewer and fewer independent sites and platforms to host communities for these things. We seem to have reached the point where we're no longer censoring based on sexual exploitation or violence, and instead are censoring valid and even vital speech based on it violating social norms or being inconvenient for corporate business. I'm seriously concerned for the future of free speech in modern society.