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This is a nice time to remind everyone that Aaron Swartz died while fighting for a freer internet and a freer world. He is, by Paul Graham, considered a founder

This is a nice time to remind everyone that Aaron Swartz died while fighting for a freer internet and a freer world. He is, by Paul Graham, considered a founder of reddit but is rarely mentioned in these stories. Instead of trying to go for broke and grind till he could cash out, Aaron put his skin in the game for what the internet should become. Which gets more relevant everyday that the internet megacorps consolidate power, control information, and shape the public discourse. Reddit is one such site. They should be embarrassed by how they dismissed the ethical dilemmas of operating reddit in favor of making a profit.

kodah 3y ago
It'd be nice if they'd stop trying erase Aaron's work on Reddit but that's been underway for some time, and I'm not even really sure why. I can't fathom an end-goal where marginalizing Aaron's contributions is a benefit to them.
- benatkin 3y ago
  Yeah it was long before the government went after Aaron. You could hear it straight from spez but the comment linked here is deleted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20241
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago
  To my recollection Aaron Swartz was anti-establishment; the reddit he was part of was grass-roots, laissez-faire, no holds barred, ... whilst reddit today is part of the media establishment, much more top-down, heavily modded and censored. Reddit in the post digg-exodus days seemed like a veneer of 'news' covering one of _the_ seedy underbellies of the web. Not only, but to a large extent a hive of scum and villainy; not a chan-site but similarly lacking in societal respectability. ?
  - benatkin 3y ago
    He was only there for a few months, so I don't think the reddit community changed much and drove him off that way. It was like it was when it started for several years. kn0thing and spez seem like they have a lot in common with Elon politically. Aaronsw not so much. Sorry I can't seem to explain how I perceive their political differences at the moment and instead am just giving an example.
    - theGnuMe 3y ago
      Libertarian?
      - benatkin 3y ago
        Who? Aaronsw definitely not IMO. He cofounded this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_Progress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_Progress
        theGnuMe 3y ago
        Elon is the libertarian in this analogy.
- birken 3y ago
  If I had to guess as to why his contributions are marginalized, it would be that his contributions were ~16 years ago to a version of the website that is vastly different in scope and scale to the one that exists today. Founders are important entities for companies, but just having the title of "founder" doesn't also magically mean whatever contributions and decisions you made have to be memorialized and defended forever after so many things have changed.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - benatkin 3y ago
    Hmm. Tesla would be a bad analogy but what you said would apply to them as well. To give the founder of Tesla zero credit, as Elon does, seems wrong. He wasn't really like Facebook's other founders either. (Unlike Elon and Tesla, Zuckerberg is unquestionably a founder of Facebook.) Zuckerberg gave them too little credit, but at least one of them demanded too much credit IMO. That doesn't make it right for Zuckerberg to give them too little credit.
    - birken 3y ago
      There is a very big difference between giving no credit and giving a fair amount of credit, which might be small. If you listened to the podcast they talked about Aaron in a non-disparaging way, and a way that I'm sure is accurate to their beliefs about it. But my point is that _even if_ Aaron was super, super important to the company 16 years ago (which I can't speak to), Reddit was a tiny little fledgling of what it is now. From what little I know about Reddit's history, I know that Aaron stopped working on Reddit very soon after he started and has had no contribution to the company since then. I also do think it's interesting that the people that have worked at Reddit for years/decades all seem to have a similar opinion of the situation, and the people who haven't worked at Reddit at all are the ones that feel so strongly that Aaron is being wronged somehow. Maybe Aaron himself was more proud of all the other things he accomplished! Saying he was an important but small part of Reddit's story is still something!
nelsonenzo 3y ago
It's owned by a Chinese company from what I understand. I don't think they have a particular bone with Aaron, but generally just believe in deleting inconvenient controversies.
- eco 3y ago
  Tencent owns 5% of reddit.
  - nelsonenzo 3y ago
    5% based on fictional evaluation, but $150 of the last $300 mil raised. Certainly enough to influence marketing and positioning.
    - bink 3y ago
      IIRC they don't even have a seat on the board.
faeriechangling 3y ago
I've felt for a decade now, even though the two weren't directly linked, that the death of Aaron Schwartz was the symbolic death of Reddit's soul. Nowadays the website is a dark pattern hellscape that forces app downloads for "age verification" and just because you scrolled through too many comments. Schwartz is dead and Ohanian is a multi-millionaire married to an olympian, so I guess that tells you about what society values. At least we can already see the beginning of the end of the exploitative paywalled journals and people like Alexandra Elbakyan picking up where Schwartz left off.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Swartz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz
  - faeriechangling 3y ago
    I must be watching too much Spaceballs
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Np, it's an easy thing to get wrong. I'm just trying to stop propagation of the wrong information.
dangus 3y ago
Well, that's what sort of happened. He broke in to an MIT networking closet (he was never a student there, and MIT is not a public university) and connected his equipment to the network. https://www.wired.com/2013/12/swartz-video/ https://www.wired.com/2013/12/swartz-video/ There are a lot of much more legal ways to make the Internet freer. He was a smart guy and knew what he was doing was highly illegal. It goes without saying that it's very tragic that he decided to end his life. I think that this is the major issue with martyrdom. Aaron is remembered for "fighting the man" but the real story is a significantly muddier than that. A martyr's death makes it seem like the martyr did nothing wrong even if they did, so tread carefully on idolizing them. (You and I certainly wouldn't appreciate a stranger breaking into our homelab closets and attaching equipment, and in many states we would be within our rights to defend our property with deadly force on sight). People like Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman make the Internet and computing more free while avoiding blatant, stupid lawbreaking. Aaron sadly isn't around to make the successor to Reddit or do anything to help make the Internet more free. I'm not trying to say that the feds being intimidating is right, but, ya know, Aaron did the exact sort of thing that goes far beyond petty crime. Sorry, I know this is kind of a dumb and not so productive soap box. Oh well.
- maister 3y ago
  > He broke in to an MIT networking closet (he was never a student there) and connected his equipment to the network. The closet was unlocked and he used a regular guest access to the MIT network. Also he was downloading documents that were created by using public funds. > There are a lot of much more legal ways to make the Internet freer. He was a smart guy and knew what he was doing was highly illegal. There are always other and more effective ways to everything. With this kind of argumentation one always must come to the conclusion that it is best to do nothing. Also let's not forget that he did much more than downloading documents at MIT. > think that this is the major issue with martyrdom. Aaron is remembered for "fighting the man" but the real story is a significantly muddier than that. A martyr's death makes it seem like the martyr did nothing wrong even if they did. That's a definition for martyrdom I have not heard before. Usually a martyr is simply defined as a person who is willing to suffer or even die for a cause, belief, or principle that they consider to be of great importance. > Sorry, I know this is kind of a dumb and not so productive soap box. Oh well. I will simply never understand why people will argument so strongly against their self interests.
iguana_lawyer 3y ago
I’ve been banned from multiple subreddits for commenting “I wish Aaron Swartz were still alive”. Just that. Nothing else. Instant ban with no recourse. That’s how toxic reddit moderators are.

kodah 3y ago

It'd be nice if they'd stop trying erase Aaron's work on Reddit but that's been underway for some time, and I'm not even really sure why. I can't fathom an end-goal where marginalizing Aaron's contributions is a benefit to them.

benatkin 3y ago
Yeah it was long before the government went after Aaron. You could hear it straight from spez but the comment linked here is deleted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20241
pbhjpbhj 3y ago
To my recollection Aaron Swartz was anti-establishment; the reddit he was part of was grass-roots, laissez-faire, no holds barred, ... whilst reddit today is part of the media establishment, much more top-down, heavily modded and censored. Reddit in the post digg-exodus days seemed like a veneer of 'news' covering one of _the_ seedy underbellies of the web. Not only, but to a large extent a hive of scum and villainy; not a chan-site but similarly lacking in societal respectability. ?
- benatkin 3y ago
  He was only there for a few months, so I don't think the reddit community changed much and drove him off that way. It was like it was when it started for several years. kn0thing and spez seem like they have a lot in common with Elon politically. Aaronsw not so much. Sorry I can't seem to explain how I perceive their political differences at the moment and instead am just giving an example.
  - theGnuMe 3y ago
    Libertarian?
    - benatkin 3y ago
      Who? Aaronsw definitely not IMO. He cofounded this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_Progress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_Progress
      - theGnuMe 3y ago
        Elon is the libertarian in this analogy.
birken 3y ago
If I had to guess as to why his contributions are marginalized, it would be that his contributions were ~16 years ago to a version of the website that is vastly different in scope and scale to the one that exists today. Founders are important entities for companies, but just having the title of "founder" doesn't also magically mean whatever contributions and decisions you made have to be memorialized and defended forever after so many things have changed.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- benatkin 3y ago
  Hmm. Tesla would be a bad analogy but what you said would apply to them as well. To give the founder of Tesla zero credit, as Elon does, seems wrong. He wasn't really like Facebook's other founders either. (Unlike Elon and Tesla, Zuckerberg is unquestionably a founder of Facebook.) Zuckerberg gave them too little credit, but at least one of them demanded too much credit IMO. That doesn't make it right for Zuckerberg to give them too little credit.
  - birken 3y ago
    There is a very big difference between giving no credit and giving a fair amount of credit, which might be small. If you listened to the podcast they talked about Aaron in a non-disparaging way, and a way that I'm sure is accurate to their beliefs about it. But my point is that _even if_ Aaron was super, super important to the company 16 years ago (which I can't speak to), Reddit was a tiny little fledgling of what it is now. From what little I know about Reddit's history, I know that Aaron stopped working on Reddit very soon after he started and has had no contribution to the company since then. I also do think it's interesting that the people that have worked at Reddit for years/decades all seem to have a similar opinion of the situation, and the people who haven't worked at Reddit at all are the ones that feel so strongly that Aaron is being wronged somehow. Maybe Aaron himself was more proud of all the other things he accomplished! Saying he was an important but small part of Reddit's story is still something!

nelsonenzo 3y ago

It's owned by a Chinese company from what I understand. I don't think they have a particular bone with Aaron, but generally just believe in deleting inconvenient controversies.

eco 3y ago
Tencent owns 5% of reddit.
- nelsonenzo 3y ago
  5% based on fictional evaluation, but $150 of the last $300 mil raised. Certainly enough to influence marketing and positioning.
  - bink 3y ago
    IIRC they don't even have a seat on the board.

faeriechangling 3y ago

I've felt for a decade now, even though the two weren't directly linked, that the death of Aaron Schwartz was the symbolic death of Reddit's soul. Nowadays the website is a dark pattern hellscape that forces app downloads for "age verification" and just because you scrolled through too many comments. Schwartz is dead and Ohanian is a multi-millionaire married to an olympian, so I guess that tells you about what society values. At least we can already see the beginning of the end of the exploitative paywalled journals and people like Alexandra Elbakyan picking up where Schwartz left off.

jacquesm 3y ago
Swartz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  I must be watching too much Spaceballs
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Np, it's an easy thing to get wrong. I'm just trying to stop propagation of the wrong information.

dangus 3y ago

Well, that's what sort of happened. He broke in to an MIT networking closet (he was never a student there, and MIT is not a public university) and connected his equipment to the network. https://www.wired.com/2013/12/swartz-video/ https://www.wired.com/2013/12/swartz-video/ There are a lot of much more legal ways to make the Internet freer. He was a smart guy and knew what he was doing was highly illegal. It goes without saying that it's very tragic that he decided to end his life. I think that this is the major issue with martyrdom. Aaron is remembered for "fighting the man" but the real story is a significantly muddier than that. A martyr's death makes it seem like the martyr did nothing wrong even if they did, so tread carefully on idolizing them. (You and I certainly wouldn't appreciate a stranger breaking into our homelab closets and attaching equipment, and in many states we would be within our rights to defend our property with deadly force on sight). People like Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman make the Internet and computing more free while avoiding blatant, stupid lawbreaking. Aaron sadly isn't around to make the successor to Reddit or do anything to help make the Internet more free. I'm not trying to say that the feds being intimidating is right, but, ya know, Aaron did the exact sort of thing that goes far beyond petty crime. Sorry, I know this is kind of a dumb and not so productive soap box. Oh well.

maister 3y ago
> He broke in to an MIT networking closet (he was never a student there) and connected his equipment to the network. The closet was unlocked and he used a regular guest access to the MIT network. Also he was downloading documents that were created by using public funds. > There are a lot of much more legal ways to make the Internet freer. He was a smart guy and knew what he was doing was highly illegal. There are always other and more effective ways to everything. With this kind of argumentation one always must come to the conclusion that it is best to do nothing. Also let's not forget that he did much more than downloading documents at MIT. > think that this is the major issue with martyrdom. Aaron is remembered for "fighting the man" but the real story is a significantly muddier than that. A martyr's death makes it seem like the martyr did nothing wrong even if they did. That's a definition for martyrdom I have not heard before. Usually a martyr is simply defined as a person who is willing to suffer or even die for a cause, belief, or principle that they consider to be of great importance. > Sorry, I know this is kind of a dumb and not so productive soap box. Oh well. I will simply never understand why people will argument so strongly against their self interests.

iguana_lawyer 3y ago

I’ve been banned from multiple subreddits for commenting “I wish Aaron Swartz were still alive”. Just that. Nothing else. Instant ban with no recourse. That’s how toxic reddit moderators are.