Frankly, I don’t think that was enough to make Aaron commit suicide. However, having close relations like Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian completely turn sour and blame him probably did, and I’m akin to believe they know what they did given how hard they doubled down on “well, Aaron really wasn’t that great of a guy” narrative.
It is not true that he was sentenced to 35 years in prison by US authorities for transferring and sharing scientific articles from JSTOR. It is true that he killed himself.
Looks likely he would have been convicted, especially considering the whole suicide thing??
Basically the same thing, calling it misinformation implies its creating a perception of the incident that is unwarranted, where I would disagree that the distinction has any merit
I am genuinely disappointed that on an ostensibly science-related message board I see comments along the lines “this isn’t actually true, but it kinda-sorta is, therefore, inaccurate claims somehow aren’t misinformation”. If all kinds of counter-factual things were true, then all kinds of things would be true: what is the point of this hand-waving to defend something that is riddled with untruths? Also, with whom did he purportedly share these documents? In 22 words, this person got no fewer than two things wrong and you are carrying water for what reason?
Law is not science, it’s politics. This is a political distinction, not a matter of the laws of reality
Their comment wasn’t a dissertation, i didn’t expect extreme precision, I’m defending the spirit in which I believe that comment was posted, because I agree with it, simple as
According to a quick read on Wikipedia, you are right. He was charged, But not sentenced.
On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) police on state breaking-and-entering charges, after connecting a computer to the MIT network in an unmarked and unlocked closet and setting it to download academic journal articles systematically from JSTOR using a guest user account issued to him by MIT.[15][16] Federal prosecutors, led by Carmen Ortiz, later charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,[17] carrying a cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and supervised release.[18] Swartz declined a plea bargain under which he would have served six months in federal prison.[19] Two days after the prosecution rejected a counter-offer by Swartz, he was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment.[20][21]
Shout out to Alexandra elbakyan. She continues part of aaron’s work by running sci-hub and libgen, but lives safely out of reach of the american criminal “justice” system 💔
Law Enforcement and the Justice System have every responsibility to enforce laws as they were written, JSTOR pressed charges and the US Government offered Auron a plea deal to reduce his sentence to 6 months.
Definitely an argument about the inadequacy of US Healthcare to be made here, though. Auron clearly could have used some counseling.
Well if a Psychologist had helped him through it maybe he could have turned around and sued that prosecutor into disbarment.
EDIT: People are downvoting this, but TBH I wouldn’t kill myself over a 35 year sentence much less the 6 months in the plea deal this guy got. Wouldn’t consider it for a single moment. He had agency in his own actions.
The prosecutor went on to have a pretty successful career and I think had a role in Obama’s administration. She basically said “I’m sorry your son killed himself” but never admitted to having a part in his death.
Aaron committed suicide before his case went to trial, and so he was never convicted let alone sentenced. 35 years was never even likely; had it gone to trial there’s every reason to think he’d have been acquitted outright, or at worst given a slap on the wrist. Not that he should have even been charged, of course.
There’s a documentary on YouTube called “The internet’s own boy”, if you want to learn more. Basically, he was offered a 6 month plea, but he would be a convicted felon, and basic logic/morality tells you that you shouldn’t plead guilty to a crime that you didn’t commit. However, the justice system is very imperfect, and often people plead guilty for reduced sentencing even if they’re not guilty. He stood on principle until his legs gave out. they were already in millions spent in attorney fees. Not a shred of justice can be found in how Aaron’s story ended.
Also JSTOR never wanted him prosecuted only to have the files deleted and call it a wash. It was MIT that supported prosecution and who called the fuzz in the first place.
Well killing oneself is always one’s own choice, but it’s terrible that he was given such a ridiculous sentence for no more than a copyright issue. Not even sure if he made money on the material, but even if he did he should have gotten maybe a fine, and imprisonment is just insane.
Oil CEOs pay fines for bringing about a global climate catastrophe. Fascist politicians are given slaps on the wrist for an attempted coup d’etat. Government officials openly commit gross violations of privacy and suffer no consequences.
But a guy hacks a university network and downloads a hoard of scientific articles that should have been freely accessible to begin with and he gets 35 years in prison. I’ll admit I wasn’t familiar with this case before I saw this picture. Which is kind of insane in and of itself.
Remember Kim Dotcom? He had a file sharing website and the police raided his house with guns like he was a dangerous criminal. There is a video of it on YouTube.
Honestly I had forgotten about the whole MegaUpload stuff.
Given, Kim Dotcom had a long history of being a trash person before the MegaUpload raid; Trading in stolen credit card info, embezzlement, black-hat hacking, etc… But he definitely didn’t deserve to get swatted just because he hosted a site that was popular with media pirates. The police used his prior convictions as justification for their heavy-handed tactics. But the reality is that they likely would have gone in with SWAT even if he had a squeaky clean record beforehand.
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