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Aaron Swartz

Aaron Swartz58 posts

Aaron Swartz was an American entrepreneur and internet activist. He was known as one of the early members of Reddit and for helping to create the RSS specification. He had been charged with stealing computer documents from MIT but before the trial he committed suicide on Jan 11, 2013, at the age of 26.

 

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24 Apr, 2013

Swartz documentary Kickstarter project launches

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Brian Knappenberger, the director of the Anonymous documentary We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists, launches a Kickstarter to raise $75,000 to fund his feature documentary about Swartz. The documentary, currently titled The Internet’s Own Boy, will look not just look at the life of the programmer and activist, but at the culture he helped build. In addition to speaking with Swartz’s family and loved ones Knappenberger plans to speak with officials at MIT, which has been reviewing what happened in the JSTOR case since the programmer’s death. Keeping in line with Swartz’s vision, the director said he plans to release the film under a Creative Commons license so that others can build off of what he produces.

27 Sep, 2010

Starts Demand Progress

Founding0 Comments

Swartz founds Demand Progress, a Progressive Political Action Committee and grassroots activism organization. The group runs online campaigns and lobbies in Washington, D.C. and in various states for progressive causes, such as stopping Internet censorship and issues of privacy.

31 Oct, 2006

Reddit bought by Condé Nast

Acquisition0 Comments

Condé Nast Publications acquires Reddit for a reported $20 million. All four Reddit employees relocate from Boston to Wired’s San Francisco office and become part of Wired Digital, which the company bought three months previously. Conde Naste:

Our goal will be to build Reddit as an independent company by collaborating with Wired through the integration of its core technology, and by offering partnerships to allow other companies to do the same.

At this time the site has 70,000 daily unique visitors and approximately 700,000 or so page views.