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[–] 492 points 3 years ago (1 child)
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[–] 398 points 3 years ago (8 children)

Swartz wasn’t involved in the origins of Reddit. He got involved when Y Combinator combined his company with Reddit (something along those lines?). He was not an actual founder, just an early influencer. In many ways, decoupling him from the shitshow that Ohanian and Huffman have engendered is a good thing.

This is very similar to the argument of Musk being a founder of Tesla.

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  • [–] 156 points 3 years ago (62 children)

    Also Swartz had a section of his homepage defending child pornography as "not necessarily abuse" and that possession & distribution of it should be a first amendment right. He also advocated for a violent overthrow of the US government. Here's a cache of one instance of him defending it. Aaron did some really great tech stuff, but he's not a person that should be regarded as some hero as he had a lot of views that were misguided at best.

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  • [–] 81 points 3 years ago (14 children)

    In the US, it is illegal to possess or distribute child pornography, apparently because doing so will encourage people to sexually abuse children.

    This is absurd logic. Child pornography is not necessarily abuse. Even if it was, preventing the distribution or posession of the evidence won't make the abuse go away. We don't arrest everyone with videotapes of murders, or make it illegal for TV stations to show people being killed.

    I don't know if that's the reason CP is actually banned, but his logic is even worse and dumber by a mile.

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  • [–] 62 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    That website has been the same since it’s first archive on 2002-12-17. Aaron Swartz had just turned 16 a month earlier. I know I had some seriously immature opinions at that age. As well, that website was still up as of this January, a decade since his passing. http://www.aaronsw.com/ is also still up, and it doesn’t look like it was updated since 2002 either. Neither is any of this referenced on his wikipedia page, nor on it’s talk page. This feels like such a reach…

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  • [–] 46 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I sure love it when people use a single opinion to smear a person's entire legacy, he was great not only for the tech stuff but his stance on scientific articles piracy and a lot of other stuff too.

    I won't say that that his opinion on cp is a great one (there is no doubt at least for me that distribution should always be illegal), but he wrote it as a 16 years old and it was guided due to his extremism for free speech over the internet, regardless, it's not like he himself was an evil person distributing child pornography, to paint him as an overall shitty person for an opinion like this seems idiotic imo

    This is q bit personal and maybe slightly unrelated, but it reminds me of when people defend non-offending pedos (as in they are attracted to children because yhey are born that way but have not offended, nor groomed, nor harmed a child) saying the stigma should be erased because that would allow us to actually help this people who constantly hide it, therefore reducing the harm to children. This position has unironically got me called a pedophile and a lot of horrible stuff over the internet, and I would draw parallels to this situation, no matter how you slice it this opinion should not be used singlehandedly to state he is someone that shouldn't be respected. Especially since he is not defending the harm itself being done to children (as in the production of CP) which would still be a crime under his view. (Although distribution of course grows the market so it's idiotic not to go after that too), but as I said, it's a bad opinion but that doesn't make him a bad person.

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    [–] 221 points 3 years ago (16 children)

    This disgusts me.

    Aaron Is one of my heroes. He died standing up for something he believed in.

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  • [–] 41 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (3 children)

    Imagine if we got him to join Lemmy's side

    Edit: oh shit I didn't know it, RIP

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  • [–] 30 points 3 years ago*

    I believe that Aaron stood up and didn't grab ankle when confronted with overwhelming force sent from his intellectual and moral inferiors.

    But being short on days to make eternity just we all have a crumple point. And the government's executive branches have found crumpling to be so very easy to do.

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    [–] 170 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    As a silver lining maybe it's best people don't associate him with what the site has become. He was a piece of its history, but he wasn't trying to found what Reddit has become

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  • [–] 70 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Yes. I think Aaron would want to take his name off from there.

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  • [–] 37 points 3 years ago (34 children)

    If I were him, I would be more concerned with my name being attached to this defense of child pornography: https://web.archive.org/web/20130116210225/http://bits.are.notabug.com/

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  • [–] 35 points 3 years ago* (2 children)

    If I were him I'd stand by that defense. It's a carefully worded and sane defense. He's not defending child abuse, he's saying, extremely clearly and plainly, that possession of evidence is not the same as committing abuse, and that the law shouldn't use possession as a scapegoat. Which, given that every attempt to censor the internet in the last 10 years has started with "protect the children", I'd say he was trying to cut that tactic off at the head.

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  • [–] 137 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    That's a new low. Anyone who knows about Aaron and still using reddit - Shame on You.

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  • [–] 116 points 3 years ago (10 children)

    Aaron was reddit, and since his passing its shit now.

    RIP Mr Swartz, you are sorely missed.

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    [–] 112 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Really fucking blessed memory. He was one of the real ones. I'll never forget what Aaron did.

    https://karolina.andersdotter.cc/2023/01/in-memoriam-aaron-swartz-1986-2013/

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    [–] 84 points 3 years ago*

    Obligatory FUCK SPEZ.

    He's a cunt.

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  • [–] 83 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    They just decided that because Aaron fought for free speech, this fact doesn't fit their agenda anymore so they removed it. Amazing.

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  • [–] 36 points 3 years ago

    This permanently sealed the deal for me. I will never use Reddit as anything other than a search engine operator for finding niche information. Of all the unethical and sociopathic decisions that have been made over the years, this one I can never forgive. Steve Huffman is a cancer, and if he had any ounce of humanity left in him he would be ashamed of himself for allowing this.

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  • [–] 74 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    Back when "reddit.com" was a subreddit. I remember the thread (you can still visit it today) regarding his early departure. And how Aaron and spez didn't really want to disclose the "real reason". But, it saddens me how the public viewed his contributions as complete nil in result of no full disclosure (Aaron did simply state corporate life (post acq.) was not for him, but everyone says that).

    Especially during times like this when the same batch of Aaron's year (Altman, Huffman, etc) are pushing closed source thoughts. We need Open Access civics, like Aaron again.

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  • [–] 69 points 3 years ago (5 children)

    I looked into this more. Reddit (created by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian) merged with Infogami (created by Aaron Schwartz). There are people calling Aaron Schwartz one of the founders, but that doesn't seem entirely accurate.

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    [–] 62 points 3 years ago

    They really are doing their best to look like shitheads, aren’t they.

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  • [–] 62 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    That dude was great, he helped contribute to RSS as well. RIP

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  • [–] 58 points 3 years ago

    It's old news, they removed him from the founders list two years ago.

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  • [–] 56 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    This is true but also old news from what I remember they took him off that page a long time ago. Reddit has been heading toward it’s inevitable demise ever since Aaron passed. Glad I finally left for good.

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  • [–] 26 points 3 years ago* (5 children)

    Wait. Back up.

    I haven't been embroiled in the drama that is Reddit and it's founding.... But the "c-level" guy that was basically the free speech advocate of the admin team.... Died?

    This explains a lot actually.

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  • [–] 53 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    At the End of the day: The greedy man's gonna have nothing, literally nothing. For Aaron his legacy will continue.

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  • [–] 52 points 3 years ago
    [–] 40 points 3 years ago

    u/spez is a complete and utter piece of shit

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  • [–] 37 points 3 years ago

    Ok. Now that is truly fucked up. Someone needs to check in on that fucker, he's not mentally healthy.

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  • [–] 36 points 3 years ago (1 child)
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    [–] 35 points 3 years ago

    Ironically he is defeated by being censored out. :(

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  • [–] 28 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    Yesterday, I finally decided to cut ties with reddit, except for targeted web searches. First it was the constant attempts to force me to download their app. Then denying me access to certain posts and subreddits cuz I wouldn't. Then the API debacle. Then few days ago, significant redesign that wasn't for usability, but for money,. Corporate greed. Used to spend hours on reddit, but past few weeks, there's hardly any worthwhile content. One has to be careful what one gets used to. Grateful I discovered lemmy yesterday.

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    [+] 28 points 3 years ago
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