Who Was Aaron Swartz, and Why is He Dead at 26?
Family members say one of the most prolific minds of the digital age apparently took his own life Friday, a victim of depression and the stress of a trumped-up federal piracy case.
Aaron Swartz, a programmer, polymath and information activist whose work formed the basis of content subscription services widely used on the Internet,was found dead of an apparent suicide Friday. He was 26. MSNBC's Chris Hayes called Swartz "a 21st-century Renaissance man" who, at 14, helped create the RSS feed that powers sites like Reddit, with which hisstartup, Infogami, merged in 2005. Swartz believed information access is a form of social justice, and famously campaigned successfully against the Stop Online Piracy Act. He co-founded the e-petitioning group Demand Progress to organize and advance online activism for progressive causes. JSTOR case But Swartz's convictions landed him in trouble with the federal government. In 2011, he …
