UNIVERSIDAD PONTIFICIA BOLIVARIANA

CENTRO DE LENGUAS ENGLISH 11 AND 12

PROFESSOR: MONICA PABON
NAME: Paula Andrea Ramírez Ayala

THE INTERNET’S OWN BOY

THE STORY OF AARON SWARTZ
PRE-VIEWING: LOOK AT THE PICTURE ABOVE AND GUESS WHO WAS AARON SWARTZ.

Aaron Hillel Swartz (Chicago, November 8, 1986 - New York, January 11, 2013) was an
Internet programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political activist and hacktivist. He was
involved in the development of the RSS web feed format, the Markdown publishing
format, the Creative Commons organization, the "web.py" website infrastructure, and the
social bookmarking website Reddit, of which he became a partner after it merged with his
company, Infogami.note He received media attention after the JSTOR collection of
academic journal articles.
He was chief designer of the initial Open Library project. He also focused on sociology,
civic awareness, and political activism. In 2009 he helped launch the "Progressive Change
Campaign Committee" to learn more about effective online activism. In 2010 he was a
member of the Harvard University Center for Ethics. He also co-founded the online group
Demand Progress (known for its campaign against SOPA). He later co-founded the group
On January 6, 2011 Swartz was arrested by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Police Department (MIT police) on charges of wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawful and
reckless entry into a protected computer, and damage, after connecting a computer to
the MIT network from an unattended and unlocked locker, and setting it to download
scholarly publications automatically from JSTOR, using a guest account provided by the
Institute itself. Federal prosecutors later charged him with online fraud and eleven
violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, carrying a maximum penalty of a $1
million fine, thirty-five years in prison, asset forfeiture, restitution, and probation.
He committed suicide while he remained under indictment by the U.S. Federal Magistrate
for information theft, a prosecution that was labeled by the family as "the product of a
criminal-judicial system rife with intimidation and excessive prosecutions."
In June 2013, Swartz was posthumously inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame.
WHILE-VIEWING 1. WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY: “The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of
Aaron Swartz” (2014)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNRTb4RXkPo

AFTER-VIEWING 1. DRAW A TIMELINE ABOUT THE MOST RELEVANT FACTS THAT

HAPPENDED IN AARON’S LIFE.
2. ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS.

1. What was your immediate reaction to THE INTERNET’S OWN BOY video?

Mainly amazement at seeing the mind of a young man who as a child was simply brilliant
and his tragic end.
2. Do you believe Aaron Swartz was guilty?

Was he rightfully or wrongfully accused? Why? I feel he was unfairly accused, he was the opposite
of what a criminal can be, he just wanted to help others with his work, he made a mistake which
should not have cost him his freedom, much less his life.

3. Should world governments have the right to withhold certain information from the public? If
yes, which information and why?

I’m not really a person who knows much about politics or the damages that this suggestion may
cause, however, I believe that the best, healthiest and most honest thing possible is that no type of
information be hidden from the citizens, I believe that we all have the right to know what is really
happening in our environment in order to, in turn, know how it affects us and how we can improve
or solve such situations.

4. Do you ever feel concerned about how the Internet will evolve? Do you think it will remain
free, equal, and democratic, or could it eventually become controlled by some form of state
power or corporate authority?

I feel that somehow it is already largely controlled in many parts of the world, I think that in turn is
involved the "use" that people give to the platform, there are countries like North Korea where it is
literally forbidden to surf the internet freely.

5. Can open information accessibility coexist with financial profitability? Explain.

Yes, the economy goes hand in hand with evolution, which includes new technologies, I feel that at
some point (although in a way, we already see it now) there will be a cost to access certain
platforms depending on the boom and profitability they have.

3. The next are two themes from the documentary. Add two ideas about each theme
based on the vid. Use a different color to type your ideas.
AN EXAMPLE TAKEN TOO FAR The U.S. government’s legal case with Aaron Swartz was not
founded on a welldefined, undeniable crime having been committed. Although 13 counts were
brought against him, the scope of law under which Swartz was prosecuted was tenuous, and
rather than declining to prosecute him, the government used Swartz as an example to reveal the
destiny awaiting all those who would liberate information considered private property. Targeted
as an enemy of the state, Swartz was pressured into severe psychological and financial stress,
leaving us to wonder if the government persecution was a contributing factor in his suicide… The
government has no use for intelligent people who work or generate opportunities that benefit the
community, because in a certain way they would no longer have control over it. In addition Aaron
was a brilliant mind from a very young age, condemned in an unjust way with an exaggerated
sentence which achieved its cause, to generate terror, because it was so much that the young man
preferred to end his life than face the new life that he would have locked up between walls and
clubs.

EMBATTLED AND HOPEFUL Friends and family describe Swartz as a believer, not one easily
disheartened. Troubled by a society that valued riches over knowledge, he pursued his vision of
making the world a better place. Yet in his optimism he was downcast; in his hope he felt despair.
Swartz’s story exposes the essence of human nature, where there is space for both the positive
and negative, the energetic and the weary. Swartz believed there was little chance that SOPA
could be stopped, but he soldiered on, proving the strength of his beliefs and his hope for positive
change, despite the darkness taking him in the end… Since he was a child he demonstrated his
knowledge which he implemented to help others, just as he did when he created The Info, a web
encyclopedia that would be of great help to a person within the educational system and even
outside of it. Like any human being there are situations that surpass us, he searched and created
new alternatives to help others, same that condemned him to an unjust crime, because instead of
programming he would be condemned to leave aside his freedom and forced to pay a million
dollars, the fruit of his work for many years, even more than that, a sad end for such a brilliant
mind.