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[-] thesmokingman@programming.dev 382 points 11 months ago

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.

[-] Gramba@kbin.social 198 points 11 months ago

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.

[-] genoxidedev1@kbin.social 14 points 11 months ago

What. The actual. Fuck. This guy is comparing peas to pies.

Imagine wanting to legalize that shit because "We don't arrest everyone with videotapes of murders, or make it illegal for TV stations to show people being killed.". Can't he imagine what would happen if we legalized that shit?

I think someone needs to get their hard drives examined.

[-] Gramba@kbin.social 19 points 11 months ago

The feds did come after him for other computer crimes (unrelated to those views) and he hung himself and investigation into him stopped at that point.

[-] genoxidedev1@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

Eh, didn't know the full story behind him (or even that he hung himself for that matter).

I'm not gonna pretend to have sympathy for him if he was guilty of possessing the stuff that he was advocating for.

[-] rDrDr@lemmy.world 64 points 11 months ago

He didn't hang himself because of child porn. He hung himself because he was facing life in prison for downloading some journal articles. The government was trying to make an example out of him.

[-] Tmiwi@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Actually he was facing 6 months on a plea deal but refused as he wouldn't accept that he commited felonies. Then he killed himself rather than do his time.

[-] squiblet@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

Yeah, it wasn’t mandatory that he had to kill himself. It’s absurd that the gov’t was prosecuting him, and fuck scientific journals, but even if he served some time in prison… other people do that and, you know, get out of prison eventually.

[-] exscape@kbin.social 13 points 11 months ago

He was a big fan of freedom of speech of all kinds. That doesn't in any way suggest he possessed child porn. Read the entire page and it becomes quite clear that he is literally just listing laws that make certain kinds of data illegal.

I strongly disagree that CSAM should be legal, but the point that honest people have their lives ruined by being accused of possessing it, or by having normal images of their children, is certainly true.

[-] genoxidedev1@kbin.social 6 points 11 months ago

If you defend that shit in ANY way I'm gonna raise some eyebrows way up.

I do not care if it's to defend "free speech", there's WAY better ways to be an advocate for "any" free speech that don't include advocating for murder, hate speech or in this case CP.

"Child pornography is not necessarily abuse.", sure buddy.

"Even if it was, preventing the distribution or posession of the evidence won't make the abuse go away.", yeah the typical "stricter gun laws won't make mass shootings go away" excuse. Of course, but legalizing it would only make it way worse.

[-] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 7 points 11 months ago

But you have no problem creating judgement about the guy without knowing anything about him.

[-] genoxidedev1@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

I read what he posted on his website. I know enough to make that judgement. I know me AND you would have said the exact same thing about everyone else that posted that shit on their website.

[-] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 10 points 11 months ago

No, you and I are different. I read what a 16 year old kid wrote AND I read the article that he linked to that explains why he was saying what he said.

You are basing your entire view of an adult based on what they wrote as a kid, without reading further to see why they had that opinion at the time. And you're completely fine judging them that way.

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this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2023
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