Aaron Swartz Found Dead: Internet Activist Commits Suicide

Aaron Swartz was found dead in New York City on Frdiay. He was 26 years old.

Aaron Swartz found dead (Photo: Fred Benenson)

Reports indicate that Swartz, co-founder of the popular social networking news site Reddit and activist who fought to make online content free to the public, committed suicide by hanging himself in his Brooklyn apartment.

At the age of 14, Swartz co-authored the now widely-used RSS 1.0 specification. He also founded Infogami, a service which later merged with Reddit.

Swartz was as well the founder of Demand Progress, which launched the campaign against the Internet censorship bills (SOPA/PIPA) and now has over a million members.

In July 2011, the accomplished computer programmer was arrested in relation to downloading roughly 4 million academic journal articles from JSTOR. He pleaded not guilty in court and was released on US$100,000 unsecured bail. JSTOR later released a statement saying it would not pursue civil litigation against Swartz.