Aaron Swartz: Internet’s Boy or Government’s Error
The story of Aaron Swartz is one that I was vaguely familiar with. I recognized the name with computer hacking and serious governmental issue. After watching the documentary The Internet’s Own Boy, the story of Aaron Swartz is one that elicits a couple of emotions in me that I want to focus on.
Sympathy
The documentary begins with Aaron as a child with his immediate family commenting on his personality and intelligence at such a young age. I found myself feeling an automatic sympathetic feeling of what is going to happen. No matter what anyone was to say about Aaron, an image of him tumbling out of a box will continue to replay in my head. It later humanizes him and makes him seem like he means no harm.
Curious
Along with the initial feeling of sympathy, the documentary makes me wonder if it was bias. Although we see some notions of the “other’s” opinion, it’s difficult to say whether we were seeing the true life of Aaron Swartz, or one that was being told by his admirers. I am sure there are people out there in the world who were not particularly satisfied with the documentary itself. Larissa MacFarquhar in The New Yorker writes that “Aaron Swartz was brilliant and beloved. But the people who knew him best saw a darker side”. MacFarquhar continues her blog post to include personal recants of Aaron Swartz that makes me curious as to whether the documentary that was filmed was filmed with a biased eye.
Compelled
Lastly, I was compelled to learn more about Aaron Swartz and to continue the discussion that he started, on whether knowledge is power or if it was possible to share it with the world. I feel that the justice system failed Aaron in his case, and the constant reminder that the government wanted to “make an example out of [him]” made me sick to my stomach. MIT not taking a stance on something that happened on their own campus, but one of neutrality makes me compelled to find out more about the situation at hand and to see if anything else could have been done for Aaron Swartz.
From a young age, my father always said “power is knowledge”, and this documentary seems to horrifyingly reinforce that advice. Horrifyingly because I always assumed my father wanted me to work hard and learn as much as I can. But after this movie, power plays a different role, one of greed/force and not strength/wisdom. It instills fear in me that doing something altruistic in the belief in many, can cause impending doom and injustice. The film was sympathetic, but instills a sort of compelling curiosity to continue he debate and discussion on whether knowledge should be free or not.
