Aaron Swartz : An Unsung Hero

The Internet’s Own Boy is a documentary which tells the story of a gifted young man, Aaron Swartz, as he sacrifices his entire future and accomplishments for the greater good of the world. From a very young age, Swartz always impressed others with his ability to immediately show great skill and potential in anything he did. It became very clear to the one’s closest to him that he was going to be special. When he was a young boy, he became extremely interested in computers, particularly the Internet. After many years of hard work and training, Swartz seemed to have his future set to become extremely wealthy in the computer industry, but he wanted more than that. He wanted to change the world for the better good.

As Swartz became older, he noticed corruption and flaws in the American system, particularly laws created to control the Internet and how it should be censored. As he descibes in his Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, Swartz believed too many digital documents “were increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations” . Aaron and his growing supporters believed that these documents should not be locked up, but should instead be free for the world to research and analyze. I completely agree with this idea. There is no reason for companies to keep these documents away from anyone, besides for their personal gain.

Aaron’s passion as an Internet activist really characterized him as a hero. Unfortunately, his sudden death in 2013 brought an end to his impact on the world. He had worked so hard from such a young age and set himself up for such a great and stable future, yet was misrepresented by the American government as nothing more than a hacker. They simply used him and his arrest as an example for the government to intimidate future hackers.

The fact that he was willing to sacrifice all that to make the world a better place is valiant. With so many of Aaron’s supporters still fighting for these rights, it is still possible that Aaron’s hard work can make the impact that he dreamed it one day would.

There is so much potential for people to make this world a better place. Aaron realized that the Internet is the kind of resource that would allow such a wider window of people to not only reach their potential, but also to connect deeper with others. Why would we deprive people of these kinds of opportunity?