On Jan. 11, Aaron Swartz was discovered dead of an apparent suicide in his New York City apartment, The Tech reported by way of the 26-year-old's lawyer.
The MIT publication received an email from Swartz’ attorney. Elliot R. Peters of Keker and Van Nest wrote,
“The tragic and heartbreaking information... is, regrettably, true."
By the time of his passing, Swartz, a computer prioneer, had made quite a mark on the always emerging tech industry. Not only had he co-founded Reddit after starting a company that had eventually merged with the popular social media site. He also created Demand Progress.
The latter is a site reserved for fighting against Internet censorship, a cause the progressive programmer was keen to see cause change.
Still, Aaron Swartz was a person who reportedly went through tough times. In 2011, the former boy genius was arrested after bring accused of illegally stealing data after downloading millions of academic journals from JSOR. He had allegedly planned to give these works out gratis via pertinent online sites but pled not quilty in a court of law.
Ironically, only two days before he took his life, the company that accused him started to offer their archives limited free access. But that didn't change what happened to Aaron as it was too late for Swartz, who had a history of suffering depression.
In fact, a change in location caused Aaron Swartz to admit to suffering depression when he moved to San Francisco in 2007 after Conde Nast bought his company. He said via Gawker:
"I couldn't stand San Francisco...office life. I took a long Christmas vacation. I got sick. I thought of suicide..."
And now, about five years later, Aaron Swarz did commit suicide when the Reddit co-founder and voracious Internet activist was found dead in his NYC flat.
RIP, Aaron Swartz, RIP.
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