Jun 9, 2023, 10:00 PMwhile reddit burns, let’s pay a tribute to Aaron Swartz, the brilliant co-founder that co-developed RSS, the technology that made reddit what it was and the technology that will power whatever lives on long after it is gone.
- Jun 9, 2023, 10:00 PM
Replies
Jun 9, 2023, 10:24 PM@tychi ❤️ and, respectfully if I may, some additional time to condemn the MIT officials and federal investigators who needlessly and mercilessly used the expansive Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to _drive to suicide_ one of the most hopeful, intelligent, and prominent contributors to the very idea of the commons - the collective good and tech innovation's responsibility to raise the quality of life for all members of society in a generation. Aaron's dream of information freedom is immortal.
Feohfeoh@oldbytes.spaceJun 9, 2023, 10:32 PM@tychi We've got distributed social networks pretty much down with the fediverse but distributed forms still aren't a thing.
Bring back USENET! :P
delve ✨delve@deadinsi.deJun 10, 2023, 2:39 AM- Feohfeoh@oldbytes.spaceJun 10, 2023, 3:05 AM
Sam J SharpeSamJSharpe@mastodon.me.ukJun 9, 2023, 10:51 PM@tychi let's also not forget he was hounded to death by the US Government at the behest of a private organisation (JSTOR) who wanted academic information to be behind a paywall.
Ryan Singelryansingel@writing.exchangeJun 9, 2023, 11:36 PM
Jun 9, 2023, 11:13 PM@tychi@merveilles. Maybe @davew can shed more light, but it was my understanding, that while he made several contributions, Swartz was not a “co-founder” or even really a co-developer” of RSS. He contributed some to the W3C Dev working group (with many others) in the creation of RSS and later co-wrote the RSS 1.0 spec, building on the prior art. I’m not trying to throw shade on anything he did do, but I just don’t like sweeping credit given anyone without substantial evidence I’ve never seen.
Jun 10, 2023, 1:31 PM@shoq -- there was a lot of confusion about what RSS was until RSS 2.0 came out and the NYT adopted it. There was a thread based on RDF, and Aaron was credited as a contributor to that. I would ask those people what he did, I never worked with him. I saw some of his posts on their mail list and met him a few times at conferences. He was a very precocious young person, obviously very smart, but he didn't seem interested in what I was working on. That's about it.
- Paramdeo Singh 🇬🇾paramdeo@fosstodon.orgJun 10, 2023, 12:17 AM
@tychi My favorite quote from Swartz:
"I think all censorship should be deplored. My position is that bits are not a bug. That we should create communications technologies that allow people to send whatever they like to each other. And when people put their thumbs on the scale and try to say what can and can’t be sent, we should fight back - both politically through protest and technologically through software."
Freedom of speech must be absolute.
- Ms. Penny 🐝 OakenPennyOaken@mastodon.socialJun 10, 2023, 1:13 AM
@paramdeo @tychi you may change your opinion on Swartz when you realise that his position on “freedom of speech” and “anti-censorship” extended to arguing that he had a right to possess and distribute CSAM: https://web.archive.org/web/20031229025933/http:/bits.are.notabug.com/
Swartz was smart and talented, but certain of his opinions are attractive to certain types of creeps, trolls, and fools who built a cult of personality around a dead man.
- @hu4dhu4d@mstdn.socialJun 10, 2023, 1:53 AM
@PennyOaken @paramdeo @tychi it's really challenging, i think, for us to all look back on the early days of the internet and realize that it was all built by talented people who ultimately belonged on the early internet
- Lisalikewise@calckey.socialJun 10, 2023, 12:09 PM
@PennyOaken@mastodon.social @paramdeo@fosstodon.org @tychi@merveilles.town
The thing is, true or absolute freedom of speech is exactly that. It encompasses everything, hate , creepy shit, etc. Even if certain types of speech are unsavory (to say the least), if freedom of speech is going to truly exist, these types of speech still fall under its description. Once something is deemed unacceptable, true or absolute freedom of speech ceases to exist. - Jul 5, 2023, 8:13 PM
@likewise
@PennyOaken @tychi @paramdeoI kinda disagree. Absolute freedom of speech is unworkable for it's basically a Hobbesian State of Nature. If threats and harassment are free speech then free speech silences people and thus absolute free speech destroys itself.
I feel those absolute free speech types really need to and ought study some history and international law.
Most specially, they really need to read articles 19 and 20 of the #ICCPR. (see attached pic, transcription in alttext)
- @hu4dhu4d@mstdn.socialJun 10, 2023, 1:51 AM
@tychi Wow, I had heard this guys name before but never really looked into him
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz
His resume is insane, and it seems pretty clear he was the only one worth a shit at early Reddit. RIP
meduz'meduz@m.nintendojo.frJun 10, 2023, 7:00 AM@hu4d @tychi You might appreciate the documentary “The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ
Jessemisc@mastodon.socialJun 10, 2023, 2:45 AM@tychi Didn't he invent the up and down vote?
- Meow.tar.gz :verified:ablackcatstail@goblackcat.netJun 10, 2023, 2:51 PM
@tychi I seriously need to get back into RSS!
