Sunday, January 13, 2013

21. Internet Activist Aaron Swartz, Reddit and RSS Pioneer, Commits Suicide at 26

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/01/12/aaron_swartz_dead_reddit_rss_pioneer_commits_suicide_at_26.html

On January 12, Daniel Politi wrote about the tragic death of a Aaron Swartz, "one of the best-known Internet activists." He introduced his topic through brief background about who Aaron Swartz was and his influential role in the media industry. The following paragraph explained how Swartz's campaigns eventually led him to become the "Internet folk hero," but two years ago, was charged for illegaly downloading data from a subscribtion service known as the JSTOR. The trial was set for April and Swartz "faced as many as 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines." Though many thought Swartz's death was because he simply feared going to jail, Politi reference to BoingBoing Cory Doctorow who praised Swartz's works and noted Swartz fought depression for several years. In addition, Politi also quoted a Harvard professor called Larry Lessing who said Swartz was "driven to the edge by what a decent society would only call bullying."

Politi's main purpose in writing this article was to inform the death of a "legendary figure" through a formal tone and simple diction, that made it clear for his audience to fully understand it. Though Politi took an unbiased stand regarding the issue, and did not include any personal opinions, his references to other sources who defined Aaron Swartz as a "legendary figure" or the "Internet folk hero" made it seem as if he also regarded Swartz as a great person. In the third paragraph particularly, Politi referenced to people who portrayed Swartz as an innocent man whose death was a result of injustice, pressure, and depression. The article ended with a short quotation from Nation which described Swartz as a person who worked to "try to bend the world into a place more hospitable to people like him."

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