Aaron Swartz, Reddit's Disputed Co-Founder, and His 2013 Death
2005–2013
Programmer and activist Aaron Swartz, who joined Reddit through the 2005 Infogami merger and is widely (if contestedly) called a co-founder, died by suicide in 2013 while facing aggressive federal CFAA prosecution over the JSTOR/MIT downloads.
What happened
Aaron Swartz (1986–2013) became connected to Reddit in fall 2005, when Y Combinator suggested his struggling startup Infogami merge with the young Reddit. As a result of the merger Swartz received the title 'co-founder of Reddit.' His status is historically nuanced: Paul Graham of Y Combinator recognized him as a co-founder, while original founder Alexis Ohanian has described him more precisely as an early team member and co-owner rather than a founding partner from day one. After Condé Nast acquired the company in 2006, Swartz found corporate life uncongenial and left in January 2007.
Swartz went on to become a leading internet-freedom activist, contributing to RSS and Creative Commons. On January 6, 2011, he was arrested after connecting a laptop to MIT's network to bulk-download articles from the academic database JSTOR. Federal prosecutors charged him under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act with multiple felony counts carrying a theoretical maximum of decades in prison, and rejected his counter-offers; critics widely characterized the indictment as prosecutorial overreach.
Two days after prosecutors rejected a plea counter-offer, Swartz was found dead by suicide in his Brooklyn apartment on January 11, 2013. Prosecutors subsequently dropped all charges. His death intensified debate over the CFAA and computer-crime sentencing, and his association with Reddit cemented his memory within the platform's history.
Impact
Galvanized lasting reform debate around the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and prosecutorial discretion, and made Swartz an enduring symbol of internet-freedom activism tied to Reddit's origins.