Patch Chatter

Do You Support Activists Pushing For An Open Web?

Internet activists such as Highland Park's Aaron Swartz and WikiLeaks' Julian Assange want information freely available on the web. Patch wants to know if you support their actions? Join the discussion in the comment section below.

As an Internet activist, Aaron Swartz fought to make information freely available on the web. The 26-year-old from Highland Park, who committed suicide on Jan. 11, founded Demand Progress, an organization devoted to Internet activism and fought expanded government oversight of the Internet. He also helped create the RSS feed and co-founded the social news website Reddit.  Similarly, Julian Assange, founder of the WikiLeaks, which publishes classified or confidential documents in the name of openness, is still pushing for more of an open web.  Patch wants to know: Do you support activists, such as Swartz and Assange, pushing to make information freely available on the web?  Both Swartz and Assange have landed in trouble with the government …

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beauregard

3:57 pm on Saturday, January 19, 2013

ITA. Assanges material public information which is legally due to u.s. citizens thru FOIA. Nobody is entitled to free merchandise (which REALLY) is what was snagged by. The kid.   more ›

Internet Pioneer Aaron Swartz, 26, Commits Suicide

The Highland Park native helped create the RSS feed when he was 14. He was facing federal charges at the time of his death. His funeral is Tuesday at Central Avenue Synagogue.

Aaron Swartz, a Highland Park native and activist for free content on the Internet, was found dead Friday in his Brooklyn apartment in an apparent suicide, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. He was 26. Swartz helped create the RSS feed, which allows people to subscribe to information online, when he was just 14, according to an article in the New York Times. He also helped found Reddit, a social news website. He went on to become an activist for free online content, which landed him in trouble with the federal government in 2011 when he was indicted for gaining illegal access to a subscription-based service that distributes literary and scientific journals and then downloading nearly its entire library CNN quoted a statement from Swartz's…

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Steve Handwerker

4:21 pm on Sunday, January 13, 2013

What a shame to lose somebody so creative, smart, selfless, forward-thinking, and young. May his memory be a blessing to us all and a reminder to stand for what we believe in.   more ›