Film Screening: The Internet's Own Boy - The story of Aaron Swartz
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For our December meetup we'll be showing the film 'The Internet's Own Boy' depicting the life of American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist Aaron Swartz. The film tells his story up to his eventual suicide after a legal battle, and explores the questions of access to information and civil liberties that drove his work.
The film showing will be upstairs in the loft of the Eten cafe in their purpose built film screening room.
Please RSVP to reserve your place. If you don't want to use meetup then you can instead email [masked] to tell us that you're coming.
The cafe has a licensed bar upstairs with alcoholic drinks, soft drinks, tea and coffee. Food can be ordered from the bistro menu. Last orders for food at 8pm.
Swartz co-authored the RSS web feed format when he was 14 and was one of the early architects of Creative Commons. He was a developer of the Internet Archives' Open Library and one of the co-creators of the online news site Reddit. Swartz founded the online activism group Demand Progress, which was a critical part of the successful campaign blocking the SOPA and PIPA Internet censorship bills. Swartz was also a committed activist for the cause of open access to government and government-funded information.
In 2011, Swartz was accused of downloading millions of academic articles from the online archive JSTOR, allegedly without "authorization" even though his access to JSTOR through MIT's open network was authorized by JSTOR's contract with MIT. He faced 13 felony counts of hacking and wire fraud, including some under the draconian Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). After two years of fighting the charges, Swartz tragically took his own life in January 2013.
