Reddit pioneer Aaron Swartz commits suicide at age 26

Aaron Swartz, one of the minds behind online social news giant Reddit, killed himself in New York City Friday. The 26-year-old was a precocious coding talent, co-authoring the first generation of RSS — a core part of the modern Internet experience — at 14 years old. Swartz joined Reddit through a merger with his own Infogami service in 2006. After leaving Reddit, he devoted himself to Internet activism, co-founding the advocacy group demandprogress.org. Swartz was facing legal pressures, after his 2011 indictment for allegedly mass-downloading documents from the JSTOR academic archive with intent to distribute them. Swartz was open about his ongoing battle with severe depression and other medical problems. His suicide was confirmed by an uncle, Michael Wolf. [Source]

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