Swartz prosecuted for scraping; Meta faces minimal consequences for bulk data use
A blog post compares Aaron Swartz's prosecution for downloading academic articles to Meta's unrestricted use of massive datasets for AI training.
What to know
- Aaron Swartz faced extreme prosecution (35 years potential prison, $1 million fine) for downloading 70 GB of academic articles from JSTOR in 2013, ultimately taking his own life rather than face trial.
- Meta reportedly used 80 terabytes of books for AI model training and faces only a pending court case with expected minor financial penalties.
- The contrast highlights unequal legal enforcement: Swartz's data access aimed at knowledge dissemination was criminalized while Meta's vastly larger data acquisition for profit faces minimal consequences.
Legal system applies grossly unequal standards to individuals versus corporations, destroying people for acts corporations commit with impunity.
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“It's nothing short of an indictment of our society at large that Aaron Swartz…was effectively assasinated by our legal system…while Facebook…has torrented 80 TERABYTES of books…with virtually no consequences”
speckx · Hacker News
“Swartz' use case was the dissemination and archival of knowledge; Meta's use case is powering up their proprietary plagiarism code that cooks the environment while giving CEO's psychosis and making one of the world's richest people even richer.”
Blog author (speckx), Tech community member · Curious Quail blog
Aaron Swartz RSS co-creator, prosecuted for data accessMeta Tech company using bulk data for AIBlog author (speckx) Tech community member
The record 2 articles and posts · last 30 days
- summary covers to here · Aug 20, 7:09 PM · 1 piece above arrived after
What people are saying 23 voices from 2 sites · best of 34 · verbatim
- Aug 21
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The difference is that companies can either sue or contact Meta to get the content removed (this happens every day)This isn't possible when you break into a computer room and steal their files.The mental gymnaistics people go through to support an asshole that just did what he felt like and wouldn't work witin the system is astounding.Aaron Swartz…
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This is really a problem with companies vs. individuals breaking laws in general. There is a perverse incentive for prosecutors to not go after companies unless they have an airtight case because a company will be able to afford to defend themselves with an army of lawyers and even if they cannot win they will drag out the case. Meanwhile…
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# AaronSwartz was prosecuted for scraping, while # Meta does it without consequence 💯 https:// blog.curiousquail.com/im-upset -again-about-a-co-creator-of-rss-being-prosecuted-for-something-meta-is-doing-with-little-consequence/
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This is the (John Perkin's coined term) "Corporatocracy" at work.If you want to know how and why it is like this, read Perkin's books (atm I'm reading "The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man"). It's why Meta will not get sued but Aaron was, and it is why ships are now lining up in front of the Panama canal paying as much as 400k for a crossing…
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https://www.wired.com/2009/10/swartz-fbi/It's possible the JSTOR charges were in some way motivated by the earlier PACER incidentIn both cases, the computer he used did not belong to him. In the JSTOR case he installed a python script on an MIT computer and left it running for daysIn the PACER case, the computer was government computer in a…
- Aug 20
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Meta's bots are spectatularly awful, and if your organisation needs to use facebook advertising, they're also unblockable. There are ways around it that doesn't exactly block them but does clearly communicate they should GTFO, but it just shows you what an awful company Meta is.
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So since we're all talking about him I just noticed something odd on his old website. If you go to the full archive of his posts (which seems to be sorted by date) and scroll all the way down to the oldest post there is one at the very bottom that is a big garbeled and was posted in April 2012 - specifically not organised by date like the…
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A key aspect folks should understand about US Copyright Law is that it much more severely penalizes infringement with distributing, or an intent to distribute, unauthorized copies than to just consume privately. Distributing unauthorized copies is a federal crime (which can escalate to a felony based on various factors) whereas doing whatever for…
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In many cases it's "all about the money" (and the lawyers). Take the case of Billionaire hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors who was famously pursued by federal prosecutors as their ultimate "white whale" in a massive insider trading probe. Though his firm pleaded guilty and paid a record $1.8 billion fine, Cohen himself was…
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I don't like talking about this, but first hand knowledge is rarer by the day, and there are entire organizations profiting off this mythology. It's pissing me off. Aaron is not a data point to build stupid metaphors around. He was a bright and broken child.Aaron attracted influential and creepy people and was ill-equipped to handle it. He was…
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Remember it was MIT that dobbed him in.MIT then helped the criminal prosecution even after JSTOR settled with him.
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I think that large companies having next to no consequences is in large part due to capitalism doing what it does over a long period of time. There’s a deeper and deeper consolidation of money and power the longer time goes on it seems like.If we think back to the various lawsuits Facebook has gone through, they paid out about $10 or so per…
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I recently came to the conclusion that it was never about copyright. It's about corporate control, about punishing contempt for business model.Aaron Swartz was punished because he disrespected a business model. All the kids sued by the MAFIAA were punished because they disrespected a business model. Copyright was merely the mechanism to make it…
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I think the root problem is Corporations being Legal Persons.An alternative would be the CEO to be the “legal person” of each Corp. and be the one against all legal actions should be targeted.In that case it would Zack himself the one facing any legal action.A Corp’s actions result to the death of a person. CEO should be trialed as if they were…
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He wasn’t prosecuted for scraping. He trespassed into a room with a router, plugged his laptop into it, downloaded papers as quickly as possible, and then rotated his MAC address to dodge the bans that the admin was trying to place on him. That’s very different from downloading a webpage on the open internet.I’m not saying he should or shouldn’t…
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The best state of affairs is that neither Aaron nor Meta nor anyone else should be targeted for scraping. It shouldn't be a crime. I understand the ire about the injustice, but I don't think the right situation is that because Aaron's case was wrongly pursued, we should somehow enforce that error in the name of consistency.
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I don't think it matters much for the argument, which is valid (or not) regardless of whether you get the precise facts about the Swartz prosecution right, but Swartz was not facing 35 years. That's the statutory maximum sentence you'd get if you ignored the sentencing guidelines and grouped none of the charges, which is not how anything works…
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Aaron Swartz's most famous book recommendation, in a now 20 years old blogpost ( http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/epiphany ), Chomsky's Understanding Power, contains many examples of such cases of those in power, big corporations and the government getting away with crimes. I should probably reread it, even though it can be depressing - but not quite…
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Maybe the real issue is selective outrage about legal injustice. I totally agree that this was wrong and he should not have been prosecuted but a large part of the effort that dealt this injustice to him was facilitated by the fact that the vast majority of people willfully turn a blind eye when the same thing or worse happens to people are not of…
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The part that still bothers me so much about the US vs Swartz case is that JSTOR didn't pursue civil litigation against Aaron. It was the US government that pursued him.There was little for the government to lose in the case. In a case vs Meta, at the scale it has reached, it could have wide ranging economic implications limiting the investment in…
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In Commonwealth countries, it's possible to initiate a private prosecution (by a person who hasn't received criminal justice). These don't usually get very far, but I honestly wish these could be used to prosecute people who are treated differently for the same crime because of their status, or at least set a precedent that such activities are…
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Long title, but yes. Great link! I'm Upset Again About a Co-Creator of RSS Being Prosecuted For Something Meta Is Doing With Little Consequence https:// blog.curiousquail.com/im-upset -again-about-a-co-creator-of-rss-being-prosecuted-for-something-meta-is-doing-with-little-consequence/ # AaronSwartz # Swartz # RSS
- Aug 19
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Aaron Swartz vs. Meta I'm Upset Again About a Co-Creator of RSS Being Prosecuted For Something Meta Is Doing With Little Consequence – quailblog https:// blog.curiousquail.com/im-upset -again-about-a-co-creator-of-rss-being-prosecuted-for-something-meta-is-doing-with-little-consequence/