Aaron is no longer considered as cofounder by reddit. He fought for free speech.

Sine_Fine_Belli@lemmy.world to Reddit@lemmy.world – 2361 points –
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He hung himself after being prosecuted by the federal authorities for academic journal article piracy. He was trying to make journal articles available to the masses and was facing life in prison for it. This was many years ago.

He was too good for this world.

He also defended child porn and advocated for making it legal.

Maybe don’t idolize people.

Wasn't he like 16 years old when he posted that? I certainly said some pretty stupid stuff when I was that age.

There’s saying stupid things as a teenager, and then there’s defending child porn.

I’ve said a lot of stupid stuff as a teenager too but never felt like saying child porn should be legal or that it wasn’t abuse. That’s something that you should know by 16.

He died for what he believed in, I suppose. I wonder if Richard Stallman had any comment on it, since he's kind of the OG digital freedom of information guy.

You could email him and ask. I've heard he answers a lot of the emails random people send

I could. I'm sure he's doing far more important work for the freedom of information, I wouldn't want to distract him from that important work.

Also I'm sure I could come up with something far more interesting to ask if I did.