The Internet's Own Boy
The Story of Aaron Swartz
Brian Knappenberger's documentary on Aaron Swartz — RSS, Reddit, Creative Commons, SOPA, the JSTOR download, the federal prosecution that drove him to suicide at 26.
- Directors
- Brian Knappenberger
- Released
- 2014
- Writers
- Brian Knappenberger
- Runtime
- 105 min
- Language
- English
Available on
Watch this if
Everyone working in technology, security, policy, or open access. The film is the cleanest single artifact about how the field's ideals and the legal system collide, and the personal cost when they do. Watch it once a year.
Skip this if
There is no audience this film fails. Even viewers skeptical of Swartz's specific tactics will find Knappenberger's restraint and source access difficult to dismiss.
Key takeaways
- The CFAA's prosecutorial discretion problem — that the same statute can be used against teenage curiosity and serious cybercrime — is named, illustrated, and unanswered.
- Swartz's policy contributions (the Open Access Movement, SOPA defeat, RECAP) are at least as consequential as his coding work; the film makes that case the way no print biography has.
- The film's quiet thesis is that the federal prosecution was a choice, made by named individuals, with predictable consequences.
Notes
Free under Creative Commons license — the legacy Swartz himself would have demanded. Pair with the Bits of Freedom essay collection, with Cult of the Dead Cow (Menn) for the broader hacktivist-and-policy continuity, and with We Are Legion for the contemporaneous moment. The single best documentary about a specific person in our field. If you watch one film on this list, watch this one.