Aaron Swartz was prosecuted for scraping, while Meta does it without consequence

Post by silver_sun » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 1:42 AM UTC

maximinus_thrax wrote: post #142

sillysaurusx wrote: post #60

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 have been prosecuted, but there’s some kind of rose tinted glasses filt…

> and then rotated his MAC address to dodge the bans that the admin was trying to place on him And corporate scrapers never ever use proxy pools to rotate IPs to evade throttling and blacklisting. Meta is also scraping illegal content, such as pirated books. So I'm not sure what your argument is.

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 1:46 AM UTC

geodel wrote: post #223

GolfPopper wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Not quite how he phrased it, but close. Original is here: https://wist.info/steinbeck-john/46582/

Ok, how did it work our for countries where it did took root?

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 1:53 AM UTC

RachelF wrote: post #92

milkytron wrote: post #3

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 AI, which the US is absolutely not willing to pursue at this point in…

Remember it was MIT that dobbed him in. MIT then helped the criminal prosecution even after JSTOR settled with him. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/mit-aarons-swartz-case...

Post by searealist » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 2:03 AM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #62

searealist wrote: post #44

Swartz was federally charged with wire fraud and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act based on allegedly unauthorized access, not simply prosecuted for copyright infringement or “downloading articles.” Also, he was offered a plea deal of 6 months and his own attorneys did not expect him to serve any time even if rejecting the plea deal and convicted. Meta is accused of civil copyright infringement. Very dif…

And, I feel like people really gloss over, perhaps because it is uncomfortable to think about... He took his own life. There is no doubt the government put him in an uncomfortable position, but his story is a gross and tragic outlier. It's hard to draw any patterned conclusions from it, especially because we'll never know how the case would have worked out had Swartz not exited the judicial process.

Post by Hnrobert42 » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 2:14 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #131

GolfPopper wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finland links speeding fines to income. I'd like to see something that get far broader application. That prevents the wealthy or huge corporations from seeing lawbreaking as a business cost, without destroying a small business or individual who commits the same crime.

Proposals like this are how you get the billionaire paying their chauffeur's $50 fines so they can get everywhere faster while sticking some small business owner in an industry with feast or famine years with a $50,000 ticket for having a slightly miscalibrated speedometer. Creating new arbitrage opportunities benefits the powerful, not the weak.