Event

The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

A Film Showing and Conversation with Peter Decherney and Jeffrey Vagle

This film showing will  feature a conversation between Peter Decherney, Professor of Cinema Studies and English at Penn, and Jeffrey Vagle, Director, Center for Technology, Innovation & Competition at Penn Law School. The Internet’s Own Boy, released under a Creative Commons License, follows the story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz. While still in his teens, Swartz participated in the development of the basic internet protocol RSS and later co-founded Reddit.  But it was Swartz's work in social justice and his commitment to information access that ensnared him in a two-year legal nightmare. This film is a personal story about what we lose when we are tone deaf about technology and its relationship to our civil liberties.