Biography

In January 2013, almost two years to the day after the federal government denied his attorney's second offer of a plea bargain, Swartz was found dead of a suicide by hanging in his Brooklyn apartment by his partner, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman. There was no suicide note found.

Helped start the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in 2009 to further the cause of effective online activism. The next year, he became a research fellow at Harvard's Safra Research Lab on Institutional Corruption and founded the online group Demand Progress, which campaigned against the Stop Online Piracy Act.

In January 2011, he was arrested by MIT police on breaking-and-entering charges for downloading academic articles. Federal prosecutors then charged him with two counts of wire fraud and eleven violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The charges brought a total maximum penalty of $1 million in fines and thirty-five years in prison.

Creator of Infogami, which was absorbed into social news website Reddit, and co-author of the RSS online news feed specification.

Brother of Ben Swartz and Noah Swartz.