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

Synopsis

As a teenager, Aaron Swartz was a computer-programming prodigy with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. After emerging as a pioneer of Internet activism, education, and politics, he was indicted on multiple federal charges in 2011 and 2012, setting off a complex chain of events that left the Internet community reeling. Shortly thereafter, at the age of 26, Swartz was found dead of an apparent suicide in his Brooklyn apartment. His family, friends, and supporters immediately blamed the prosecutors of the case, who aimed to put him in jail for 35 years and brand him a convicted felon for life. Swartz was persecuted for the very rights and freedoms for which he stood, and that ultimately broke him.

Director Biography

Brian Knappenberger has created multiple award-winning documentaries, including We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists about the online hacktivist nongroup Anonymous; Life After War about political tensions in postwar Afghanistan; and A Murder in Kyiv about the death of a Ukrainian journalist, reportedly at the hands of government officials. He has crafted numerous other documentaries for PBS’s Frontline/World, the National Geographic Society, Bloomberg News, and the Discovery Channel.