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

Unequal treatment of individuals vs corporations

• Many see Swartz’s prosecution vs Meta’s non-prosecution as class justice: “too small to scrape” vs “too big to punish.”
• View that the legal system routinely shields large firms (Meta, OpenAI, etc.) while harshly pursuing individuals, with fines for corporations treated as a cost of doing business.
• Others argue the remedy is not “punish Meta like Aaron,” but “neither should be criminally targeted for scraping.”

What Swartz did vs what Meta is doing

• Several commenters emphasize key differences:
  • Swartz allegedly trespassed into an MIT network closet, attached a laptop, evaded blocks (changing MAC/IP), and intended wide distribution.
  • Meta (and other AI firms) scrape largely public web and torrents for internal model training, framed as civil copyright issues.
• Critics respond that big companies also evade blocks and engage in mass copyright violation; the moral gap is smaller than the legal one.

Sentencing, plea bargaining, and prosecutorial conduct

• Strong concern over disproportionate maximum sentences (decades in prison) used as leverage to coerce plea deals; described as “legal intimidation” akin to a racket.
• Some legal-minded commenters stress that the 35‑year figure was a theoretical statutory maximum; guidelines and the actual plea offer (~6 months) were much lower.
• Debate over whether focusing on the headline maximum unwittingly amplifies prosecutorial PR.

Role of MIT, JSTOR, and institutions

• JSTOR reportedly settled and did not push for continued prosecution; some see this as evidence the federal case was gratuitous.
• MIT’s behavior is heavily criticized: calling in federal authorities, providing evidence, and then later “whitewashing” its role.
• Others argue that once MIT’s network and contracts were disrupted, involving law enforcement was predictable, even if the outcome was excessive.

Copyright, scraping, and AI

• Explanation that US law treats distribution of unauthorized copies as far more serious than private copying; training LLMs is currently being treated as closer to the latter.
• Some argue copyright is fundamentally a tool to protect business models and should be weakened or abolished, especially for publicly funded research.
• Others focus on enforcing existing copyright more evenly, including against AI firms that regurgitate or torrent copyrighted works.

Corporate power, capitalism, and democracy

• Broad thread on plutocracy: wealth buying legal outcomes, corporate personhood, limited liability, and a two‑party system that allegedly serves a “deep state”/corporatocracy.
• Proposals include piercing limited liability in extreme cases, income‑scaled fines, executive criminal liability, and even breaking up “too big to fail” entities.

Legal reform and private prosecutions

• Discussion of private criminal prosecutions (UK, Australia, some US states): can be a tool for accountability but also for abuse (e.g., UK Post Office scandal using faulty software data).
• Ideas floated: making selective enforcement grounds to invalidate laws; making it easier to challenge overbroad or unenforceable statutes; reducing reliance on prosecutorial discretion.

Mental health, causality, and rhetoric

• Multiple participants stress Swartz had a preexisting history of depression; prosecution likely contributed but was not the sole cause of his suicide.
• Some object to language like “effectively assassinated,” calling it inaccurate and unhelpful; others find the overall institutional behavior morally culpable regardless of terminology.