It really can't surprise you that a common viewpoint on HN is that `Information wants to be free'. This is both in a descriptive sense and a normative sense.

The descriptive sense obviously can't be selfish but the normative one can. So the question is then as follows: are the activists who further this narrative, out of a normative belief, selfish?

I personally don't think so. I believe that people like Aaron Swartz are among the most selfless people to ever exist.