I commented this recently on a similar post a few months ago, but it's relevant here (lightly edited for accuracy).
Even now you see comments in this thread pretending it was succumbing to depression rather than admit our responsibility and the immense pressure that was placed on him - supremely irritating.
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I remember seeing later that his legal defense fund was posted here for help because the cost of the defense for a federal crime (even though he’d likely win) was 1.5M, and the first comment at the time was someone being nasty to him. (post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529484 , comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4529609)
I remember the emails from MIT that showed the IT department going after him, and then when caught MIT choosing to do nothing rather than help.
Even JSTOR backed down rather than move forward.
It still makes me angry and MIT’s reputation was seriously harmed in my eyes because of it.
Journals blocking access to publicly funded research by extorting desperate academics for prestige is what’s wrong. It’s a broken system due to bad incentives that’s worse for everyone except the journals that enrich themselves on the back of publicly funded research, by locking it away and charging enormous rent.
The punishment was disproportionate to a crime that, while possibly illegal, was on the morally right side of a broken incentive structure. He didn’t even get the chance to put the articles up, he downloaded them from a network he had rightful access to. His main crime was leaving a laptop running in an open closet, and downloading more than they wanted.
Luckily Sci-Hub continued his work.
The legal thing and the right thing are often not the same: https://zalberico.com/essay/2020/06/13/zoom-in-china.html
Maybe the worst part was after his suicide reading comments here about how you can only blame the person who committed suicide since no one else is responsible for the ultimate act.
If you choose not to see a causal link between the pressure of this prosecution and his death, I think that says more about your own motivated reasoning than it does about reality.
This was a failure of our community.
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On a meta note, one thing that bothered me about 'The Internet's Own Boy' were his interviews on Russia Today. He didn't understand the extent to which he was being used by foreign adversaries to push a narrative favorable to them. That doesn't mean his arguments are wrong, but they're in a quite misleading context. If you go on RT you should do it like Yascha Mounk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cucX1IO78lM
In hindsight, wikileaks was more an arm of Russian propaganda than Aaron understood.