

Mark Zuckerberg Named TIME’s 2010 Person of the Year - ssclafani
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2036683,00.html

======
lubos
Obviously Assange should be the person of the year. Although I personally
dislike him for being such a popularity whore, it's obvious Time magazine has
been pressured to choose someone less controversial.

But what happened to original principles of this award? Hitler was the person
of the year for 1938. This award went always to the person with the highest
impact on news. What the heck happened this year? Time magazine is becoming
irrelevant.

~~~
mseebach
"Obvious" doesn't mean what you think it does.

I don't know what Zuckerberg is doing there, but let's hold off on peddling
completely unfounded conspiracy theories. More likely, and less unfounded:
Old-style news organizations are scared positively pantless by the fact that a
blogger (He's a guy with a computer, if that's not a blogger, WHAT IS!?) was
in charge of not just one, but quite a few, of the top news stories this year.

~~~
enry_straker
"blogger" doesn't mean what you think it does.

~~~
mseebach
It was an unsuccessful attempt at sarcasm towards the disdain traditional
media shows towards un-traditional (internetbased) media.

------
david927
In other news, Time magazine announced a new version aimed at adults:

[http://www.theonion.com/video/time-announces-new-version-
of-...](http://www.theonion.com/video/time-announces-new-version-of-magazine-
aimed-at-ad,17950)

~~~
Synaesthesia
Yeah. Time is an infotainment magazine.

------
lwhi
Facebook isn't a 2010 phenomenon.

2010 was the year Wikileaks changed the world.

~~~
linhir
Can someone explain to me how Wikileaks changed the world? I'm not trying to
be provocative, but seriously what is all that different now than it was two
months ago?

~~~
zeemonkee
The technology is nothing new, I'd grant you.

However, in historical context, Wikileaks is (very likely) revolutionary.

Wikileaks challenges the whole concept of closed government. Governments have
assumed that they can keep secrets, whether out of national or selfish
interest. Suddenly that's not true any more. Any secret will eventually become
public. And there's little you can do - national newspapers and TV stations
can be dealt with, but how can you shut down a server on the other side of the
world ? And if you do, so what ? The secrets are on a million sites and
torrents.

For good or ill, this changes the way governments, especially democratic
governments, do business. If you know that your innermost secrets will be
revealed, not in 40 years time but in tomorrow's evening news, how do you
conduct affairs of state ?

Maybe this is something we've all realized for a long time, but only now, it
appears, do governments realize the full implications of what "World Wide Web"
really means.

~~~
linhir
I guess I'm just unwilling to grant the point that the idea of closed
government is dead. If anything, the reaction to this leak may be worse than
the disease. But, nonetheless, these were a ton of `secret' cables. They were
embarrassing, they make it more difficult to conduct foreign affairs, but they
were not actually that destructive or informative. For two key reasons:

1) The cables are the opinions of low-level functionaries, no matter how good
they are at their job. These were not TS cables, they did not include a
shocking set of information. In fact, it is all sort of "meh, we pretty much
knew that.

2) "The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their
interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because
they believe we can keep secrets. Many governments -- some governments deal
with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they
need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable
nation."

The first point is that we pretty much didn't learn anything, and the second
is that it won't really matter.

~~~
zeemonkee
It doesn't really matter about the content of the cables themselves, other
than the immediate diplomatic embarrassment (and if an Army private in Baghdad
was able to access this information, you can bet the
Chinese/Russians/French/Iranians/anyone else has been reading US diplomatic
cables for a _long_ time).

Nor does it really matter about whether the United States is "indispensable"
or not (worthy of a more detailed reply on US foreign policy, but this isn't
Reddit).

The point is the long-term implication of governments being able to keep
secrets. Of course, leaks are nothing new (for example, the Pentagon Papers).
But if you have technology which allows instantaneous transmission and
replication of data around the world, then governments will have a hard job of
keeping secrets from their citizens except for very short periods of time. In
the same way that that the internet is destroying the record business -
despite their attempts to hold back the tide through legislation - the same
technology is destroying the secrets business, both public and private.

------
mikedmiked
What is everyone's opinion on the Chilean Miners getting a runner up place (as
opposed to none)? I was a bit surprised. It is incredible and inspiring that
they survived, and the feats of engineering required to save them were
remarkable (although those people aren't receiving an award), but do you think
even they feel they should be runners up to this prize?

It was fortunate that they survived, and they did what anybody in their
position would by trying to stay calm and hold out, but their circumstances
were not that unique. In West Virginia in April this year 29 miners died, but
that is "old news" now to everybody except those in the immediate area. How
many people are tortured, raped, wrongfully imprisoned annually? It is
horrible but I'd rather suffer being in a dark, hot and humid mine for a few
months and escape a hero and celebrity (with book deals) than be tortured or
raped continuously, with nobody fighting to get me out of that situation.

Maybe I am missing the point of the prize; which is to reward media attention.
In which case why not reward X Factor, American Idol or whatever winners
instead? Far more people know them.

~~~
mseebach
I don't even know about inspiring. It's just accident-porn, inflated by a
publicity-craving Chilean government and blow way out of proportions by an all
too willing international press.

------
rbanffy
Proving once and for all that Huxley is better than Orwell...

~~~
napierzaza
I didn't expect that comment, but it's so true. If it was a vote for the most
influential person (is it?) basically people would be voting for themselves.

I still don't get why people give Zuck all the credit. And I'm not talking
about the creation myth about the company. I'm just saying that for a long
time his company has probably not been steered by a 20 year-old. These days
he's likely been coached just to not come off as a robot. But business-wise I
don't get the impression it's all him either.

~~~
brown9-2
"has _probably_ not been steered by a 20 year-old", "he's _likely been_
coached just to not come off as a robot"

How much of this is speculation and how much of this is fact?

Either way, it's not like having advisors or help makes someone's
accomplishments important. Presidents have armies of staff, all CEO's have
advisors and aides and coaches, and Assange doesn't run wikileaks alone.

~~~
napierzaza
Do you really believe that Facebook is driven by Zuckerberg? All things
considered there are a lot of descisions an a lot of deals to be done. Couple
that with a lot of investors and a lot of money, and you're not going to let
the Zuck learn by making billion dollar mistakes.

The comparison with Steve Jobs etc have been more marketing than fact. It's
kind of unbelievable that you're believing any differently. Steve Jobs also
likely had a great deal of coaching at the beginning, that's why they hired
real business people and that's why Facebook has done the same. Not to mention
partnering with countless tech businesses.

~~~
brown9-2
_Do you really believe that Facebook is driven by Zuckerberg?_

No, but I'm not quite sure why it matters. No business with 1000+ employees is
driven by a single person. If Steve Jobs was "Person of the Year" for 2010 for
some of Apple's accomplishments, would we be sitting around discussing how
it's wrong to give him the award because he doesn't run every aspect of Apple
all by himself?

The CEO and founder is the face of a company, that's just the way it is.

My other large nitpick here though is making criticism based on personal
speculation... "probably doesn't make all decisions", "is likely getting help"
etc.

------
moontear
Wait?! Time's person of the year WAS Julian Assange as decided by the online
community. TIME just chose to make Mark Zuckerberg the person of the year. In
their words "though TIME's editors who choose the actual Person of the Year
reserve the right to disagree".

Julian Assange led the vote by ~ 150000 votes.

[http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2...](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2028734_2028733_2028727,00.html)

~~~
ctice
“Assange won our poll by a great margin — but of course, Lady Gaga was No. 2.
We take all that into account.”

~~~
kunjaan
Why hold these polls if you are going to discredit it yourself and put such
snide remarks?

But anyway does anyone even read Time here in US?

------
ra
I'm kinda sad Assange didn't win

~~~
pablohoffman
Feeling sad would imply that you hold some respect to the judges that decided
who won, but I think Time magazine just lost the respect of many readers. I'm
kinda sad for _them_ , not for Assange.

------
mfukar
I totally agree with this. Farmville is such a game-changer. Distributing
whistleblower messages that expose corruption doesn't bear any significance in
front of Facebook's vision of making everybody friends. <3

------
DupDetector
Related:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2003942> \- readwriteweb.com - no
comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2001882> \- time.com - no comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1990612> \- time.com - 1 comment

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1975517> \- time.com - no comments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1968958> \- time.com - no comments

Edited to add comment count in response to replies below.

~~~
steveklabnik
Novelty accounts? In my Hacker News?

RiderOfGiraffes, is that you? If not, I suggest that you do the same as he;
pointing people to the stories that have tons of comments on them. In this
case, none really do yet, so maybe a note about that?

~~~
DupDetector
It's semi-automated scripting from RoG. I'm trying to work out the most useful
method(s) of detecting duplicates and cross-referencing. In this case I didn't
put the number of comments, and marked the referenced items as "related".
Compare with:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2005790>

and

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2004764>

where one is marked strictly as a duplicate, the other lists related, along
with a note of how many comments.

I'm working on this. There's a sort-of A/B testing, since I'm able to go back
and see which cross-references get up-votes, and which get down-votes.
Currently I'm getting precious little of either.

~~~
m0th87
This is a slippery slope. It's just a matter of time before we have novelties
like <http://www.reddit.com/user/keanu_reeves/> :)

~~~
DupDetector
I don't think of it as a novelty account. I think of it as a robot providing a
service. Since it's still under human supervision it lags somewhat, but it's
already found a discussion that's been split between two duplicate
submissions, something I find annoying, and a waste.

It's still an experiment - I may yet give up entirely.

------
binarray2000
While I have hoped that Julian will win this one I'm happy that both the
winner Zuckerberg and runner-up Assange are one:

Hackers.

------
jamesbressi
Great choice, forget about that Nobel Peace prize guy who is locked up for
freedom of thought and speech or something about democracy... It's a hard name
to remember anyway.

~~~
code_duck
Nice contrast, huh? Instead of some guy who fights for freedom and democracy
and symbolizes a struggle against a tyrannical regime, let's choose some smug
rich punk who is working with the government to catalog info about every
citizen in the US.

------
nightlifelover
Facebook is sooo 2009, time.com seems to just have no balls to make Assange
the person of the year.

------
code_duck
What a joke. If I had any respect left for institutions like time, I'd be
shedding it.

Facebook is a new, proprietary way for people to do what they were going to do
on the internet already, without Facebook. I don't feel that it has been
influential on society as a whole - the entire electronics revolution has.

I'd rather see Steve up here with an iPad, personally. Or perhaps someone who
has influenced the actual direction of history.

Nice safe choice for Time, huh? Underscores their commitment to undermining
the entire world of journalism by making news as bland and irrelevant as
possible.

------
setori88
Times had better prepare for a DDOS.

~~~
esponapule
the legion of unknown has moved on to operation paperstorm

------
invisible
I am sure TIME had this picked out by October at the latest - it just had to
go through editing, proof-reading, printing, etc. for a while and they kind of
missed Wikileaks in the process. While I think it's not an excuse, it was
probably chosen before Wikileaks released even one of the cables that are a
big deal now.

~~~
ZachPruckowski
The problem is that they specifically made it sound like it was a late-
breaking decision in their wording on the online poll and elsewhere.

------
maguay
Single-page version (best for Instapaper or just reading online period) -
[http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/printout/0,29239,...](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/printout/0,29239,2036683_2037183_2037185,00.html)

------
untamedmedley
While this isn't the first time wikileaks has been in the news, am I the only
one that sees a problem with people's seeming interest in awarding this to
whatever person is in the news closest to the time of the reveal?

Wikileaks has been in the public conscious for maybe a month (combined) this
entire year. Regardless of your politics, you have to admit the Tea Party has
been ever-present and incredibly effective at changing the makeup of our
government and getting their message out. I don't see how wikileaks has that
same (perceived) effect on everyday Americans' lives.

------
ffffruit
Ironic if you think of how much Facebook has been criticised this year with
regards to its privacy settings and data governance tactics.

------
bryanwb
The guy deserves it. He created a tool that a lot of people find very useful.
I don't use it myself but I recognize how valuable it is to others.

I still haven't seen any significant revelations come out of wikileaks, so I
think they were right to not pick Assange

~~~
ffffruit
He created it in 2004. The only thing FB received during 2010 was criticism
about the way they handle data.

------
franze
spineless

------
fjania
Big deal. I was Time's person of the year back in 2006 -
[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00....](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html)

------
huherto
Shouldn't the credit go to the soldier who leaked the documents (I am ashame
don't even know his name). He is the one who is going to spend his life in
prison.

~~~
code_duck
Yeah, there's a nice story out about Bradley Manning's less than hospitable
confinement conditions. I'm sure they're getting the biting dogs, exotic
chemicals, sexual assault team and waterboard ready for Assange.

[http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14...](http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning/index.html)

Love how they're dosing him with antidepressants.

------
palewery
They are trying to sell magazines. If they did Assange a "cancel your
subscription to terrorist magazine" campaign would be started by Fox News.

------
wildmXranat
My personal stance in refusing to read that drivel stands as personal protest.
What is TIME turning into anyway, Teen Idol Mania Essays? Meh.

------
spot
Just like Time to suck up to power instead of those who challenge it.

Mark totally deserves this.... but not this year. After the IPO.

------
SwaroopH
Apparently, concentration camps are not evil when compared to a whistleblower
website. Enough said.

I feel sorry for Zuck though.

------
steveklabnik
Note that this is who was named by the editors, not who won the "Reader's
Choice":
[http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2...](http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2028734_2029036,00.html)

"though TIME's editors who choose the actual Person of the Year reserve the
right to disagree"

------
to
thats it. the time is dead to me. i can take amazon, paypal etc. because those
are companies and heck they can kick whoever they want, its their business.
but when a magazine ignores its readers votes... well i guess the time just
adjusted to its country. democracy adieau, long live the republic.

