[governance] TIME Magazine's Person of the Year (Battle over WHO must be Transparent)

Wed Dec 15 23:02:08 EST 2010

Respectfully, that is your presumption. You cannot presume to know what my
expectations are. That being said, I would proffer that each context is
different and that is why I had raised the questions I had raised initially.

:)

On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 4:59 PM, David Goldstein <
goldstein_david at yahoo.com.au> wrote:

>  Oh this is just balmy... next you'll expect that a newspaper or other
> publication to follow the views of readers expressed in vox pops or opinion
> polls they conduct before they write an editorial.
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro <
> salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com>
> *To:* governance at lists.cpsr.org; David Goldstein <
> goldstein_david at yahoo.com.au>
> *Cc:* Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com>; Rui Correia <
> correia.rui at gmail.com>; Carlos Affonso Pereira de Souza <
> caffsouza at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Thu, 16 December, 2010 2:54:55 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [governance] TIME Magazine's Person of the Year (Battle
> over WHO must be Transparent)
>
> At the heart of the matter, is the "bottom line", Who pays for the ads and
> sponsors its publications? Is it susceptible to being banned? Is it afraid
> of being "controversial" and I suppose that as a magazine, the editors can
> do what they want.
>
> Respectfully, David I beg to differ. I think the issue that Paul raised is
> at the heart of the Internet Governance Debate (political basket) even if
> indirectly. Yes, the magazine can invoke its exclusionary clause and
> exercise its discretion by virtue of the disclaimer that it incorporates but
> the resounding message that it sends to its readers is a resounding:-
>
> 1) thank you for purchasing Time Magazine, we enjoy bringing you news and
> getting you to pay for it;
> 2) we cannot afford to be seen as "siding" with anyone who is a threat to
> US National Security and risk being sanctioned.
>
> This raises issues of "transparency" and if polling takes place via the
> internet, then of course it is "discussion" worthy. Below is an article from
> the NYT:-
>
>
>
>
> Breaking News Alert
> The New York Times
> Wed, December 15, 2010 -- 9:08 PM ET
> -----
> U.S. Tries to Build Case for Conspiracy by WikiLeaks Founder
> Federal prosecutors, seeking to build a case against the
> WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange for his role in a huge
> dissemination of classified government documents, are looking
> for evidence of any collusion in his early contacts with an
> Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking the
> information.
> Justice Department officials are trying to find out whether
> Mr. Assange encouraged or even helped the analyst, Pfc.
> Bradley Manning, to extract classified military and State
> Department files from a government computer system. If he did
> so, they believe they could charge him as a conspirator in
> the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents
> who then published them.
> Read More:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/world/16wiki.html?emc=na
>
> On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 4:31 PM, David Goldstein <
> goldstein_david at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
>
>> Oh for god's sake, why can't Time choose someone as their person of the
>> year
>> different to their readers?
>>
>> Under what circumstances are the editors and those who chose the person of
>> the
>> year bound by any reader support?
>>
>> To think that Time as a magazine, who made it clear they reserved the
>> right to
>> disagree with their readers, should not be capable of making their own
>> choice is
>> frankly stupid.
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com>
>> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Rui Correia <correia.rui at gmail.com>
>> Cc: Carlos Affonso Pereira de Souza <caffsouza at gmail.com>
>> Sent: Thu, 16 December, 2010 11:58:15 AM
>> Subject: [governance] TIME Magazine's Person of the Year (Battle over WHO
>> must
>> be Transparent)
>>
>>  For both internet and transparency purposes, Time Magazine's Person of
>> the Year choice, in light of its own Readers' Poll results, is
>> astounding.
>>
>> First, Time Magazine's Person of the Year starts with the Time
>> Readers' Poll -- which is now closed -- and which shows Assange in
>> first place, easily way ahead of everyone else for Time's 2010 Person
>> of the Year:
>>
>> 1. Julian Assange                     382,026 votes, and 92% avg
>> rating (all voters)
>> 2. Recep Tayyip Erdogan          233,639 (avg rating 80%
>> 3. Lady Gaga                          146,378 (avg rating 70%)
>> 4. Jon Stewart and John Colber  78,145, (avg rating 81%)
>> [snip]
>> 6.  Barack Obama                     27,478 (avg rating 58%)
>> 8.  the Chilean Miners                29,124 (avg rating 47%).
>> 9.  The Unemployed American   19,605 (avg rating 66%)
>> 10. Marc Zuckerberg                  18,353 (avg rating 52%)
>> [snip]
>> See
>>
>> http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2028734_2029036,00.html
>>
>>
>> SO, after the Time Readers' Poll, WHO IS TIME'S PERSON OF THE YEAR?
>>
>> Well....    There was a "NOTE" attached to the Readers' Poll" to the
>> direct effect that  "TIME's editors who choose the actual Person of
>> the Year reserve the right to disagree."
>>
>> And, boy, did Time editors ever disagree with the people that are
>> their own readers and customers.
>>
>> With a publication date of today (December 15, 2010) they chose the
>> 10th place finisher, Marc Zuckerbook of Facebook, who got less than
>> one vote for every 20.8 votes Assange got from Time Readers' Poll, and
>> got only about half the positive ranking of Assange  (52% for
>> Zuckerberg, 92% for Assange).
>> http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2036683,00.html
>>
>> But, to me, the biggest contrast and biggest shock, bigger than
>> choosing the 10th place finisher over the first place finisher in the
>> Readers' Poll, is the stark contrast between #1 Assange and #10
>> Zuckerberg on WHOSE transparency should get facilitated:
>>
>> Assange is all about transparency/accountability for the powerful,
>> while Facebook (while it has other functions) is about transparency
>> (and necessarily accountability of various kinds) for the average
>> people.  Facebook for example, is being monitored by US government
>> officials to gather information and intelligence on its own citizens
>> in certain contexts.  Things like Facebook make it enormously easier
>> for the government to monitor aspects of the private lives of netizens
>> who often innocently think they're sharing just with their "Facebook
>> friends."
>>
>> TIME has had Hitler as man of the year decades ago, and routinely
>> stresses that selection of a Person of the Year isn't a personal
>> endorsement.
>>
>> But it is telling, isn't it, that if TIME thinks Zuckerberg's social
>> media is the wave of the present and of the future, TIME nevertheless
>> had to resort to grossly undemocratic means to amplify the cause of a
>> Facebook founder and ignore the overwhelmingly more popular cause of
>> accountability / transparency for the powerful governments and
>> corporations in the USA and around the world represented by Assange.
>>
>> Simply put, the person that has the power to demand or force
>> transparency on the other person or entity (like government) is the
>> master, and the one who must yield their privacy pretty much whenever
>> asked, and must be totally transparent when required is the servant or
>> slave entity.
>>
>> Despite the "relevance" of Zuckerberg, I find Time's choice to ignore
>> its own readers and undemocratically choose Zuckerberg to be chilling
>> when the type of "transparency" fostered by Facebook is compared to
>> the type of transparency offered and fostered by Julian Assange and
>> Wikileaks.
>>
>> In the Assange/Zuckergerg contrast, the status of ascending masters
>> and descending slaves is clear.  Unless, of course, Assange continues
>> to win and decisions like TIME's POY debacle are exposed to a form of
>> transparency sometimes called robust criticism.
>>
>> Paul Lehto, J.D.
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>
>
>
> --
> Salanieta Tudrau Tamanikaiwaimaro
> P.O.Box 17862
> Suva
> Fiji Islands
>
> Cell: +679 9982851
> Alternate Email: s.tamanikaiwaimaro at tfl.com.fj
>
> "Wisdom is far better than riches."
>
>
>

-- 
Salanieta Tudrau Tamanikaiwaimaro
P.O.Box 17862
Suva
Fiji Islands

Cell: +679 9982851
Alternate Email: s.tamanikaiwaimaro at tfl.com.fj

"Wisdom is far better than riches."
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