[governance] TIME Magazine's Person of the Year (Battle over WHO must be Transparent)
McTim
dogwallah at gmail.com
Wed Dec 15 23:34:20 EST 2010
This is actually nothing to do with Internet Governance...not even remotely.
It's completely Off-Topic for this list AND the original posting
contained a Godwin, so let's let it rest, eh? We have actual
important topics to discuss.
--
Cheers,
McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route indicates how we get there." Jon Postel
On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 7:02 AM, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro
<salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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>>>
>>>
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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."
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
> governance at lists.cpsr.org
> To be removed from the list, send any message to:
> governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org
>
> For all list information and functions, see:
> http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
>
> Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t
>
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