[governance] TIME Magazine's Person of the Year (Battle over WHO must be Transparent)
Paul Lehto
lehto.paul at gmail.com
Thu Dec 16 07:35:21 EST 2010
And the core of my post is the question of what vision of internet
transparency triumphed in TIME's Person of the Year? It is the vision
of personal transparency, and a rejection of transparency for the
governments of the world. Someone asked, why can't the editors
override tjeor readership poll? [read: why can't the editors be
undemocratic in approach?]
That misses the point of the post, which is to show which internet
transparency vision was selected undemocratically (as they had
purported to reserve the right to do just that) amd how those two
visions of who ought to be the most transparent one, government or
people, clash in the form of the Assange vs. Facebook contrast.
Paul Lehto, J.D.
On 12/15/10, McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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:
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>>
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>>
> ____________________________________________________________
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--
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
P.O. Box 1
Ishpeming, MI 49849
lehto.paul at gmail.com
906-204-4026 (cell)
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