Legal Commentary

Time Names Facebook Founder Zuckerberg "Person of the Year"

By Jeralyn

Is Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg a good choice for "Person of the Year"? Time Magazine thinks so. I don't. Zuckerman and FB to me are "so last year." I also think that as people are learning how privacy intrusive and commercial FB is, more will reduce their use of it.

Runners-up included Julian Assange, the Tea Party, Hamid Karzai and the Chilean Miners. Assange won the magazine's online poll, and Time unconvincingly explains why it chose Zuckerman instead. [More...]

As for "People Who Mattered", the list included Sarah Palin, Anwar al-Awlaki (but not the leaders of AQAP) and the cast of the Jersey Shore.

Time says:

Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is a recognition of the power of individuals to shape our world

So why no mention of the Guantanamo detainees, the Times Square bomber or the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. His failed bomb attempt was last year, but the repercussions of his act -- the proliferation of TSA body scanners -- happened this year. Don't they even deserve a mention? (As an aside, Abdulmutallab had new charges added today.)

Apparently, the task of choosing a single person or group of 20 people who represent "significance" to everyone else in the world has become futile. Since it can't be done, Time chose "safe", and made a vanilla, mayonnaise-y selection of someone who no one really cares about. Better to face apathy than anger.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on December 15, 2010 (boomark / email).