Mark Zuckerberg for Time magazine person of the year?

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg for Time magazine person of the year?

Couldn’t the editors of Time Magazine have a little more intellectual aptitude and give their annual award to someone or a group of people who have tried to make the world we live in a better place, instead of just someone who gave the Internet a place for self obsessed people to post their photos and ask you to water their crops in Farmville?

Although I do not argue the social impact that Facebook has made on the Internet, giving the annual award to founder Mark Zuckerberg instead of Internet freedom of speech advocate Julian Assange or the recent Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobao, allows the editors of Time Magazine avoid any kind of political controversy. Besides, Facebook grew more in popularity in 2009 than 2010. Did the editors at Time just see the movie?

Reviewing Time Magazine’s list of runner ups for ‘Person of the Year’ and the ‘People who Mattered’, revels that Time Magazine is nothing more than a print edition version of an infotainment cable news outlet. Ranking people like the cast of The Jersey Shore, Sandra Bullock and Betty White ahead of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobao shows that there is something seriously wrong over at Time Magazine. The listing by Time is such a disgrace that even the winners and losers of the 2010 World Cup and Prince William were considered more important people than Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobao.

While it is impossible to only distinguish only one person as a person of the year, a more accurate reflection of the world in 2010 would have a list of the top ten most influential people of 2010. Instead of the politically correct and advertiser friendly version submitted by editors at Time Magazine, the following list comprises a more intellectual and realistic look at the most important people of 2010.

1. Julian Assange - Internet freedom advocate

2. Bradley Manning – whistle blower

3 Liu Xiaobao – 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner

4. Chilean Miners – dangers that blue collar workers face everyday

5. The Unemployed American – victim of broken economy and a declining world power

6 Steve Jobs – iPods, iPads, and iPhones- enough said

7. Independent Internet blogs like The Daily Beast, Beppe Grillo, and TomDispatch

8 Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert – political humor at its best

9. Don’t touch my junk guy – the dangers of a country unable to stop perpetual war and a powerful central government

10. BP CEO Tony Hayward – the face of corporate negligence and arrogance

1. Julian Assange- Creating a web site that exposes government abuses and lies is what the First Amendment and the protection of a free and independent press is based upon. As the last five hundred years have been dominated by the printed word, the next five hundred years will see the transformation of a world dominated by the digital word. Ensuring sites like Wikileaks are protected in the early years of a global communications network and recognizing the courage of individuals like Julian Assange will only benefit democracy and free people in the long run.

2. Bradley Manning- A young disillusioned private serving in Iraq, with access to hundreds of thousands of sensitive US documents, will be soon added to a short list of the most famous corporate and government whistle blowers like Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers) , Karen Silkwood , and Jeffrey Wigand.

1. Daniel Ellsberg –was the State Department officer that gave the “Pentagon Papers” (a not-so-glowing history of the United States’ political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967) to the New York Times.
2. Karen Silkwood –was a blue-collar worker who raised concerns about plutonium plant safety. Unfortunately, she died under mysterious circumstances after she started investigating claims of irregularities and wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plant.
3. Jeffrey Wigand –appeared on the CBS news program 60 Minutes, and exposed his company’s (Brown & Williamson) practice of ‘impact boosting’ (intentionally manipulating the effect of nicotine in cigarettes).

3. Liu Xiaobao - The imprisoned Chinese academic and writer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 8 for his "long and non-violent struggle for fundamental rights in China." Liu was the architect of Charter 08, a manifesto that encouraged China's authoritarian communist leadership to open up to reform and multi-party politics.

Considering that Time Magazine once spoke fondly of Adolf Hitler in 1933 and recently named George W. Bush as person of the year 2004, the latest award by Time Magazine proves the magazine is nothing more than a print version of a infotainment cable news station.