Since 1927, TIME Magazine has chosen a person, or idea that for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year. It has had names such as Mahathma Gandhi, Adolf Hitler, Bill & Melinda Gates, Ayatollah Khomeini, George Bush, YouTube and so on. This year the award went to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Facebook, the online social networking website.
The final decision on who makes it to the cover ultimately rests on TIME's editorial board. But recently they have become bolder in pushing forward their political and/or capitalists interests and propagandas. Remember they had referred Rubin, Greenspan & Summers as the Committee to save the world, their very actions in due course led to the current economic crisis. Not to mention, George Bush was chosen as the Person of the Year in 2004.
According to the TIME's user poll Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, received 382,026 votes, compared to Zuckerberg's mere 18,353 votes. A clear winner? Not according to TIME. Again TIME reserves the right. Moreover, Facebook has come into severe criticism this year for its new user and privacy policies – user data from third party apps can be shared with advertisers that could be used to identify individual users. The site booted a 400,000 strong anti-torture Egyptian group, why? The admin of the group went by a pseudonym- who in their wildest of dreams would reveal their identity when they can be targeted for the very cause they stand against.
On the other hand WikiLeaks has created waves by enabling whistleblowers to anonymously send in secretive data that brings to light the works of authoritarian governments. Afghan and Iraq war logs, the pentagon video that showed how a bunch of civilians were gunned down by a US chopper, US embassy cables etc. reveals many facts that were unknown. This has changed the face of journalism and the way information is shared.
Rather than divulging into the editorial policy of TIME magazine, serious questions have to be raised about free speech and whether it is free any more, visible with the recent release of diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks. TIME's selection of Zuckerberg is a slice in the chain of events that tests freedom of speech.
Amazon booted WikiLeaks from its servers when Joe Lieberman, an independent senator from Connecticut, questioned their relation with WikiLeaks. Credit card companies and Paypal soon followed suite preventing any funding from reaching the organisation. Rape charges that were dropped in August by the then chief prosecutor were re-instated. More recently Apple removed a WikiLeaks app from its stores on grounds that it violated its developer guidelines. A spokesperson said, "Apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or target group in harm's way." Incidentally, there have been reports of suicides and exploitations of workers at the factory where Apple iPads are manufactured, in China.
Sarah Palin, a Republican and a presidential frontrunner, has said that Assange should be hunted down as the way the Taliban are. She also said that "Assange is not a 'journalist', any more than the 'editor' of al-Qaeda's new English-language magazine Inspire is a 'journalist'." The US is planning to bring in new legislation that can be used to prosecute him, although detractors say that such a move would be unconstitutional.
Julian Assange can be considered as the Robin Hood of our time. When more and more governments are becoming authoritarian the flow of information has been restricted from entering the public domain. Many a time dissent and information has been suppressed under the pretext of national security. National wealth is being squandered away to the whims of politicians and bureaucrats, while the needy are daily edging towards poverty and insanity.
To ensure that their misdeeds are never known to the commons, to give a false sense of calmness, information is suppressed in the process reducing accountability. It is in this context that the files that WikiLeaks released give the public an understanding of what's really happening behind that cloak and dagger of secrecy.
The Middle East has been known for their intolerance towards Freedom of speech. Egypt is infamous for torturing and jailing citizens who air their dissent, mostly bloggers as mainstream media is heavily regulated by the government.
The scene is not much different in the Indian subcontinent. The media has often stood by the government's point of view, has sided with politicians and corporates in influencing public opinion, even when they had a choice to be free and fair. Self-regulation and self-censorship seems to have embedded only in such matters.
The US govt has come down heavily on media outlets and organisations linked to WikiLeaks in some or the other way in the post-US embassy cable leaks, the same it imposed sanction on firms that do business with Iran.
This is a repeat of the medieval ages when the king was all-in-all, people could be imprisoned and executed without a trial, wealth was concentrated with the upper class, speaking against the throne was considered to be treachery, science was considered heretic. In such an environment is there anything such as free speech or a free press? If so, what's the price one has to pay? if it's not free.
This year's TIME person of the year should have gone to the US government for showing the world that IT is free to charge free speech.
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