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TIME Names Mark Zuckerberg Person of Year

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the remember-when-it-was-you dept.

theodp writes "Sorry, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates — there's a new geek kid in town. TIME magazine has selected Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as its Person of the Year. Why? 'For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives,' reasoned TIME At age 26, Zuckerberg is TIME's second-youngest selection, bested only by Charles Lindbergh. So what does Zuckerberg do for an encore — Academy Award, maybe?"

9 of 317 comments (clear)

  1. orly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    more like douche-bag of the year.

    1. Re:orly? by Pojut · · Score: 5, Funny

      Just this year?

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      Living With a Nerd
  2. Julian Assange by Weezul · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It obviously should have been Julian Assange, duh.

    --
    The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
    1. Re:Julian Assange by KiloByte · · Score: 5, Informative

      The voting results were:

      1 Julian Assange 92 382024
      2 Recep Tayyip Erdogan 80 233639
      3 Lady Gaga 70 146378
      4 Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert 81 78145
      5 Glenn Beck 28 91746
      6 Barack Obama 58 27478
      7 Steve Jobs 61 24810
      8 The Chilean Miners 47 29124
      9 The Unemployed American 66 19605
      10 Mark Zuckerberg 52 18353

      What's the point in even asking for nominations if you choose some random lowlife anyway?

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    2. Re:Julian Assange by Fractal+Dice · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I see Wikileaks and Facebook as the two ends of this generation's tug of war over where power rests in the next phase of the information age. Wikileaks is taking the data of large organizations and putting it in the hands of the public. Facebook is taking the data of details of the public's lives and putting it into the hands of private organizations.

  3. For Better or *for Worse* ... by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    more like douche-bag of the year.

    Just to underscore the "for worse" part of what the Time person is defined as: "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

    Examples:

    1938 Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler
    1939 Soviet Union Joseph Stalin
    1979 Iran Ayatollah Khomeini
    2010 United States Mark Zuckerberg

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    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:For Better or *for Worse* ... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Stalin was Man of the Year (it didn't become Person of the Year until 1999) twice - once in 1939 and then again in 1942. George W. Bush was person of the year in 2000 - read into that what you will (Obama was in 2008). It's interesting that, over the last 15 years, only two have not been US citizens: Vladimir Putin and 'you'. Before 1995, the country of origin was rarely the same two years in a row. I'm not sure if this means that Time is becoming more parochial, or that they honestly believe that no one outside the USA is that influential anymore.

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      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  4. Times Magazine windows Coward Of The Year award by MouseR · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For being too pussy to admit Assange has had greater impact, as noted by the reader vote.

  5. Re:Zuckerberg over Assange? by pjfontillas · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Assange had the majority vote. TIMES reserved the right to choose the winner regardless of the poll outcome.

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    Life. Is. Good.