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Comment by wulczer | Hacker News Reader

Hasn't this been discussed before? The Person of the Year award is supposed to be given to the most influential person of the year, not the nicest or the most ethical one. Zuckerberg did become a widely recognizable person and you can't say he has not become influential too. Joseph Stalin got the award twice, 'nuff said.

Disclaimer: I'm not comparing, just pointing out that the FSF's reaction is kind of attacking the straw man here.

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I'm making a guess that FSF (and EFF) would probably have preferred the most influential person to win, namely Julian Assange.

You gotta wonder though, how many people are touched each day by the work of Zuckerberg versus the work of Assange.

Very true.

http://wikileaks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/13/wikileak...

If directly touching people's lives was any sort of criteria then I think Jonathan Ive or Steve Jobs ought to be a better candidate. Or Larry/Sergey.

I do believe Facebook has a tad bit more users than Apple products. I also get then feeling, just walking around the area, that people spend more time on Facebook than Google.

How is Assanage more influential? A lot of the opposition groups behind the mass uprisings sweeping the Arab world credit Facebook as a key tool for organizing their revolutions.

Facebook is seriously changing people's lives on a large scale. Wikileaks has mostly provided diplomatic gossip, with a few things tossed in that will harm people, and a smaller number of things tossed in that will help people.

In Tunisie, at least, many people have said the Wikileaks exposure of Ben Ali's corruption were influential.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/25/whispering_...

Agree. It should have been clear when the gave the award to people like Bush and Bernake.

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