Durrani Blogs: Rounding up the 10, Part 3: Facepalm

Lo jee! I think these two are a like a peas in a pod. Last time, I started my last post with Fatima and this time, its Jemima. Oh Jemima! I was very sad when you and Imran went bye-bye. Still, I think Jemima has more sense than Fatima. She is keeping Imran's boys Muslim and still does a lot of good work for the country which was once her second home. I love to read her tweets and she is so open for feedback at times. Just this evening, she tweeted:

Julian Assange to launch new social network for diplomats, Twofacebook

Now, I have no idea what Jemima is trying to imply here but if she is throwing one on the TIME magazine who named Mark Zuckerberg as the Person of the Year then I am with her. The Person of the Year is a newsworthy person who impacts the world in a significant manner. Naming Zuckerberg as the Person of the Year makes very little sense. His website has been there since 2004 and it was not going anywhere for a couple of years. The only significant impact Mr. Zuckerberg makes on our lives is when he makes a new Facebook layout which is compulsory to use, no matter how sucky it might be.

Yes. If they are thinking that Mr. Zuckerberg made an impact during the "Draw Day" controversy then we should all not forgot that it was an event which last only a month. Curiously, it was the same time when technology enthusiasts in US rallied support against the use of Facebook due to its non-interest in user's privacy. Much to my amaze, this was the same time when "Draw Day" controversy erupted and even to much surprise that Facebook did not delete those pages even though you cannot support Hitler on the same platform. As I turned my Zaid Hamid mode on, I smell a conspiracy in there. As Muslims flocked to report those "Draw Day" pages, it might be a possibility that many of them have made multiple accounts to make sure that "Draw Day" page is banned. More accounts means more ads here and there. More ads means more money for Zuckerberg. However, the real dent came when it was banned in Pakistan and Bangladesh for more than a week. The user base dropped and the ads went away (some of them are not coming back).

The guy who really deserved the title was Julian Assange. He owned the year. First he released the Afghan War Diaries in July of this year and then came the Cablegate. The nature of these documents show that how world diplomacy is working and how leaders of the world can be two-faced. His organization, WikiLeaks, really showed that the people of the world care about whats going around them. As soon as there were attempts to bring down the only host sites, volunteers around the world worked together. In less than a day, WikiLeaks had 350+ host sites or mirrors. Furthermore, the whole WikiLeaks website is available on BitTorrent for people to keep. Even the events that unfolded after the Cablegate showed there was a great impact. It showed that countries, which boasted about Liberal Speech, in reality, did not support it when their actions were questioned whereas TIME Magazine placed the last nail in the coffin as it declined the readers' opinion and chose a millionaire who might be not that influential to our lives. The Cablegate was a true global which covered places where a computer might not exist. TIME by skipping Assange as the Person of the Year showed that the editorial team is scared of accepting realities.