Actually not yet, as the winners have not been announced, but it doesn't eliminate the possibility since for the 1st time in history an inanimate object enters the Nominee List for the Nobel Peace Prize - The Internet itself ( as announced today by Forbes).
The Nobel Committee maintained its tradition to preserve the contenders' names secret for 50 years. Still some nominations were made public. According to Associated Press, nominees include the requisite European human rights group and a Chinese political activist. You may well wonder how come such a contraversial medium as the Internet became listed for Nobel Peace Price, when despite its whole package of benefits it comes with a number of backbones as: cyber crimes, privacy issues and many more?
Eventually it looks like these "side-effects" haven't stoped the Italian version of the Wired magazine to launch the "Internet proposal campaign" last year in order to support its nomination for Nobel Peace Prize 2010, entitled "Internet for Peace" .
The Wired main argument was that “the internet can be considered the first weapon of mass construction, which we can deploy to destroy hate and conflict and to propagate peace and democracy,” (citing Riccardo Luna, editor-in-chief of the Italian edition of Wired magazine). Additionally The Wired brought up Iran's latest election case to praise the spread of E-WOM ahead of any censor attempts, which makes "the internet become a weapon of global hope.”
As you see - Internet's major assets - Twitter and Web 2.0 tools alike were major arguments for the Internet's nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, which by the way last year was awarded to President Obama.
What would be your reaction if the prize would indeed go to..the Internet?
Curious to hear,
All yours,
Digital Lunch
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3 comments:
It would certainly be unusual at first glance...but stranger things have happened...like giving the Nobel peace prize to a newly elected president. But, seriously, the argument presented by Wired makes logical sense, while being totally farfelu... We'll have to wait and see if the Nobel guys have a sense of humour, a sense of reality or are just plain boring...
Well if this happens then it good news for us isn't it. Nice Post
My dilemma here is the candidate ITself: although the world communication has improved considerably, the Nobel Peace Prize would relate to "Peace" rather than "Communication" and if so - than the nomination should rather be “The People of the Internet” and not the medium itself. So let's wait and see the results..
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