WikiLeaks or Facebook?

The year ended with an interesting controversy. The public voted overwhelmingly for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, as “Person of the Year,” but the editors of Time magazine wisely chose Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of the Facebook network.

In the field of communications, the creations of both men are among the highlights of the decade, but I agree with the decision of Time.

Although the ability of WikiLeaks to publish unlimited material and uncomfortable secrets could destabilize a government or change the ways of doing politics, in the end it’s nothing more than the enhanced use of new technologies by traditional journalism. Its values lie in the creation of a public agenda within the framework of vertical communication from sender to receiver.

Because of WikiLeaks, it may be that we appreciate the world differently; Facebook, however, has changed our way of living. Zuckerberg has, in the few years since the project began in 2004 as a game at Harvard, transformed the way we communicate.

He has offered us a more mature version of our experience with the internet. We now live in an era of greater horizontal, expressive freedom, where the most important thing is not the way we communicate but how we interact and connect with others. We can feel at a personal level. In my house, the breakfast routine has changed since we became part of this Facebook community of 550 million people, which grows at a rate of 700 thousand users per day. My wife reads the newspapers after reconnecting with friends from 30 years ago; she chats, tags and shares photos, as she did back in her teens. And I, since I followed the formidable political campaign of Barack Obama, navigate and read what most interests my friends, follow the trends of groups protesting or sympathizing with any cause, endorse campaigns of any kind or relate to those whose likes we share, despite different ages, ideologies and nationalities.

It is true that we have lost some privacy, that virtual relationships can condition our lives and that we are more targeted than before. But nothing compares to the benefits of the freedom to express and connect. There is research, such as that done by the Spanish bank BBVA, which shows that Mexican migrants in the U.S. who use social networks like Facebook and Twitter earn 23 percent more than the rest because they have access to better information about jobs, wages and forms of savings.

Spontaneous communication is so powerful that it has become a challenge for intolerant governments. Chinese authorities have censored Facebook since early 2009 and Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia block it periodically.

We’ll see what happens in Venezuela.

This week, Hugo Chavez legalized censorship of the Internet, and those who form social networking groups to criticize the government will be punished. Never mind the level of censorship that would be generated if WikiLeaks published the secret diplomatic cables of the Chavez government, since the new legislation allows blocks such as those practiced in Cuba.

Facebook will survive governments and their censorship. It’s neither the first time nor the only network [to be censored] since Google, in the age of search engines, became the dominant force.

It is estimated that Facebook will have one billion users by 2012. The media and advertisers will continue to use it to expand their limits and journalists will use it for feedback and stories. And as is already happening, the connection to news or entertainment sites will be through profiles on Facebook, a sort of “passport” for any activity.

Zuckerberg was well chosen as “Person of the Year.” Not because at the age of 26 he has a company worth more than U.S. $40 billion, or because, as a young philanthropist, he is committed to donating half of his fortune in his lifetime, a la Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, but because of his vision. Time must have chosen him because, where everyone saw a network of computers for business opportunities, he saw a vast network of people and a new form of communication: interconnection.