It started on Twitter, and then it got a life of its own. The true definition of an Internet meme. Time Magazine, like Amazon, Visa and the Swiss post office, has dropped Julian Assange. Word had it that although he was way ahead his name was being dropped from the list of candidates.
Actually it was posted on Facebook pages by Wikileaks itself, or someone claiming to be Wikileaks.
Well, if it is true someone needs to tell Time Magazine. Because at 7 p.m. EST on Tuesday I was still able to cast a vote for him as my man of the year. And he was still ahead.
The article's description of him said:
He is a new kind of whistle-blower: one made for the digital age. Those before him (like Daniel Ellsberg) were limited in the ways they could go public with their information.
Warranted or not, Assange is convinced that the governments and intelligence agencies he is unmasking are watching his every move, and as a result, he finds himself in virtual exile in Europe.
Assange is in the lead with 292,860 votes with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan had 222,239. Lady Gaga and Glenn Beck trailed.
If Assange wins he certainly wouldn't be the most controversial. Hitler won in 1938. But like the most recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, detained dissident Liu Xiaobo of China, he might not be able to attend any ceremony because he is in a British jail.
But if you are looking for a real chuckle read the piece Assange wrote for the Australian, the country's national newspaper. His theme is don't shoot the messenger. And he quotes a young Rupert Murdoch, who while editor and owner of Adelaide's The News, wrote in 1958: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win."