In 1982, Time Magazine named the computer as their person of the year. In 2006 it was “you” (accompanied by a novelty reflective cover), giving all of us an equal share of the honor for our individual contributions to the Internet. But apparently these quirky stunt honors aren’t exclusive to weekly news magazines anymore. There is a serious effort to nominate the Internet for a Nobel Peace prize.

Seriously.

There’s no denying the Web has the potential to facilitate good (just look at the recent fundraising efforts for Haiti and Chile). The global village of the net allows political dissidents in oppressive nations to blow a virtual whistle. Sites like Kiva connect first-world lenders with entrepreneurs in developing nations. It’s hard to imagine somebody in Milwaukee lending 50 dollars to somebody in Argentina and changing their life in the process.

The Internet is also home to an absurd amount of trivial time wasters. To whom should the Nobel committee award the prize? A Lolcat? Rick Astley? Maybe ninjas, pirates, and zombies can jointly accept the award.

Also, don’t forget the web is host to some of the most horrible content imaginable. If the Internet as a whole is to win a Noble Prize, that means every piece of dirty content is winning as well. I wonder if the committee would award such an honor to a man who rescued orphaned refugees but also wrote anti-Semitic literature and dabbled in child pornography.

Herein lies the problem with awarding the prize to an entity as vast as the Internet. It’s a thing, a tool, a medium. It would make just as much sense to give the award to books for their ability to enlighten.

Either honor those who created the Internet and the World Wide Web, or honor those who have utilized it to promote peace. Honor the protestors in Iran who used Twitter during the post-election violence to let the world know what was happening. Honor Nicholas Negroponte, the man behind the One Laptop Per Child initiative, to bring low cost computers to developing nations.

Honor the numerous researchers who, more than 40 years ago, had the foresight to sow the seeds for the most sophisticated network ever created. Without those great minds, the Internet wouldn’t even exist to be used as a tool for the good, the bad, and the mindless.

I can’t help but wonder if those behind this push realistically expect the Internet to win or if this is a publicity stunt that got way out of hand. The initiative certainly makes a statement, but is it the right one? The Internet is only as good and useful as the people who use it. The Oscars don’t hand out trophies to the camera or the projector. Those are only tools. They hand out technical awards on occasion to those who develop the tools of the trade. By and large, however, those awards are for the people who use the tools to create art.

The Internet is too wild, schizophrenic, and inconsistent an entity to be honored in such a way. It’s a powerful tool, perhaps the most powerful ever created, but honoring the net makes no more sense than blaming the gun.