Fresh off of a (hopefully not temporary) victory over SOPA, Jimmy Wales has a new campaign unrolling in Turkey. He’s selling watches.
This particular “Oh shit, globalization” moment happened on my commute yesterday. American actors have long used their celebrity to hawk goods in foreign markets. It’s odd to see Wales doing the same. When you think about it though, it makes sense. Wales is in that odd class of individuals who have been revolutionary in information technology without making any real money. It is hard to begrudge him some extra cash. Really, there are few items in commerce less morally objectionable than Swiss watches. I could be wrong, but I don’t think there are many sweatshops in Zurich. Now that Wikipedia has taken such a political stance, however, some will try to call him out on it.
This is apparently quite old news. He has been involved in the campaign for over a year. It is new to Turkey and this correspondent, however. Expect the haters to try to make hay of in in the coming weeks.
This correspondent talks about all sorts of old news, especially the drug war, here.
sucker, ʟʟᴄ