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Comment by exabrial | Hacker News Reader

I disagree, there is no lexical ambiguity about the title. Those two words have a very exact meaning, and it simply is not true, per your own statement.

If the title was simply the second half, and the facts were not begrudgingly acknowledged in the article, I'd feel differently about an otherwise interesting opinion piece.

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If you can make up terms like growth hacking (formerly known as marketing) then it seems to me you can make up the term election hacking (formerly known as political advocacy) by the exact same mechanism.

The person who is the subject of this article claims that it was not a hack at all though, but instead a leak. That seems like something significant that the NYTimes should at least mention.

This feels a lot like equivocating between "site X hacked" and "site X DDOS'd", except on a more urgent topic. There's a lot of FUD achieved by failing to clarify when digital attacks are known-and-inescapable risks (leaks, legal harassment, site takedowns) and when they're actual system-level attacks.

"Election hacking" is a general term that exceeds your definition of it. Please accept that as a given, regardless of your own tendency to interpret it in a limited way.

+1 - the election was an 18 month+ campaign. Constraining it to just the casting of a vote seems too narrow.

wouldnt we call that campaign hacking ? Isnt there a difference between the campaign and the election? I had to check the dictionary to be sure.

I don't believe he exceeded the definition at all. It's naive to think at this point that the media isn't using the term "election hacking" (in a headline), as a means to push the false narrative that "the election was hacked". I think its limited to think that it was simply an unfortunate title, when put into context with 99% of the other headlines they put out. As OP stated, they are throwing a hissy fit because they didn't control the election.

so Hillary and Trump each "hacked" the election by posting negative campaign ads ? how come this pejorative term, "hacking", wasn't used against either of them ?

Because this is about actual computer hacking.

Because negative campaign ads are a conventional, authorized method of affecting an election. For the same reason, getting a job and going to work every day is not considered a "life hack".

just like pay-to-play is a "conventional, authorized method" of converting power to cash ?

You could call bribery "governance hacking" or something if you wanted to, I guess.

"Actual computer hacking" in the sense that someone exposed the truth hidden on DNC servers and Podesta''s IMAP server?

Or "actual computer hacking" in the sense that someone downloaded Trump''s tax returns from the IRS servers and passed them to the NYT?

Oh come on. "Election hacking" is not a general term. Unless "general term" is a general term you're redefining - which I wouldn't rule out at this point.

If such general term exists, it would be more appropriately used to describe the DNC's unconventional relationship with media employees. But please, for the sake of everyone's sanity, let us not randomly redefine english words - even if regurgitated by your favorite media news outlet.

"Hacking" was redefined a long time ago. Growth hacking, life hacking, etc. Used in this way, "hacking" is a fairly general term.

But those are obviously non-literal uses of the word. Growth hacking would never be used to describe someone's legs getting chopped off.

OP used the word "fake news" and got downvoted to oblivion, but it's truly a wonderful demonstration of how subjective terms are used to manufacture narratives. Down with the hyperbole, man.

Personally, I feel that the "fake news" verbiage was too strong of a denunciation for a headline wording choice. Especially since:

A) "Election hacking" has become a common shorthand of the event in multiple media sources (whether this reflects a "manufactured narrative", I cannot say, but I've seen "election hacking" as shorthand all over the place), and

B) The article did contain a detailed description of the event, in a way I think accurately reflects the current state ("major data breaches of the email accounts of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton adviser John Podesta, committed, allegedly, by Russian-sponsored hackers and fed to the world via WikiLeaks".)

I do agree that this portion of the headline is inaccurate at face value, and that there are much better shorthands for this event, but calling an article "fake news" just for a bad headline is too harsh.

> whether this reflects a "manufactured narrative", I cannot say

Based on what you know about the human primate, what do you think the truth is?

Too harsh or not harsh enough, who knows. All I know is "fake news" will be used to describe news you don't agree with, for whatever reason you like. Let's at least be honest with ourselves.

Want my opinion?

I see the general term "election hacking" or variations thereof on news sites that are conservative as well, such as the Wall Street Journal (http://www.wsj.com/articles/congressional-calls-grow-for-a-p...) and Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/01/07/was-fridays-declas...).

So I have trouble accepting the narrative that this term itself is a tantrum being thrown by media that "lost", if some of the media that lean on the side that won are also using the term.

And, yes, you are right, I do suspect that the OP probably used the term "fake news" because he or she did not agree that there was an election hack, or at least believes that the source reporting is too biased in some way. With no further argument other than the "fake news" term, I found that post rather weak.

Revealing truth that power wants to keep secret is not hacking; it's called "Journalism". Of course, I don't expect people under the age of about 40 to understand that because in their lifetimes, with a few notable exceptions, "journalist" has been redefined to mean something more like "spokesperson".

Regardless of the voracity of your definition, 'Campaign Hack' would have been a much clearer, less ambiguous, and more precise term, especially given that this is an ongoing story with which most readers are already familiar.

In a perfect world, the headline would be intended to provide unambiguous information. In that, it demonstrably fails as evidenced by this thread. In the real world, it must convey information, but also hook eyeballs. So while the term 'election hacking' may not be explicitly wrong, and while I do not fault the Times for going with it, it is at best ambiguous and quite probably meant to grab attention more than convey information.

The title is indeed inaccurate (as far as we know) and I suspect that's due to the strange habit of newspapers having different people write the article and the headline.

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