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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

That is the most bullshit "update" I have ever seen. NYT shouldn't just "update" that article, they should issue a retraction and a major apology, and fire people involved with the story. Maybe if the update had said this I'd be OK with it:

> Update, Oct. 5: After this article was published, the chief executive of Konnech was arrested on suspicion of theft of personal information about poll workers. Prosecutors asserted that the chief executive had poll worker information stored on servers in the People's Republic of China, which in our original article we disparaged as an "unfounded conspiracy theory", and the statement in our article, "It said that all the data for its American customers were stored on servers in the United States and that it had no ties to the Chinese government." is likely totally false.

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What does the theft of personal data have to do with claims of widespread voter fraud?

In the article, the right-leaning groups (that the Times called 'election deniers', despite not offering evidence) claimed the company stored data in China. That is likely true. Or at least it's true enough that a judge issued a warrant.

Nothing in the article says these groups are claiming this company participated in fraud. Only that they are stealing american data.

The article lays out exactly what True the Vote claimed:

> Ms. Engelbrecht and Mr. Phillips claimed at the conference and in livestreams that they investigated Konnech in early 2021. Eventually, they said, the group’s team gained access to Konnech’s database by guessing the password, which was “password,” according to the online accounts from people who attended the conference. Once inside, they told attendees, the team downloaded personal information on about 1.8 million poll workers.

Based on the case notes, I think this allegation is merited and not a conspiracy theory at all.

1.8 million poll workers sounds like a huge number, how many poll workers were there in the US last election?

This is attacking them on a small part of the allegation. The allegation the NYT claimed is a conspiracy is that the data were stored in China.

If the NYT had an article on how they overstated how many poll workers data were stored, that may be a fairer critique, but one that wouldn't make such a sensational headline.

Why would they fire anyone? These aren't mistakes.

It is a mistake. They’re supposed to use article structure, careful language, selective statements, hidden sources, and unfounded suasion to hide misinformation and hackery.

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