Hacker News Reader

Comment by joshaidan | Hacker News Reader

I find it interesting the amount of attention Hacker News is getting from this in mainstream media.

It makes me wonder, when people unfamiliar to Hacker News read about it in stories like this, do they get the wrong impression and think Hacker News is about the criminal kind of "hacking"?

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The mainstream media spent twenty years trying to turn the word "hacker" into some sort of unholy cross between thief, terrorist, child pornographer, and teenager. They'd better be getting the sense that hacker == criminal by now!

Your replies in this thread have been piss poor, anti-corporation, anti-media, hyperbolic shitposting. Please take it back to /r/technology.

"Today, mainstream usage of 'hacker' mostly refers to computer criminals, due to the mass media usage of the word since the 1980s."

Source: Wikipedia, "hacker".

If the media hasn't consistently presented "hacker" as negative, why is it seen as such? After all, everyone who actually knows what hacking is a: sees it as positive, and b: is irritated at the media presentation.

Facts is facts, man. Sorry if you don't like the snark, but I'm not sorry for telling the truth.

It's the general public's opinion about "hacker", not just the media's. Connotations change. Everyone here knows "hacker" to mean "someone who finds a simple solution to a complex problem" but everyone elsewhere uses "hacker" to mean "someone who breaks into another person's computer system." It's not even the wrong usage; it's just a usage you don't personally like.

That's not touching on the rest of your posts. They've all been hyperbolic bullshit, and I hate seeing it bleed over from the political discussions.

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