[cglouch]

Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but it does bother anyone that the NYT title calls it "election hacking"? To me that sort of slyly suggests that the actual election / voting process was hacked, which as far as I know did not happen. Perhaps "election-related hacking" would be more accurate. I don't mean to say the DNC and other such hacks weren't a big deal, but I worry that people who just read titles are getting the wrong impression.

[concinds]

Ever since the election, the media has been trying to confuse people about Russia's "hacking", and keep using the phrase "hacked the election", so frequently and rigorously that it's obviously deliberate.

And it worked: 50% of Democrats believe Russia hacked the election results (that's right, the results themselves, not just the DNC) according to the latest YouGov poll.

The media is no longer proving itself worthy of the respect it has.

[pavlov]

The same YouGov poll shows that 46% of Trump voters believe the inane "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory is true:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/12/28/am...

That is a scary example of what we can look forward to. Now that people don't believe in "mainstream" journalism, they'll latch on to wild speculations with no actual research or journalistic ethics. That is net loss for the truth, no matter how much one dislikes the New York Times and other old media.

[DrScump]

The exact quote is:

"On the other hand, nearly half of Trump supporters give at least some credence to the Pizzagate rumors. In contrast, 57% of Clinton voters say that is definitely not true (some, however, answered that it could be true),"

Putting aside the fact that this is shortly after "Pizzagate" was first widely reported and therefore a topic of broad discussion (of whatever quality) at the time...

... the contrast is that "nearly half" of Trump supporters give "at least some credence", as opposed to 43% of Clinton supporters. At most, that a whopping 6 percentage point difference. This is news?

[matt4077]

Look at the chart again. The 43% of Clinton voters includes those answering "probably not true". That category is not included in the 46% of Trump supporters, only "definitely/probably true".

[tzs]

> ... the contrast is that "nearly half" of Trump supporters give "at least some credence", as opposed to 43% of Clinton supporters. At most, that a whopping 6 percentage point difference. This is news?

It's a 30 percentage point difference.

Here are the numbers from the poll.

Definitely True: 4% Clinton Voters, 11% Trump voters, 5% other voters

Probably True: 13%/35%/29%

Probably Not True: 25%/40%/35%

Definitely Not True: 57%/13%/31%

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/docume...

[pavlov]

Look at the first graphic. It's 46% of Trump voters vs. 17% of Clinton voters (which is still insanely high, for a theory so easily discredited).

[DrScump]

The graphic directly conflicts with the text.

[delinka]

"...wild speculations with no actual research or journalistic ethics."

Which is often what "mainstream journalism" offers. So how do we get back to Ethics in Journalism when what we have is driven by number of visitors?

[pavlov]

Quality news tends to be behind a paywall. That really is the best indicator these days.

[noobermin]

Here you go[0]... That's not "50% believe." 35% thinking "Probably true" sounds to me like they believe it's possible. A nearly equal percent think it's "Probably not true" (32%)

[0] http://hotair.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/rh.jpg

[dmix]

So around 52% of Democrats bought into the mischaracterization at some level, lovely. Not to mention a big chunk of Republicans.

I'm annoyed the administration again has decided on wait at least 3 more weeks before releasing a new proof before announcing punishment. Not to mention what will amount to about two months of public evidence free speculation happening in the press (aka strictly citing anonymous Intel officers). And I highly doubt they will ever be able to prove Wikileaks source was Russia which was the only primary direct influence on the elections. Even then it

It's just as likely multiple people had access to the servers. Proving Russia hacked it does not disprove others did. Digital forensics on the boxes can reveal a lot but not everything if they were good.

There has been word the RNC was hacked by Russia but the data was older and of less value. Trump famously doesn't use email nor did they hack any of Trumps 3 campaign managers (as fair as we know from anonymous IC leaks). So it may not even have been a comparable leak even if they (or wikileaks activists) chose to release it. Especially considering how Trump was very hostile to RNC, he would have easily dismissed it as Washington elites doing what he said they do. It might have even helped his 'drain the swamp' marketing angle.

Within this greater context the story of run of the mill nation state hacking of government officials is a relatively minor concern, given NSA does the same, but still a real concern. But the idea that this was a partisan hack of 'elections' and that Russians held back damning data on Trump is on very weak ground.

And let's be honest the Podesta Wikileaks dump was totally underwhelming given the clever hype by Assange.

[concinds]

I think we disagree on the definition of "probably" (≠ plausibly).

For the record, for others reading, the question was: "Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected President".

"Definitely true" + "probably true" add up to 52%. Much worse: it adds up to 37% when you include all Americans. That's a catastrophic media failure.

[mnarayan01]

"Probably not true" seems like a much better fit for "Well...it's possible".

[matt4077]

I assure you almost none of these answers are the result of the New York Times lacking a bit of precision their headlines.

[VikingCoder]

First, we should all probably ignore YouGov, as it has fairly low credibility.

Second, it's alarming to watch people on YCombinator not acknowledge that almost always, the best way to hack a system is social engineering.

And if you combine actual hacking of people at the top of a political party, with social engineering, it's really not a stretch to call that "election hacking."

Sure, it's a little bit sensationalist, but when the DHS and FBI themselves refer to "malicious cyber activity" "by the Russian civilian and military intelligence services to compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the U.S. election", it's really not a bad short summary.

[zigzigzag]

Why does YouGov have low credibility? My sense is the opposite: they were the only polling company to get accurate results in important recent votes.

[VikingCoder]

You think the rest of the poll has high credibility?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/12/28/am...

52% of Trump voters believe Obama was born in Kenya?

9% of Trump voters believe Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Trump elected?

31% of Trump voters think vaccines cause autism?

That's a radical shift from the 6% of Americans who thought so according to a Gallup survey:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/06/gallup-poll-vaccine...

[tzs]

> 31% of Trump voters think vaccines cause autism?

> That's a radical shift from the 6% of Americans who thought so according to a Gallup survey

The Gallup poll was filing people into three categories on that question (yes/no/uncertain). The YouGov survey filed them into four categories (definitely yes/probably yes/probably no/definitely no). If we assume that the two "probably" categories in the latter correspond to the "uncertain" category in the former, the results of the two surveys are fairly close.

[matt4077]

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/

[ep103]

Russia's hacking and the fake news narrative are both ways for national pundits / news corps that continuously campaigned for Hillary while giving airtime to Trump to escape blame from people who are shocked to discover that Hillary did lose and they're stuck with Trump now.

[icehawk219]

Misuse of the word "hacking" has been a plague for a while now. Setting your alarm clock is now a "life hack". Not stuffing your face is a "health/wellness hack". Balancing your checkbook is a "personal finance hack".

In this case I don't blame the media entirely because the word has been used like this for years. Is it really any surprise that altering the outcomes of an election is now "election hacking"?

[colordrops]

> The media is no longer proving itself worthy of the respect it has.

They've been at this forever. It's just that the truth is leaking through alternative and social media so a lot more people aren't as fooled anymore.

[concinds]

True, but there is currently no strong competitor to fill the NYT's market. "Alternative and social media" are good for populists on both sides of the aisle, but they do not compete with the NYT. A set of strong, trustworthy centrist media outlets is desperately needed, as it's important to the political stability of a country. Without that, you end up with people joining the fringes, on both sides, and a big fat problem on your hands 10-15 years down the line at the polling booth.

[Veratyr]

All this propaganda from the media is worrying.

I'm not American or old enough to really remember what it was like when the US started the Iraq war but from what I've read, the way the media spreads propaganda now sounds a lot like the way it spread propaganda then.

I'm sure the US isn't heading into a war with Russia or anything but it's still concerning.

[heurist]

Maybe they should say "socially engineered" the election.

[matt4077]

Questions such as those are quite meaningless to ask. People take them as a proxy for "which side are you on" and respond accordingly.

[rdiddly]

If these clowns are trying to make me (usually a Democrat) _glad_ that _Trump_ is coming in, it's working. The war-mongering against Russia has got to stop. It's ridiculous. It's from the 80s. (Like Trump.)

[wheelerwj]

> The media is no longer proving itself worthy of the little respect it has.

FTFY.

[serf]

NYT is a media outlet that requires additional personal scrutiny, espescially with regards to any active U.S. government talking points.

I'm not the biggest Chomsky fan, but I feel a lot of his opinion about NYT [0] are probably right on.

[0]: http://www.salon.com/2015/05/25/noam_chomsky_the_new_york_ti...

[colordrops]

You don't need to read Chomsky to have seen the numerous and obvious slanted articles and puff pieces that the NY Times has published over the years. The fact that all these media outlets even explicitly endorse candidates is crazy and the antithesis of ethical journalism.

[dmoy]

Similar to that Chomsky criticism is Robert Fisk's constant railing on LA Times (and others') constant use of "US government sources say".

Anything that comes after such a phrase needs to be taken with a giant grain of salt.

[matt4077]

That use is problematic, but it's worth pointing out why. Just like this, I fear many people will understand your comment as an insinuation that the LAT et. al. just made up these quotes. I haven't read all of Fisk's criticism, but I believe his case is mostly that it allows those government sources to spread misinformation behind the cover of anonymity.

[dmoy]

Oh yea it's definitely not the case that they've made up the quotes. Fisk is quite clear about that (if you can dig up the article, it's from like 2006-ish). It's just assuming what any government official says is true and printing it without doing any digging or checking for bias (or outright misinformation as you say).

[rqebmm]

Right. Decrying the NYT for peddling government lies is the definition of shooting the messenger. We have to think critically about all our sources of information, whether it's the NYT, Fox, RT, Breitbart, or our facebook friends.

[usaphp]

> "but I worry that people who just read titles are getting the wrong impression."

I think that's exactly what NYT is trying to do, after blasting Trump for the whole year, they need to at least make it look like he won illegally.

[dragonwriter]

> Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but it does bother anyone that the NYT title calls it "election hacking"?

No, it's hacking with the purpose and manifest effect of causing the end result of the election to be more in the direction that the actor favors than it would otherwise be, so "election hacking" is concise and entirely accurate.

> I worry that people who just read titles are getting the wrong impression

People who just read titles will always get incomplete information that they will fill in with assumptions that will often be incorrect. Were that not the case, there'd be no point to having an actual article behind the title.

[matt4077]

I appreciate your self-awareness that you may be "splitting hairs". That sort of nuance is unfortunately absent in the thread you kicked off.

I'm really lost as to how this all-out hatred of "mainstream" media started. But even more so I'm left wondering what kind of media these critics would appreciate? Infowars and Breitbart? <somename>.blogspot.com? Does anybody honestly believe they'd be better informed in a world without professional journalism? I'm not just talking about Trump vs. Clinton, but also "the town council's plans for xxx".

I mean, you see these comments glorifying "the press used to be", or saying the NYT "lost all credibility when they endorsed HC" which just leaves me wondering if they're just repeating their side's talking points or if public education has completely failed, possibly beyond the point of no return.

[mathetic]

I think terms like "growth hacking" and "financial engineering" led the way on these things.

Also don't get me wrong, I am sure people are deliberately framing events according to their own biases, but it is hardly a surprise in post-truth world, isn't it?

[mtgx]

This is why even NYT lost is reputation and credibility. It can't help itself not take the Democrats' side.

Calling it "election hacking" could very well fit into some definitions of "fake news". Will Facebook ban this article now?

This is a good example of why "banning fake news" is a terrible idea, because we don't know whose definition of "fake news" will be implemented. It's also very difficult to pinpoint exactly what fake news is or what is the "optimum percentage" of falseness in an article before it deserves a ban...and so on and so forth.

[matt4077]

Headline space is limited. The first sentence is more precise: "...for its efforts to influence the 2016 election".