[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.