New blog post: How (not) to talk about #hackers in #media
https://rys.io/en/155.html
Excessive use by the media of words “hacker”, “hacking”, “hack”, and the like, whenever a story concerns online break-ins, leaks, and cyberattacks is problematic:
- Makes it hard to inform the public accurately about causes of a given event, and thus makes it all but impossible to have an informed debate about it.
- Demonizes a creative community of tinkerers, artists, IT researchers, and information security experts.
This piece got published in a Polish mainstream media portal, and was meant to be an explainer for non-hackers on the hacker community.
So, you probably know most of what's in there.
Still, I hope it comes in handy if you need to explain to anyone the basics of why calling all cybercriminals "hackers" is a problem.
Or, if you need to explain to some hackers, why reclaiming this word matters (check the Q&A section at the bottom).
