Hack Club Wiki - User contributions [en]

List of Incidents

2026-09-08T17:10:46Z

172.18.0.3: wikitable

{| class="wikitable"
|+ List of Incidents
|-
! Name !! Description !! Date
|-
| 2024 Hack Club Confessions Controversy || A period of significant internal conflict within the community centered on Confessions and its moderation || November 2024 — Ongoing
|-
| Privacy concerns and data handling at Hack Club || Ongoing community scrutiny and external criticism regarding its data privacy practices || November 2024 — Ongoing
|-
| 2025 Zach Latdroid Incidents || The 2025 Zach Latdroid Incidents refer to the circulation of two distinct satirical videos posted under or in reference to the sock puppet account name "Zach Latdroid" within the Hack Club community in October 2025. || October 2025
|}

|Name| Description| Date

|---|---|---|

|| A period of significant internal conflict within the community centered on Confessions and its moderation| April 2024|

|Privacy concerns and data handling at Hack Club| Ongoing community scrutiny and external criticism regarding its data privacy practices| November 2024 — Ongoing|

|2025 Zach Latdroid Incidents| The 2025 Zach Latdroid Incidents refer to the circulation of two distinct satirical videos posted under or in reference to the sock puppet account name "Zach Latdroid" within the Hack Club community in October 2025.| October 2025

List of Incidents

2026-09-08T17:08:24Z

172.18.0.3: import md

# List of Incidents
|Name| Description| Date

|---|---|---|

|2024 Hack Club Confessions Controversy| A period of significant internal conflict within the community centered on Confessions and its moderation| April 2024|

|Privacy concerns and data handling at Hack Club| Ongoing community scrutiny and external criticism regarding its data privacy practices| November 2024 — Ongoing|

|2025 Zach Latdroid Incidents| The 2025 Zach Latdroid Incidents refer to the circulation of two distinct satirical videos posted under or in reference to the sock puppet account name "Zach Latdroid" within the Hack Club community in October 2025.| October 2025

List of Community Teams

2026-09-08T17:07:31Z

172.18.0.3: Created page with "# List of Community Teams A list of community teams is below. |Name|Description|Accepting Applicants|Channel| |---|---|---|---| |Gardeners|Welcomes new members to the slack|No|#gardeners| |Nest Admins|Manages Nest|No|#nest| |Special Activities Division|Runs events for the general Hack Club Community|No|#specialactivities-division [sic]| |Fire Department|Runs day-to-day moderation in the Hack Club Slack|No|#fire-dept |Confessions|Review Team|Manages operations over #conf..."

# List of Community Teams
A list of community teams is below.

|Name|Description|Accepting Applicants|Channel|
|---|---|---|---|
|Gardeners|Welcomes new members to the slack|No|#gardeners|
|Nest Admins|Manages Nest|No|#nest|
|Special Activities Division|Runs events for the general Hack Club Community|No|#specialactivities-division [sic]|
|Fire Department|Runs day-to-day moderation in the Hack Club Slack|No|#fire-dept
|Confessions|Review Team|Manages operations over #confessions and #meta, moderates posts submitted through Prox2|No|#confessionsmeta|
|DNS Crime Squad/Friends|Reviews hackclub/dns pulls|???|#dns
|Newspaper Team|Manages the Hack Club Newspaper|???|#hack-clubnewspaper
|Fraud Squad|Handles matters related to primarily Hackatime fraud, but most other kinds of fraud too (not HCB fraud)|Invite only| @Fraud Department (bot)|

*Archived from https://web.archive.org/web/20251022192447mp_/https://hackclub.wiki/en/List_of_Community_Teams*

Main Page

2026-09-08T17:06:47Z

172.18.0.3: /* Pages (Adapted from hack.wiki) */

<strong>Welcome to the (unofficial) Hack Club Wiki!</strong>

=== News ===
<rss max=4 highlight="community wiki foundation">https://news.hackclub.com/feed.xml</rss>
[https://news.hackclub.com Feed from news.hackclub.com]

== Pages (Adapted from hackclub.wiki) ==
Pages from the original wiki.js wiki.
* [[List of YSWS]] (see also the new [[YSWS]])
* [[List of Hackathons]]
* [[List of Community Teams]]
* [[List of Incidents]]
* [[Confessions]]
* [[2024 Hack Club Confessions Controversy]]
* [[Nest]]
* [[Privacy concerns and data handling at Hack Club]]
* [[2025 Zach Latdroid Incident]]

=== Getting started (Mediawiki Tutorials) ===
Consult the [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Help:Contents User's Guide] for information on using the wiki software.
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Configuration_settings Configuration settings list]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:FAQ MediaWiki FAQ]
* [https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-announce.lists.wikimedia.org/ MediaWiki release mailing list]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Localisation#Translation_resources Localise MediaWiki for your language]
* [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Manual:Combating_spam Learn how to combat spam on your wiki]

2024 Hack Club Confessions Controversy

2026-09-08T17:06:26Z

172.18.0.3:

The ''2024 Hack Club Confessions controversy'', sometimes referred to as ''Coup du CRT'', was a period of significant internal conflict within the community centered on Confessions and its moderation. The event, which occurred in April 2024, involved a disputed change in moderation policy, the removal of volunteer moderators, and the banning of a prominent community member.

== Incident ==
The situation began with a surge of confessions that were critical Hack Club HQ team, alongside counter-confessions defending it. This led to a chaotic atmosphere that, according to subsequent statements from the community team, negatively affected the mental well-being of several community members and volunteers, with some considering leaving the community altogether. In response, on April 13, a member of the community team instructed the Confessions Review Team (CRT) in a private channel to begin censoring all anti-HQ confessions. This instruction was soon revealed publicly by a CRT member, who also announced their intention to resign.

A vote was subsequently held within the CRT on a new policy to formally disallow confessions criticizing HQ. The vote saw low participation, with three members in favor and one against. Shortly after, the community team announced the policy change publicly in the #confessions channel, stating it had been approved by a "majority" of the CRT. This claim was immediately contested by other CRT members, who argued the process was undemocratic due to the short voting window and the low number of affirmative votes, which did not constitute a majority of the entire team.

== Reception ==
The dispute escalated when two CRT members who had protested the new policy were removed from the team by the community team for insubordination, specifically for continuing to approve critical messages after the announcement. This action triggered a community outcry, including the creation of polls demanding the moderators' reinstatement and the deployment of spam bots by a user demanding more transparency. In the ensuing turmoil, the primary community member who had leaked the initial policy change was banned from the Slack workspace for up to one year. Later, it was extended to an indefinite ban.

Later, the other member of CRT was reinstated back onto CRT.

2024 Hack Club Confessions Controversy

2026-09-08T17:05:31Z

172.18.0.3: wikitext

The *2024 Hack Club Confessions controversy*, sometimes referred to as *Coup du CRT*, was a period of significant internal conflict within the community centered on Confessions and its moderation. The event, which occurred in April 2024, involved a disputed change in moderation policy, the removal of volunteer moderators, and the banning of a prominent community member.

== Incident ==
The situation began with a surge of confessions that were critical Hack Club HQ team, alongside counter-confessions defending it. This led to a chaotic atmosphere that, according to subsequent statements from the community team, negatively affected the mental well-being of several community members and volunteers, with some considering leaving the community altogether. In response, on April 13, a member of the community team instructed the Confessions Review Team (CRT) in a private channel to begin censoring all anti-HQ confessions. This instruction was soon revealed publicly by a CRT member, who also announced their intention to resign.

A vote was subsequently held within the CRT on a new policy to formally disallow confessions criticizing HQ. The vote saw low participation, with three members in favor and one against. Shortly after, the community team announced the policy change publicly in the #confessions channel, stating it had been approved by a "majority" of the CRT. This claim was immediately contested by other CRT members, who argued the process was undemocratic due to the short voting window and the low number of affirmative votes, which did not constitute a majority of the entire team.

== Reception ==
The dispute escalated when two CRT members who had protested the new policy were removed from the team by the community team for insubordination, specifically for continuing to approve critical messages after the announcement. This action triggered a community outcry, including the creation of polls demanding the moderators' reinstatement and the deployment of spam bots by a user demanding more transparency. In the ensuing turmoil, the primary community member who had leaked the initial policy change was banned from the Slack workspace for up to one year. Later, it was extended to an indefinite ban.

Later, the other member of CRT was reinstated back onto CRT.

2024 Hack Club Confessions Controversy

2026-09-08T17:04:06Z

172.18.0.3: markdown

# 2024 Hack Club Confessions Controversy
The *2024 Hack Club Confessions controversy*, sometimes referred to as *Coup du CRT*, was a period of significant internal conflict within the community centered on Confessions and its moderation. The event, which occurred in April 2024, involved a disputed change in moderation policy, the removal of volunteer moderators, and the banning of a prominent community member.

## Incident
The situation began with a surge of confessions that were critical Hack Club HQ team, alongside counter-confessions defending it. This led to a chaotic atmosphere that, according to subsequent statements from the community team, negatively affected the mental well-being of several community members and volunteers, with some considering leaving the community altogether. In response, on April 13, a member of the community team instructed the Confessions Review Team (CRT) in a private channel to begin censoring all anti-HQ confessions. This instruction was soon revealed publicly by a CRT member, who also announced their intention to resign.

A vote was subsequently held within the CRT on a new policy to formally disallow confessions criticizing HQ. The vote saw low participation, with three members in favor and one against. Shortly after, the community team announced the policy change publicly in the #confessions channel, stating it had been approved by a "majority" of the CRT. This claim was immediately contested by other CRT members, who argued the process was undemocratic due to the short voting window and the low number of affirmative votes, which did not constitute a majority of the entire team.

## Reception
The dispute escalated when two CRT members who had protested the new policy were removed from the team by the community team for insubordination, specifically for continuing to approve critical messages after the announcement. This action triggered a community outcry, including the creation of polls demanding the moderators' reinstatement and the deployment of spam bots by a user demanding more transparency. In the ensuing turmoil, the primary community member who had leaked the initial policy change was banned from the Slack workspace for up to one year. Later, it was extended to an indefinite ban.

Later, the other member of CRT was reinstated back onto CRT.

Privacy concerns and data handling at Hack Club

2026-09-08T17:01:26Z

172.18.0.3: wikitextified

Hack Club has faced ongoing community scrutiny and external criticism regarding its data privacy practices, compliance with regulations, and the security of its systems. These concerns center on the collection and retention of personal data, particularly from minors, the security of its digital infrastructure, and its adherence to data protection laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

== Debates on Data Practices ==
Internal discussions within the Hack Club Slack have highlighted privacy concerns. Community members have repeatedly questioned GDPR compliance, citing the lack of a formal privacy policy for an extended period and the indefinite retention of government-issued identification documents used for YSWS verification. In response, staff members acknowledged the complexity of GDPR for an organization of Hack Club's structure and the challenges of verifying the identities of international high schoolers at scale. They stated that a privacy policy was being developed and that IDs were set to be automatically deleted after 90 days, though this was debated as a balance between privacy and the "legitimate interest" of preventing fraud.

Further concerns were raised about marketing practices, with users noting that signing up for programs like HCB automatically enrolled them in organizational newsletters, a practice that critics argued should be opt-in rather than opt-out under regulations like PECR and CAN-SPAM. Staff acknowledged the issue and pointed to functional unsubscribe links in marketing emails.

== Security Incidents ==
The internal debates were compounded by a series of public incidents documented in external blog posts. In July 2025, a former member of Hack Club disclosed multiple unprotected API endpoints across Hack Club programs. One endpoint in the Neighbourhood program allegedly exposed participants' full legal names using only their Slack ID, without any authentication. Internal communications provided by the researcher suggested this lack of protection was an intentional design decision by a developer, despite being warned by another team member that it constituted a GDPR breach.

Subsequently, in September 2025, a separate incident occurred where a developer committed a log file containing three minors' full names, email addresses, home addresses, dates of birth, and phone numbers to a public repository. The response from Hack Club was described as attempting to overwrite the data and later making the repository private, but the data reportedly persisted in forks and web archives. The former member characterized this as a pattern of "gross, willful negligence" rather than an isolated error.

A third area of concern involved "Orpheus Engine," an internal analytics pipeline. According to a technical analysis, this system was used to profile grant applicants by scraping their activity across various social platforms and using third-party APIs to infer demographic data like gender. Critics argued this constituted extensive profiling without opt-in or transparency.

== Governance and Response ==
The response to these disclosures became a point of contention. The researcher reported that initial contact with Hack Club staff, some of whom were teenage interns, yielded legally inaccurate responses, including the claim that GDPR did not apply to the US-based organization and that advice had been sourced from ChatGPT. Leadership was criticized for being dismissive of formal breach notifications. Furthermore, the dedicated GDPR contact email (gdpr@hackclub.com) was taken offline shortly after the issues were raised publicly, with operations staff later explaining it was a temporary solution managed by a part-time contributor.

Hack Club's leadership acknowledged the need for improved policies. The COO stated in a Slack message that the organization was in the process of assembling its policies for publication. In internal discussions, staff expressed a philosophy that the need for formal policy documents was a sign of underlying issues but agreed that clarity for users was necessary.

Privacy concerns and data handling at Hack Club

2026-09-08T17:00:37Z

172.18.0.3: markdown

# Privacy concerns and data handling at Hack Club
Hack Club has faced ongoing community scrutiny and external criticism regarding its data privacy practices, compliance with regulations, and the security of its systems. These concerns center on the collection and retention of personal data, particularly from minors, the security of its digital infrastructure, and its adherence to data protection laws like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

## Debates on Data Practices
Internal discussions within the Hack Club Slack have highlighted privacy concerns. Community members have repeatedly questioned GDPR compliance, citing the lack of a formal privacy policy for an extended period and the indefinite retention of government-issued identification documents used for YSWS verification. In response, staff members acknowledged the complexity of GDPR for an organization of Hack Club's structure and the challenges of verifying the identities of international high schoolers at scale. They stated that a privacy policy was being developed and that IDs were set to be automatically deleted after 90 days, though this was debated as a balance between privacy and the "legitimate interest" of preventing fraud.

Further concerns were raised about marketing practices, with users noting that signing up for programs like HCB automatically enrolled them in organizational newsletters, a practice that critics argued should be opt-in rather than opt-out under regulations like PECR and CAN-SPAM. Staff acknowledged the issue and pointed to functional unsubscribe links in marketing emails.

## Security Incidents
The internal debates were compounded by a series of public incidents documented in external blog posts. In July 2025, a former member of Hack Club disclosed multiple unprotected API endpoints across Hack Club programs. One endpoint in the Neighbourhood program allegedly exposed participants' full legal names using only their Slack ID, without any authentication. Internal communications provided by the researcher suggested this lack of protection was an intentional design decision by a developer, despite being warned by another team member that it constituted a GDPR breach.

Subsequently, in September 2025, a separate incident occurred where a developer committed a log file containing three minors' full names, email addresses, home addresses, dates of birth, and phone numbers to a public repository. The response from Hack Club was described as attempting to overwrite the data and later making the repository private, but the data reportedly persisted in forks and web archives. The former member characterized this as a pattern of "gross, willful negligence" rather than an isolated error.

A third area of concern involved "Orpheus Engine," an internal analytics pipeline. According to a technical analysis, this system was used to profile grant applicants by scraping their activity across various social platforms and using third-party APIs to infer demographic data like gender. Critics argued this constituted extensive profiling without opt-in or transparency.

## Governance and Response
The response to these disclosures became a point of contention. The researcher reported that initial contact with Hack Club staff, some of whom were teenage interns, yielded legally inaccurate responses, including the claim that GDPR did not apply to the US-based organization and that advice had been sourced from ChatGPT. Leadership was criticized for being dismissive of formal breach notifications. Furthermore, the dedicated GDPR contact email (gdpr@hackclub.com) was taken offline shortly after the issues were raised publicly, with operations staff later explaining it was a temporary solution managed by a part-time contributor.

Hack Club's leadership acknowledged the need for improved policies. The COO stated in a Slack message that the organization was in the process of assembling its policies for publication. In internal discussions, staff expressed a philosophy that the need for formal policy documents was a sign of underlying issues but agreed that clarity for users was necessary.