Word.ws English Dictionary

hacktivism

hacktivism noun: the practice of promoting a political agenda by hacking, especially by defacing or disabling websites.

Noun

hacktivism (uncountable)

  1. (Internet) The practice of promoting a political agenda by hacking, especially by defacing or disabling websites.
    • Hacktivism is a form of activism for social change that appropriates computers and electronic networks for this purpose. Also called electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism is geared to political ends.2010, Pramod K. Nayar, An Introduction to New Media and Cybercultures, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 102
    • My aim will be to identify and highlight the potential problems of the existing approach that is followed when dealing with hacktivism and its impact on user rights, protesters, and overall cybersecurity.2018, Vasileios Karagiannopoulos, Living With Hacktivism, Springer, →ISBN, page viii

Forms of hacktivism

alternative formhactivism

Origin of hacktivism

Blend of hack + activism, a portmanteau coined in 1994 by a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker collective.

Words formed from hacktivism

Questions about hacktivism

What does hacktivism mean?
Hacktivism means the practice of promoting a political agenda by hacking, especially by defacing or disabling websites.
What part of speech is hacktivism?
Hacktivism is a noun.

Words near hacktivism in the dictionary

  1. hackster
  2. hacksters
  3. hackstress
  4. hackstresses
  5. Hackthorpe
  6. hacktivism
  7. hacktivist
  8. hacktivistic
  9. hacktivists
  10. hackusate
  11. hackusation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hacktivism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “hacktivism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hacktivism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.