That your message is transferred from your computer to the recipient, HN's servers, encrypted. At no point should anyone in the middle be able to read your message. After arrival, HN then publishes it on a public forum for everyone to see.
Kind of, but as they aren't lying about allowing private conversations not really. More saying https is end to end encrypted, but what one end does with that data isn't necessarily private.
>End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a system of communication where *only the communicating users can read the messages*. In principle, it prevents potential eavesdroppers – including telecom providers, Internet providers, malicious actors, *and even the provider of the communication service* – from being able to access the cryptographic keys needed to decrypt the conversation.[1]
If the server can read the content, it isn't end-to-end encryption.
The server is the communicating user in this instance, it is the intended recipient of the message. No potential eavesdropping can happen.
Even though I intend for you to read this message, I am sending it to the HN server to post publicly. My communication with HN is E2EE, my communication with you is not. This isn't meant to be useful information, and it certainly isn't advice. It's just an accurate nonstandard way of looking at things.
