Ask Lemmy
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What in the heck is it then?
It's a social news aggregator. I assume the difference is, that this is to follow mainly news, whereas social media is to mainly follow people. In my 10 years of reddit and now Lemmy I never followed any account, I was just there for the niche topics and news aggregation.
Social News aggregator = social media.
I don't know about you but I'm here for the comments sections, i.e. to socialize. That counts as social media IMO. Socializing with random users and not followed accounts, is still socializing.
I guess I disagree with "social media is to mainly follow people". I think social media is for socializing, regardless of who it's with. Sorry for the double reply.
You'll note that Wikipedia has that article under the "Social Media" category.
Its a webforum.
Webforums are not social media.
I totally disagree on both counts: forums are social media, and Lemmy is not a mere forum. Lemmy is a platform where people can create forums, and many of those forums (communities) exist mainly to socialize.
I'll give you that some forums (both on Lemmy and otherwise) that have a clear defined topic - such as tech support for a particular thing - are somewhat different from "social media", but even in those three are often regulars who use the forum to socialize with each other. Any forum with an "off-topic" subforum is social media in my book, in a very real sense (not just technically).
But hey, we can disagree on this and it's fine.
To clarify why I think Lemmy is not a forum: in my eyes, forums are set up by the admins, only the admins can decide which subforums exist and what's allowed in them. Lemmy and reddit are not simple forums because they allow any user to create a subforum and make those choices and decisions, that traditionally are reserved for admins. It's an extremely important difference and makes Lemmy much more of a general social platform and not a focused forum.
Lemmy has the ability to lock down forum creation, like on programming.dev which is the 8th largest lemmy site.
Social media has always been defined as being about people, not topics. People just don’t even try to use the right words though so you get ridiculous things like people calling something coincidental or unfortunate “ironic”.
By your definition every single news comment section is social media, which is clearly a ridiculous suggestion. Webchat, irc, literally anywhere there’s a comment section. That’s just clearly incorrect and so broad as to be a completely useless definition.
There are degrees to social-media-ness. News comment sections have a very low amount of this. Lemmy has a lot.
Engaging with people does not make it a social media platform.
A bathroom wall covered in graffiti messages is not social media.
an email is not social media.
text messages are not social media.
a brick with "Fuck You" written on it, thrown through a window, is not social media.
A restaurant you go to with friends is not social media.
A webforum is not social media.
IMs are not social media.
Just because you socialize on/in/at something, does not magically make it social media.. Because Social Media is a very specific type of thing.
Stop trying to make everything into freaking facebook.
facebook is social media, therefor friendica is social media
instagram is social media, therefor pixelfed is social media
twitter is social media, therefor mastodon is social media
at the VERY least, all the latter platforms can interact with each other via activity pub, as can lemmy. by interacting with lemmy, you’re making interactions with social media
social media isn’t just big tech - social media is a way of interacting with a system
is reddit social media? most people would say yes it definitely is… and this makes lemmy firmly social media
Getting people to agree to a mistaken, misinformed premise does not mean you are right.
Lest you also believe the world is a flat pancake and other various nuttery.
Also, you clearly know what the difference is, since your list of examples is nothing but social media.
Again. Stop trying to make everything social media. You have all the social media you need to fuel your need for attention, as is. You don't need to make non-social media into more of it.
Wikipedia: „Lemmy (social network) - Open source social media software“
Also: „Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the creation, sharing and aggregation of content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongst virtual communities and networks.“ How does Lemmy not fit that description?
And Reddit is what?
Originally, a social news aggregator. Now? An abortion of that idea.
Yet it's neither a web nor a forum. Curious.
A forum?? Which have existed for literal decades before social media was a thing? If you define literally anything social as social media then you’re defining the entire internet as social media which is just a useless definition.
https://programming.dev/comment/12069336