I had this discussion with a friend, and we really couldn’t reach a consensus.

My friend thinks Lemmy (and other Reddit-like platforms) is social media because you’re interacting with other people, liking/disliking submissions, and all the content is user-generated.

I think it isn’t because you’re not following individual people, just communities/topics. Though I concede there are some aspects of social media present, I feel that overall it’s not because my view of social media is that you’re primarily following individuals.

In my view, these link aggregator + comment platforms are more like an evolution of forums which both my friend and I agreed don’t meet the criteria to be considered social media (though they maintain that Reddit-like platforms are social media while I do not).

So I’m asking Lemmy now to weigh in to help settle this friendly debate.

Edit: Thanks everyone! From the comments, it sounds like my friend and I are both right and both wrong. lol. Feel free to keep chiming in, but I have to go do the 9-5 thing that pays my mortgage and cloud hosting bills.

  • @NeptuneOrbit
    5•6 months ago

    So yes i do think it is social media. But they are more akin to the old internet, or Facebook before it got massive and bad.

    For exampke? There is not a massive algorithm, especially a personalized algorithm (obviously Top and Hot are technically algorithms, but they democratically place popular posts to anyone who hasn’t blocked/is following the community).

    For many comparisons they are obviously social media, but for other types of comparisons I don’t think it’s a great match.