Ask Lemmy

26916 readers

3417 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected]. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

123

Do you consider Lemmy/Reddit (and similar platforms) to be social media? (dubvee.org)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

91 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If you’re interacting with other users then there’s 0 question it’s social media.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (3 children)

By that logic every comment section under a random newspaper's article is social media. I dont think this forum esque, link feed with comment sections kind of social media that lemmy is, qualifies. Reddit didnt either for the longest time, before they started trying to form a culture and drowned in self referencing humor and repetitive one liner comments.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago

I've seen people get into week long threads in the comments section of 'GoComics'

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Yes, that is also social media. Being terrible, bottom of the barrel social media doesn't make it less social media. It's still people gathering in a place discussing topics. A fleeting place discussing news articles, but still.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Comments sections on news articles are usually an afterthought to try to boost "engagement" and be a "me too". Comments on Lemmy are a deliberate and integral part of it. Lemmy as just a link aggregator wouldn't attract any users, the comments section are what keep people here and interacting with others.