• irelephant [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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    22 hours ago

    What would you define social media as?

    Oxford says.

    websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.

    That definition certainly matches Lemmy.

    • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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      21 hours ago

      Social networking is about connecting people, which Lemmy as a forum does. You could argue that the function of Lemmy as a link aggregator is more social media like, but I doubt people would consider an RSS feed reader to be social media either.

      Social media is like TV, a one-to-many medium, usually with some sort of feed curation to promote certain topics.

      • NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip
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        6 hours ago

        Social networking is about connecting people

        Well Lemmy is not about that at all. I know absolutely Zero people from lemmy.

        • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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          2 hours ago

          That seems to be a you problem.

          Of course it is an pseudonymous online forum, so it isn’t about making friends in real-life, but you can make plenty of connections with people online via it.

      • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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        7 hours ago

        I have never heard anyone refer to TV as social media, I have always heard it in context with facebook, twitter and co.

        a better objection, which makes me uncertain whether lemmy is social media, is that this is a pseudonymous forum where its not common for users to become friends or know each other, and discussion is not around a specific news site or a specific person, but around specific topics

        • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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          2 hours ago

          I didn’t say TV is social media, I said social media is like TV is the sense that it is a one-to-many medium. I could have also used TikTok to explain the difference, but people here are clearly confused about the destinction and it would have been less clear.

          pseudonymous forum where its not common for users to become friends or know each other

          This isn’t really true for regular commenters. There are even feuds between specific users and so on. I agree though that there are constant attempts by some people who try to make Lemmy more like social media by advocating for dissolving the destinction between communities and instances to turn Lemmy into a dumb meme and news posting app for entertainment purposes.

      • Waryle@jlai.lu
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        21 hours ago

        That’s a totally made up definition from your part. Media is the plural of medium, which means “intermediary”. A social media is just the middleman that allows people to socialize. Lemmy is a social media, as well as a social network.

        • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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          21 hours ago

          Every definition is “made up” 🙄

          What I explained is how these terms are commonly used on the fediverse.

          And anyways, if “social media” and “social network” is the same, why have two different terms for it?

          • GunnarGrop@lemmy.ml
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            11 hours ago

            There are lot of synonyms, people just choose some words in different contexts based on how they sound. Why use the word “begin” when the word “start” exists?