Technology

Because definitions lead to laws. Those laws affect the interactions you have on the internet. The current interaction you are having would be bound by laws in the UK, Nepal, the United States and more if forums were classified as social media. Not only that, but with the definitions posted elsewhere in this thread it would literally regulate Amazon under social media as well. Do you think that things that aren’t social media should be regulated as them just by an arbitrary naming convention?

Using social media to mean “the Internet” just means you lose your rights without noticing.

Social media is a derivative of social networking, a term that came about to describe the extremely specific niche that Facebook and MySpace filled, along with numerous copycats. Facebook evolved from social networking into social media. The words in the name have essentially nothing to do with what the words originally described, mostly due to the fact that words for computer systems very often mean something completely different when discussed outside of computer systems.

Essentially you need these things:

1. Real world identity (majority of interactions between users is non-anonymous posting)
2. You majority follow others that you know personally. You’re not following big all star names that everyone knows, like you would on YouTube. Have you ever followed all your friends on YouTube?
3. You are all posting, commenting on, or messaging people or posts. Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, Bebo, etc. were the prime examples of this. You created a network, you posted media (photos pictures etc), there were no lurkers who had accounts, if you had an account you were participating. Even if that participating was just private messages. Those were the precursors to social media, and where the term came from. It didn’t apply to YouTube (which existed at the time!), Wikipedia, etc, because those were all just a normal part of the internet.
4. The things being posted are not primarily text. Media as it relates to computers has always referred to video, image, and sound files. I can pretty much guarantee you’ve never said “let me open this media” and it’s a word document. Media outside computers means a lot of things, including paint and air, which means you’re once again just enveloping the world with a pointless definition.

An example of modern day social networking is LinkedIn. The majority of users aren’t posting things, when they are posting it’s always text, everyone has a real identity, and if you aren’t posting things, when you’re using the platform you are likely searching for a job by messaging others or commenting on posts.

An example of modern day social media is Snapchat. You have a group of friends you follow, you post photos and videos (media), only your friends see it, you are all going by your real name.

Social media never meant shouting to the world. That’s just how the internet works. You’re already shouting to the world. That’s why we didn’t bother describing it until people started forming these incredibly close private networks. We didn’t need names for BBS or Usenet because that’s just how the Internet works.

You would never say that watching the president talk on TV was social, even if they’re talking to 1 billion people. Even if you go and comment on the video on the government’s website, it’s not social. It’s all commentary aimed at one thing. In that same vein you can’t call YouTube social media, nor Wikipedia, nor blogs, etc. They’re all individuals shouting into a void, not humans corresponding at the same level.

These were the original definitions, until news companies started using the terms to define any website they didn’t understand. Now news companies and governments use it as a boogeyman to attack anything they don’t like to try to regulate it all under the guise of (whatever meets the current power meta).

Let’s stick to the original definitions, because expanding it any further just muddies communication and makes words meaningless. Social means real names, you know the people, and you’re not shouting into the void. Media means non-text (we’re in computer land, not physics land or news land). If it meant more than that then we would have been calling everything social media back then, and we definitely weren’t. It wasn’t until websites started making the news that the news co-opted the term and we’re in the hell hole we’re in today.

Let me put this in simpler terms. Forums have existed for thousands of years. Let's go back to Roman times. They're speaking in forums, talking to each other, etc. Then one dude decides to start his own forum where he's gonna bring CSAM or worse to the forum and start sharing it with others, they even might start doing plays. The Roman government cracks down and says that everyone who is engaging in any sort of communication needs to start registering with the government in order to even talk to each other. That even includes letters and books, public government meetings, plays, etc. Even though they're all completely different scenarios. The only similarity here is that people are communicating.

That's the situation we're in right now. The government decided to use the word forum (social media) to be a boogeyman to regulate talking (forums) and disguised it as regulating bad guys, even though the law literally applies to all forms of communication. They hijacked the word forum (social media) and expanded it to mean everything: plays, books, letters, stores, meetings (streaming sites, encyclopedias, blogs).

Take the word back. Stop using forum (social media) to mean the world. It has a specific meaning. Use it appropriately.

Amazon does not have followers.

Oh yes it does.

It doesn’t even have comments.

Sorry they call them "Answers" but it sure does look like a traditional forum to me. Let's see. We've got upvotes and downvotes, people can ask questions, and people can respond to those questions.

It has a review section. It is not a place people have conversations or discussions.

well it also has a review section, but it has a comment, ah sorry, Q&A section as well. People are talking there, they are voting on things. It's just as much a social media site as lemmy is. It even has profile pages!

Using your real name doesn’t matter. Talking about your daily life doesn’t matter. A forum is a place where you gather to discuss topics in an open, public space.

uhh. yeah. you're agreeing with me. Forums aren't social media. Commenting on things existed before social media ever did. But under these definitions that people are using, literally Amazon is social media. That makes zero fucking sense. When you define social media in such a broad sense it becomes a completely useless word except for governments to remove your freedoms. Laws regulating "social media" that go by the current (wrong) dictionary definitions will regulate every single site you use. It's idiotic!

Look at the definition that @TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee posted:

Social media refers to online platforms where users can share information and connect with virtual communities through text, video, photos, and other content.

That literally defines amazon. People post pictures and text to share information (reviews, Q&A) and to connect with other owners or potential buyers of the product. Some of the users are owners of shops, they are posting information and links to their other sites and store pages. Users can even link out to their TikTok (look at the first screenshot above if you don't believe me).

If your government is using this idiotic definition then your rights are being removed from every website you touch. This isn't some "oh social media is only these sites I think it is, it's not amazon, it's not wikipedia, it's not blogs". If your government is using that definition (which is one of many that are illogical, idiotic, and cover everything under the sun) then all of those sites count as social media.

A word that is so broad as to indicate humans communicating becomes completely useless in the context of government regulation, news sites, etc. Forums aren't social media.