[thebouv]

Really? Define it then.

Facebook is a website by all technical terms.

Where is the hard defined line between social media services and a website?

What is a website that hosts a forum?

What is Discord?

What if I run a WordPress website with the BuddyPress plugin?

What about comments on my blog articles?

[scotty79]

You could discriminate by just listing names of the platforms that this law is intended for or go by number of (polish?) users.

[ben_w]

A while ago, I got a lot of flack here for suggesting that github wasn’t a social media website.

[alsetmusic]

Ben Thompson, of Stratechery, had an interesting way of talking about Facebook that might help with a future definition of "social media services."

He (and podcast co-host John Gruber[0]) talked about the idea that Facebook isn't the same site for any two people. Due to the algo, everyone has their own personal version of the site. Therefore, there's no individual snapshot of Facebook at any given time.

I found this an interesting concept to point out. If one needed to distinguish between a website and "social media services," perhaps a law could be drafted such that such a condition was true.

HN, for example, would be a website because commenting and voting is user-based. I suppose that might mean Spotify and Netflix would be swallowed by the definition. The definition would then need additional language about user-submitted content.

[0]: https://dithering.fm

[nradov]

Amazon.com isn't the same site for any two people. It shows you different product suggestions based on what you purchased or looked at before.

[numpad0]

Websites that host user generated content are social media.

HN is a social media, your basement server isn’t, hosted content on AWS probably needs some definition workarounds but instinctively shouldn’t be.

[jeena]

What about my PeerTube instance hosted on a NUC in my kitchen? It hosts copies of videos and comments from other instances.

[numpad0]

Boom you're a social media company. And you'll be naturally liable for hosting contents. Isn't that how Winny worked?

[zettadam]

Technically Facebook/Twitter are not websites, but "social" applications (web/native). You need to have a user account to see (FB) or post (FB/Twitter) anything.

[alsetmusic]

I need a user account to watch Netflix. Same for banking.

A user account is not the primary criteria of being a "social" application.

[amadeuspagel]

Where is the distinction between a company town and my living room? Define it.