[grep_name]

Eh. Your argument keeps coming back to that same snippet from Wikipedia, which is unconvincing. Wikipedia isn't the end-all-be-all arbiter of language. "Social media" is a useful term for discussing a lot of specific phenomena that have come out of sites like facebook, instagram, twitter, etc which all rely on metrics of social graphing to track popularity and guide content exposure and interaction. (Due to the nature of your argument I feel compelled to say that I'm not trying to formalize a complete airtight definition here)

There is a distinct experience and ecosystem that arises from those types of sites that we all recognize, which didn't exist in the same way before the advent of social media sites. And it warrants discussion. When you try to say "actually, technically, ALL human communication is social media!" and won't let it go, you derail a conversation in a way that benefits nobody and is functionally (if not literally at this point) untrue for anyone who's experienced the internet over the last 20 years.

[Karrot_Kream]

> which all rely on metrics of social graphing to track popularity and guide content exposure and interaction

TikTok, IG Reels, and YouTube don't depend on a social graph at all

> There is a distinct experience and ecosystem that arises from those types of sites that we all recognize, which didn't exist in the same way before the advent of social media sites. And it warrants discussion.

No that's the intellectual trap that allows you to use different standards to judge the two types of social networks. HN, Reddit, and Facebook all suffer from the same types of social problems. Bots, astroturfers, growth hackers, zealots who spread exaggerated or fake information to further their cause, conspiracy ideation reinforced by the network, etc. To classify these networks separately is to be blind to how similar they all are.

[grep_name]

> TikTok, IG Reels, and YouTube don't depend on a social graph at all

The entire premise of these platforms is how many followers / subscribers you have. This controls how you interact with the algorithm and whether you get promoted, etc. They have incredibly complex and nuanced social graphs that govern everything that happens on those sites.

> No that's the intellectual trap that allows you to use different standards to judge the two types of social networks

Disagee. Meta-discussion of users at the platform scale, UIs that are so algorithmically tailored that I often can't find the same information as another user even if I wanted, and re-enforcement loops designed to alter the website to maximize engagement over all else are among the things that make these sites distinct. You're being obtuse because you have a foregone conclusion you want to reach. The social problems I'm discussing are unique to those platforms.

> Bots, astroturfers, growth hackers, zealots who spread exaggerated or fake information to further their cause, conspiracy ideation reinforced by the network, etc. To classify these networks separately is to be blind to how similar they all are.

The problems you listed here are possible by definition on every website that exists. None of these problems are what make a website social media or not. Hell, those problems exist in traditional broadcast media.