[zero-st4rs]

I think the distinction is pretty easy imo. HN is topic centered, Social Media is person-centered. Before MySpace there was a pretty big proliferation of forums and other topic centered discourse. The profile was such a minor part of those tools.

When MySpace came out, the profile was the home page for a lot of people, and the content orbited around that. Coupled with the mass movement to represent oneself faithfully online as in the real world, (maybe for banking, maybe for surveillance), I think social media sort of operates as a trap. On facebook, you are encouraged to upload your real photos of drunken night out, family vacation, or whatever IDs you in life. On LinkedIn this is mandatory, your "avatar" must mirror your physical self. I have a lot to say on this, but I think I'll just leave it at topic vs profile.

[shiroiuma]

>On LinkedIn this is mandatory, your "avatar" must mirror your physical self.

Huh? On LinkedIn, the only thing that's mandatory is to have a profile that maybe looks like your resume, and that's about it. A photo helps too. Lots of people do nothing more with it than that, and use it to find jobs.

[zero-st4rs]

https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement

8.1. Dos

Use your real name on your profile; and

8.2. Don’ts

Create a false identity on LinkedIn, misrepresent your identity, create a Member profile for anyone other than yourself (a real person), or use or attempt to use another’s account (such as sharing log-in credentials or copying cookies);

But profile pictures are here >

https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1377087/profi...

> You can use an illustration, caricature, or other artistic rendering of yourself, but your profile photo must reflect your likeness. We may remove profile photos that don’t comply with our User Agreement and Professional Community Policies, including images that consist solely of the following:

I'm pretty sure even this has been updated to accommodate all the Ghibli AI avatars that people use.