[veltas]

There is this weird attempt to claim YouTube isn't social media from Google and others, but it's literally called "You Tube". It was designed as social media from the start, it's impossible to separate this without changing the name and everything about how it works except the films and series available to pay for.

[gwd]

It's called "YouTube" because if you want to, you can be your own broadcaster. Calling YouTube "social media" because anyone can contribute (although the vast, vast majority are just consumers) is like calling Fiver or Upwork or DoorDash or Uber "social media", because anyone can join and contribute.

[veltas]

It's like Twitter basically but with vlogs instead of microblogs. And now there's micro-vlogs too.

If "X" is social media then so is YouTube.

[veltas]

To add to this YouTube has just added a feature where if you share a link it tells the person who opens the link your profile name, which is doxxing people actively. And further attempt to make YouTube more like other social media.

[Gigachad]

My problem with youtube is they mix everything in the same bucket. Kids watching educational content on the platform is obviously fine, but watching shorts for 3 hours isn't. Or worse, uploading shorts of their own.

They need to break shorts off in to it's own app and create a kids mode account that disables commenting and uploading.

[ben_w]

I guess for me, when the term "social media" was coined, it was about friends, while YouTube was already more parasocial and more like short segments on broadcast TV (with at that time a comment section that seemed to promote nothing worth reading).

Things move on after perceptions have crystalised.