Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

Although it's impossible to put the genie back in the bottle, social media has had a net negative effect on a LOT of people. There's people that have had a big positive effect to. So, it's not obvious where it ends up on net if that even matters.

But, yeah. There's a lot of people that would be better off not on social media. But it's so addictive that they can't help themselves.

I, for one, have stopped using social media (unless you consider HN social). And I've had a lot less friends because of it. But it's been a huge improvement in my mood and outlook on life.

>(unless you consider HN social)

Yes, yes it is. What else would it be? What's the difference between sites like HN and reddit, and facebook?

> unless you consider HN social

Why wouldn't we? Pseudonyms? Reddit is considered social, I think, and that tends to be even more difficult to map to IRL identity.

Edit: just barely not inb4!

Yes, so that's why I somewhat included it. But, it's definitely on the lighter side of social I think.

On HN, it's a lot tougher to follow specific people, though it's cool to see posts and then follow up with what they've recently posted or commented.

Yeah, that's why I only somewhat included it. It's tougher to follow specific people. But it is possible if you keep a list yourself of interesting accounts and check in later on what they've posted.

But the dynamic is definitely different and seems a lot more anonymous unless you are a really high profile account like antirez, patio11, drewdevault, or a CEO of some well known company or startup.

Perhaps it would be easier to enumerate the things that aren't social networks. Does the postal system constitute a social network, at least in the literal sense of those words? Maybe! It's a network that facilitates social interactions after all.

I think one place HN falls short of what I think of as social media is that there's no following of individual accounts, that creation of networks and personalized feeds feels like part of the core of what separates social media from simpler forums. Reddit was closer to just forums as well but subreddits allowed you to more directly curate and associate between groups, now every user basically has their own little subreddit they can post on and people can follow and join.