You control idea by controling the language. It turns the internet is actually the social media and each and every thing online is de facto also a social media.
Email is a social media, a blog is a social media, bbs is a social media, usenet is a social media, a forum is a social media, a wiki is a social media, and so on.
The name social media is a marketing ploy akin to the "cloud" to manipulate opinion and mind into thinking a certain way about large companies whose business is massively collecting user personal data without providing any meaningful service other than sitting in between the people wanting to interact.
It's a good old switcheroo. When you hear "social media" you could actually revert it back to "the internet" as it used be. But when you hear social media you actually think facebook / twitter, which means the marketing ploy succeeded in its attempt of replacing the internet by facebook/twitter.
And it's not only the word, facebook has actually tried to replace the internet in several countries, notably with the facebook basics program outrageously disrespecting net neutrality. But a few companies are also quite literally replacing the internet infrastructure by their own and the decentralized distributed design by a centralized one.
persistent identity and status, that is to say the 'social' part. A lot of damage of social networks arguably is rooted in the competition for status and attention that you get when you get twitter likes and people complementing you, and the horror when you end up in a shitstorm and your reputation is suddenly ruined. It's also what makes it addictive.
Most people on HN just seem to post more or less anonymously. The upvote or downvote mechanisms aren't even particularly visible.
The worst thing you get here is 4 downvotes and a heated discussion. This is not like twitter where your career and face is on the line.
There is a difference if you use it to discuss your interests with like minded individuals or if you broadcast to an audience. I think this is why social media mostly works in small groups or why many people on facebook still find groups with limited topics useful even if they hate the rest.
It is also my main gripe with things like SSB or the fediverse. They work much better than other social media, because they encourage smaller, more tight knight communities, but they are often still people focused, not discussion focused.
