[chriswarbo]

If HN is social media, then so are PHPBB, NNTP, BBS, etc. and the term loses its semantic relevance.

My heuristic is that social media focuses on particular people, regardless of what they're talking about. In contrast, forums (like HN) focus on a particular topic, regardless of who's talking about it.

[jolmg]

Doesn't matter what you want it to mean. What matters is what those in power want it to mean. It's very easy to stretch the definition to cover all sites where people can post content for strangers to see, or stretch it even wider to all digital media where people can interact with a social group.

[chriswarbo]

> Doesn't matter what you want it to mean. What matters is what those in power want it to mean.

I was replying to a discussion between two HN users, who were using conflicting definitions of the term. AFAIK they are not "those in power".