TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday

Re:TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday by conductr on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @11:32AM (#42713104)

I think we'd have to carefully define what a 'social network' is. In my opinion, YT is not a social network. The UGC parts of Amazon.com, like reviews, do not make it a social network either. YT is a broadcast / streaming service with some small layer of UGC (I say small because, honestly, if the entire comment section was eliminated I don't think anyone would miss it, it's meme worthy bad in most cases.)

Or maybe it's just me and don't use it that way and others do? I subscribe to some things, watch a lot of videos mostly has a lurker and almost never even dip into the comments. I have exactly 0 connections with people I know on YT. It's more of a modern television channel than anything in my case.

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Re:TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday by kyleee on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @12:05PM (#42713673)

There is a lot of variation in community and comment quality on YouTube. Similar to Reddit there is a massive long tail of smaller communities and topics which absolutely have vibrant and real, helpful comments. And on the biggest channels and videos there is a lot of bullshit and low quality comments. Both are true at the same time so it would be a shame to stamp out the genuine communities and connections

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Re:TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday by do_not_redeem on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @12:36PM (#42714176)

Is there any reasonable definition of "social network" that includes TikTok, but doesn't include YouTube Shorts?

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Re:TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday by conductr on Wednesday January 15, 2025 @12:57PM (#42714524)

Maybe YT needs to ditch Shorts under this hypothetical, I don't think it's the enriching part of the service the comment above was referencing

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