No imo. no real names, no real profiles, no following or friending people aka no connections, no chat/DMs, no personal updates, no tagging, no pictures/videos/stories

By the dictionary definition, yes. However, there are three key differences. (1) People rank the HN feed instead of an algorithm; (2) the incentives of YC, companies, and the HN community seem better aligned; (3) the user experience degrades significantly when posts get too many comments.

No, it’s a forum. Everyone sees the exact same website (except for user-setting tweaks). There is no concept of “friends” or “followers”. The wensite intentionally looks boring so that the design doesn’t lure you too stick around too long.

'n' -> [chrome or firefox autocomplete] -> news.ycombinator.com I have often been thinking about what this reflex does to my mind.

absolutely hacker news is social media..

Yes.