Do internships count as YOE?

If it was me, I would clearly label them as internships, apply for jobs with 3+ years of experience requirements (if this was in the USA), and tell the recruiter "I did three internships at A, B, C" and avoid saying the word "year of experience". (EDIT: avoid saying years in a call, but have the proper dates on resume itself) in the USA market right now there are so many bootcamps graduates that are coached to exaggerate their experience, so this is a tough questions. There's one bootcamp where the alumni often have 6 to 18 months of "software engineer" employment experience at a "company" which is actually a 6 week open source group project. As a result, a lot of jobs just ask for 4+ years of experience but when I talk to the hiring managers, they just want someone who can competently code from day 1. So on the one hand you are doing yourself a disservice not counting the internships to their fullest extent.