Mastodon is making changes that may be divisive among some users. In Friday’s update, the decentralized platform announced that it is working on adding quote posts “to help people move from private social networks owned by billionaires to an open social network,” as previously reported by TechCrunch.
Initially, Mastodon decided not to implement quote posts because it saw them being used for “malicious purposes,” such as quoting someone out of context or for harassment. Ultimately, however, he found that the lack of quote posts “discourages many people from joining Fediverse.” Some have argued that quote posts have “ruined” Twitter by allowing users to direct hate and criticism at another person.
To prevent misuse of quote posts, Mastodon says it will allow you to choose whether other users can quote your posts. It will also send you a notification when someone quotes your post, and you will also have the option to “remove your post from the quoted context at any time.”
But there are some technical hurdles that Mastodon will have to overcome to enable the quoted post feature. First, posts with quotes are not standardized, which means there is no out-of-the-box way to build this feature into ActivityPub, the decentralized social media protocol that Mastodon uses. The platform adds that post citation will affect a large part of Mastodon’s code base, so it will “take more time to develop.”
There is currently no timeframe for when we can expect to see cited posts on Mastodon, but it aims to create a specification that will allow other Fediverse apps to implement cited posts as well. Mastodon first considered introducing quote posts in 2023 and received a grant to work on the project.
“We know that quote posts are a concern for some members of the community and are in high demand for others,” says Mastodon. “We are committed to sharing our progress and listening to your feedback.”
