Mastodon rolls out quote posts with protections to stop ‘dunking’

Mastodon, an open supply, decentralized various to X, is rolling out a considerably controversial function by including quote posts, which is able to launch subsequent week. The function, which permits a person to cite another person’s submit and reshare it with their very own response or commentary, has contributed to a tradition of “dunking” on X, the place customers typically deride different folks by responding with snark or insulting humor.

To handle this concern, Mastodon says it’s implementing quote posts with security controls.

These protections are designed to permit quote posts for use responsibly, to “broaden discussions, make new connections, and amplify underrepresented voices,” the platform states.

Mastodon provides customers a number of methods to regulate how their posts could be quoted. For starters, the platform lets customers resolve who can quote them by means of a setting the place you’ll be able to change your defaults. Right here, you’ll be able to set the permissions for who can quote you by selecting between “Anybody,” “Followers solely,” or “Simply me.” Moreover, you’ll be able to management the visibility of quote posts by setting them to be seen to the general public, to followers solely, or a setting known as “quiet public,” which makes the quotes public however removes them from Mastodon’s search, tendencies, and public timeline.

Customers will even be capable of override their default settings on a post-by-post foundation, if want be, by navigating to the “Visibility and interplay settings” inside the composer display. This could be helpful if you understand you’re about to say one thing controversial or something that might appeal to undesirable consideration from these with opposing views, as an illustration.

Plus, customers may have management of their posts even after they’re quoted, the Mastodon weblog submit concerning the new function explains.

When somebody quotes a submit, the person being quoted is notified within the app, and so they can select to take away their unique submit from the opposite particular person’s quote submit. That is accessible by means of the Choices menu (the three dots icon). From this location, customers can change the quote settings to deal with any future quoting of their submit going ahead. They’ll additionally block customers to stop them from seeing and quoting their posts sooner or later.

Help for quote posts will first arrive over the week forward to the bigger Mastodon servers at mastodon.online and mastodon.social. It would then change into out there in Mastodon’s 4.5 software program replace.

To cite a submit, you’ll discover the brand new choice below Mastodon’s Enhance (much like X’s repost/retweet function). As a result of the fediverse, or open social internet, is a community of servers operating totally different software program, quote posts could not instantly seem all over the place, and a few platforms could not replace to make use of the technical specification enabling quote post support straight away.