Mastodon will add quote posts, even though some users don’t want them

Mastodon is making a change that might have some users divided. In an update on Friday, the decentralized platform announced that it’s working to add quote posts “to help people to transition away from proprietary, billionaire-owned social media to the open social web,” as spotted earlier by TechCrunch.

Mastodon initially decided against implementing quote posts because it saw them used for “malicious purposes,” such as quoting someone out of context or for harassment. However, it ultimately found that its lack of quote posts “prevents many people from joining the Fediverse.” Some have argued that quote posts have “ruined” Twitter by allowing users to direct hate and criticism toward another person.

To ensure that people don’t misuse quote posts, Mastodon says it will let you choose whether other users can quote your posts. It will also send you a notification when someone quotes your post, and you’ll also get the ability to “withdraw your post from the quoted context at any time.”

But there are some technical hurdles that Mastodon will have to overcome to enable quote posts. For one, quote posts aren’t standardized, meaning there isn’t a set way to build the feature into ActivityPub, the decentralized social networking protocol used by Mastodon. The platform adds that quote posts will impact a large portion of Mastodon’s codebase, so it will “take more time to develop.”

There isn’t a timeframe for when we can expect quote posts to arrive on Mastodon, but it aims to create a specification that will allow other Fediverse applications to implement quote 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 source of concern for some members of the community, and highly-requested by others,” Mastodon says. “We’re committed to sharing our progress, and listening to your feedback.”