How the quote-post debate demonstrates that many Mastodon users know nothing about the Fediverse

Jupiter Rowland

One of the worst aspects of Mastodon's plans to introduce quote-posts with a switch:

You keep having to tell Mastodon users that the Fediverse is not only Mastodon. That (insert a long list of Fediverse server applications here¹) have had quote-posts from the beginning. That they're all in the Fediverse. That they're all fully federated with Mastodon. That they can all quote-post any Mastodon toot they can possibly receive or import. And that they will be able to quote-post any Mastodon toot they can in the future, regardless of Mastodon account settings.

Up until this point, they were fully, firmly convinced that they're 100% safe from quote-posts on Mastodon. Either because they could not for the lives of them imagine that anything in the Fediverse has them. Or simply because they "knew" up until this point that the Fediverse is Mastodon. And if Mastodon introduces an opt-out or opt-in switch, this switch will mean absolute, 100% water-tight safety from quote-posts.

But for the Fediverse outside of Mastodon, the quote-post switch will be completely useless. Again: These lots of Fediverse server apps have had quote-posts before Mastodon introduced them. They had quote-posts before Mastodon invented the opt-in or opt-out switch. I mean, at least two of them have had quote-posts since before Mastodon even existed! So how are they supposed to support a proprietary, non-standard, Mastodon-specific switch which probably won't be documented anywhere before Mastodon rolls out quote-posts?

I'll tell you what'll happen.

Mastodon users will deactivate quote-posts for their accounts or not activate them in the first place. Non-Mastodon users, not knowing about the status of that switch, will quote-post them regardless with zero resistance. Upon which these Mastodon users will shit brix. And they'll call for either blocking that obviously rogue Mastodon user instance-wide, or blocking that user's instance, or Fediblocking that user's instance.

At this point, someone else who is not on Mastodon either will chime in and tell them: That particular user is, in fact, not on Mastodon. The Fediverse is not only Mastodon. That user is on Friendica. No, Friendica is not a rogue Mastodon instance. Friendica is not Mastodon at all. No, Friendica isn't a Mastodon fork either. Friendica has nothing to do with Mastodon. In fact, Friendica is older than Mastodon. On Friendica, quote-posts are perfectly normal. Friendica has had quote-posts for longer than Mastodon has even existed. And so forth.

Cue the Mastodon user shitting brix again, foaming with anger and calling for a Fediblock of all of Friendica.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that if Mastodon's quote-post feature and the rest of the Fediverse disregarding it leads to more awareness of the non-Mastodon Fediverse and its non-Mastodon features on Mastodon, it will also lead to demands for being able to completely block everything that isn't Mastodon, either on an account level (and then on by default, of course) or on an instance level or both.

Oh, by the way: The ability to completely lock out entire Fediverse projects already exists in the Fediverse right now, too. It's exclusive to two other Fediverse server apps that aren't Mastodon, both of which introduced this feature in September.

¹Here's a probably incomplete list of still-active Fediverse server apps with quote-posts which, yes, can quote-post Mastodon toots right now and will be able to quote-post Mastodon toots regardless of opt-in or opt-out:

Pleroma
Akkoma
Misskey
Firefish
Sharkey
Iceshrimp
Iceshrimp.NET
CherryPick
Neko
Catodon
Meisskey
Tanukey
Metaskey
Mitra
Friendica
Hubzilla
(streams)
Forte

And both Threads and the Bridgy Fed Bluesky bridge support quote-posts, too.

(Inb4 both Oliphant and The Bad Space trying hard to catch all instances of the server apps mentioned above to blocklist them all.)

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #Mastodon #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Calckey #Firefish #Sharkey #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp.NET #CherryPick #Neko #Catodon #Meisskey #Tanukey #Metaskey #Mitra #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Threads #BridgyFed #Bluesky #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #FediblockMeta #Oliphant #TheBadSpace

Jupiter Rowland

By the way, there's exactly one way of being safe from being quote-posted in the Fediverse:

Move to Hubzilla or (streams). Keep all optional communications protocols off, including ActivityPub. Disallow quoting and mirroring of your posts entirely in your channel role (on Hubzilla) or keep your channel type on Limited ((streams)). Make sure that none of your contact roles (Hubzilla) or permission roles ((streams)) allows it. Try to live with only contacts on Hubzilla and (streams); none of them would ever use quote-posts for nefarious reasons, but better safe than sorry. Always post to a restricted audience so that sharing your posts isn't possible anyway. And never comment on public posts so that sharing your comments isn't possible either.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate

Tejan Ausland

Basically, Mastodon is doing what politicians do. The reality is that no one can prevent someone from quoting you. Heck, they could just take a screenshot of your post and post that on X if they wanted. But since some people want the impossible done, they are promised something that looks like it solves the problem, but doesn't actually solve the problem. Because the problem can't be solved. People can and always will be able to quote you.

Jupiter Rowland

@Tejan Ausland Yes, but many on Mastodon don't understand this.

For them, the Mastodon devs are the creators and keepers of the Fediverse itself as well as "the good guys" who have made the single most awesome piece of server software in decades. If the Mastodon devs even only imply that an opt-out or opt-in switch for quote-posts will bring absolute safety from being quote-posted, they take it at face value.

So when they opt out of being quote-posted, and someone from outside of Mastodon quote-posts them anyway, they won't blame it on the Mastodon devs having promised them something impossible. Never would the Mastodon devs do that.

Rather, the devs behind whatever that someone is using are the bad guys. They're rogues, they're evil hackers who have introduced quote-posts just to be able to spite and harass Mastodon users. Why else would something introduce quote-posts after all?

The one thing that'll protect wherever that someone is from their wrath is that most of them won't be able to figure out what that someone is using. Just because Mastodon users can look up a post at its source, doesn't mean they know they can, much less they actually do.

So they may try to get allegedly rogue instances Fediblocked just because these instances are non-Mastodon instances doing what they regularly do. They may succeed because at least some blocklist maintainers don't have a clue about the Fediverse outside Mastodon, its capabilities and its culture either. But it's unlikely that they'll pinpoint this culprit having used Sharkey, have all of Sharkey Fediblocked for being able to "circumvent" Mastodon's quote-post opt-out/opt-in, then pinpoint that the next quote-poster is using Akkoma and have all of Akkoma Fediblocked and so forth.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #Blocklist #Blocklists #BlocklistMeta #FediblockMeta

Lasse Gismo - 🇮🇱🇺🇦🇸🇩

@jupiter_rowland @crossgolf_rebel
A stupid question - what's the prob with quoted posts?

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse #Mastodon #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Calckey #Firefish #Sharkey #Iceshrimp #Iceshrimp #CherryPick #Neko #Catodon #Meisskey #Tanukey #Metaskey #Mitra #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #Forte #Threads #BridgyFed #Bluesky #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate #FediblockMeta #Oliphant

Scott M. Stolz

@Lasse Gismo -

A stupid question - what's the prob with quoted posts?

Some people abuse them. They quote someone and then mock them for what they said.

Since it is a quote, the original author can no longer edit it and they can't delete it either.

This mocking is probably the biggest issue, but there are other groups that don't like it too. For example, people can no longer say something and deny saying it later since it was quoted. And people who say things they probably should not say don't like being quoted either.

Jupiter Rowland

@Lasse Gismo -

@Scott M. Stolz

Some people abuse them. They quote someone and then mock them for what they said.

More specifically:

On Twitter/𝕏, hateful right-wing people harass members of marginalised minorities (BIPoC, 2SLGBTQIA+ etc.) by quote-tweeting one of their tweets, mocking them in the tweet that quote-tweets them and then having others mock them even more in the replies. This is so commonplace that it feels like the only use-case that quote-tweets still have on 𝕏.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #Twitter #𝕏 #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets

Lasse Gismo - 🇮🇱🇺🇦🇸🇩

@jupiter_rowland @scott

I guess/hope fedi moderatos will prevent such stuff.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #Twitter #𝕏 #QuoteTweet

Jupiter Rowland

@Lasse Gismo -

If they notice.

Thing is: If someone on Pleroma, Akkoma, Mitra, Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) or Forte quote-posts someone else, that someone else is notified as if they've been mentioned. If they're notified when they're mentioned by a non-contact out of the blue, that is. Mods might not notice.

If someone on Misskey or any of its various still active forks and fork-forks quote-posts someone else, that someone else is not notified, and neither are any mods unless they happen upon the quote-post.

Also, nobody and nothing on Mastodon can prevent anybody outside of Mastodon from quote-posting anyone on Mastodon. And there's a whole lot outside of Mastodon that can and will always be able to quote-post Mastodon toots with zero resistance. See my start post in this thread for 18 server apps that can do that.

However, this much should be said: Friendica has had quote-posts for over 14 years. Hubzilla has had quote-posts for, technically speaking, almost 13 years. And never in all these years have quote-posts been used on either to harass anyone on Friendica, on Hubzilla, on Mastodon or elsewhere.

Sounds hard to believe for people who only know Twitter and Mastodon, I know. But Friendica and Hubzilla aren't almost entirely populated by people who came from Twitter. They aren't Twitter alternatives anyway. Friendica is a Facebook alternative, and Hubzilla is a Facebook alternative on coke and steroids. Both have a totally, completely different culture from Twitter as well as from Mastodon, both early Mastodon and today's Mastodon. There is no influence from Twitter on them whatsoever.

In fact, until Hubzilla 9.0 which came out this year, Hubzilla did not even have repeats (= retweets = boosts). It had always used quote-posts (= shared posts in Hubzilla lingo) for this purpose.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Friendica #Hubzilla #QuotePost #QuotePosts #QuoteTweet #QuoteTweets #QuoteToot #QuoteToots #QuoteBoost #QuoteBoosts #QuotedShares #QuotePostDebate #QuoteTootDebate