Mastodon, the decentralized alternative to X, goes to undertake a controversial function from the platform previously often called Twitter: quote posts. The corporate on Friday shared the progress it’s making on the implementation of the function, which has divided customers over its potential for use for on-line abuse and bullying.

Critics have lengthy argued that the addition of quote tweets helped ruin Twitter, turning the community into a more toxic online community.

Some Mastodon customers really feel strongly that quote posts don’t belong on Mastodon, because the function is usually used to “dunk” on one other individual’s put up, which not solely breeds negativity however may lead to serving to spur a flood of abusive replies to the unique put up’s creator — particularly if the dunker is a high-profile particular person with plenty of followers.

Nevertheless, different Mastodon customers wish to see quote posts added, because the function makes it simpler to reference one other individual’s put up and its content material when making a response. Plus, quote posts would convey the community extra in keeping with its rivals, together with X in addition to newer rivals like Threads and Bluesky.

Mastodon famous in its blog post that it’s conscious that the function is each a “supply of concern” for some and “extremely requested” by others.

“Many individuals merely don’t want their content material to be reframed by others; or they might discover that whether it is reposted, they obtain unwelcome consideration,” the Mastodon weblog put up says.

The group utilized for a grant to assist fund the event of quote posts again in 2024 after earlier discussions across the function. Now, the group is sharing its progress, notably by way of the way it hopes to mitigate consumer complaints.

For starters, Mastodon says it can permit customers to manage whether or not their posts could be quoted in any respect. This might defend individuals from being the recipient of undesirable consideration or hateful replies to some extent. (Although, arguably, individuals might nonetheless screenshot somebody’s put up to flow into it extra broadly in the event that they meant to troll the consumer.)

As well as, customers can be notified if somebody quotes them, and so they’ll be capable to withdraw their put up from the quoted context at any time. This latter choice might assist in the case that somebody’s quote put up goes viral, and the unique poster begins to obtain an excessive amount of consideration and even abuse, forcing them to rethink whether or not they need their put up to be quotable in any respect.

Past the potential for abuse, Mastodon says there are additionally technical challenges across the implementation of quote posts, as there’s not a standardized method to construct the function in ActivityPub, the underlying protocol that powers Mastodon and other federated apps.

Some third-party Mastodon shoppers additionally already provide their very own model of quote posts, however they don’t embrace the options that Mastodon needs so as to add for extra consumer management and privateness. Because of this, Mastodon is collaborating with others to create a specification that may permit all Mastodon apps and shoppers to entry the identical performance.

Quote posts can even have an effect on different components of Mastodon’s code base, the announcement states, together with the ActivityPub-handling code, the general public API, the online consumer interface, the moderation panel and capabilities, the administration panel, and the official iOS and Android purposes.

Sadly, Mastodon’s announcement didn’t share how for much longer it is going to be earlier than the function is added or any type of timeline for public launch, solely saying that quote posts “will nonetheless take extra time to develop.”