Eugen RochkoMastodon does not store passwords in plain text. This is trivial to confirm as Mastodon is an open-source project. We use the bcrypt algorithm for one-way hashing of passwords. I can't believe someone is spreading misinformation about something so trivial to debunk.
The tweet with the misinformation got shared 1395 times, my response 85 times...
Gera Zoltán 🚲 
@Gargron This is particularly sad for me as this huge difference could happen without the help of a recommender system. I always thought that ok, there is human behavior but we also need ML to magnify it so much. However, it was blown here quite well without it.
@gerazo No, I meant tweet when I said tweet. The misinformation and my response I'm talking about are on Twitter.
@Gargron Ohh, thanks. That sound much better!
In this case, it was just the normal way of a recommender blowing up stuff. I wonder how big the original human response could be. I have a feeling that is not even necessary larger: it just comes earlier because we are motivated to click on more dangerous, cognitially more challenging things first before the convenient reassurance.