CatbusDec 1, 2022

QTs are overall bad & their absense helps make Mastodon 'nicer' than Twitter

as an ex-troll I know QTs are THE main weapon in the arsenal of harassment, call it the 'LibsOfTicToc Effect'.

On Twitter a malicious QT by a large account with high engagement exposes the OP to 10's or 100's of thousands of hostile eyes, with predictable results. The scale is different here, but the usage would not be

Show threadCatbusDec 1, 2022

yes there are benign, helpful uses for QTs, as there are for most dangerous tools but imo the negatives FAR outweigh the positives

anyone who's been on twitter knows probably 80% of QTs are negative interactions and de facto invitations for followers to dogpile a target, to the point where larger accounts not wanting to be responsible for one will post screenshots instead of QTing directly

Show threadTom AndersonDec 1, 2022

@ancient_catbus 80% negative hasn't been my experience at all. Just not in the slightest. I see QTs used as tools for humour, recommendation, and commentary.

I think what's happened is you've been hanging out in horrible parts of Twitter, and assumed it was all like that. It's not!

Show threadeyajpngDec 1, 2022

@twic @ancient_catbus the exact proportion of positive use to negative use isn’t really as important as the harm caused by those negative uses IMHO.

I’m not entirely sure that getting rid of QTs really solves for harassment as well as anyone hopes. But even if 99% of QT usage was benign, the situations where it’s used for toxicity/harassment are *really* bad. Bad enough that I think it’s worth looking at critically.

Show threadCatbus
@jepyang @twic you can liken it to gun ownership, where however responsible 99% of people are there's a low hum of tragedy always, with periodic and entirely predictable massacres
Dec 1, 2022 at 3:54pmWeb
Show threadCatbusDec 1, 2022
@jepyang @twic not having them doesn't 'solve' harassment, but it does make it much harder to encourage and coordinate at a massive scale
Show threadeyajpngDec 1, 2022

@ancient_catbus @twic I agree with this. And even when there are workarounds, every little roadblock does cut down on the number of trolls willing to make the effort.

When I say I’m not sure about getting rid of them, I just mean it might be worth exploring consent-based middle ground options, or generally more granular control over who can interact with a post and in what way (which is probably worth implementing with or w/o QTs).