One of the most disturbing arguments I've seen against having a quote boost #qt feature:

Unlike a reply, quote tweets allow people to discus *what other people have said* Not reply to that person but make what they have said a topic of discussion.

People examining the discourse of others is troubling? (even if they can opt out, no, this shouldn't happen the argument goes, between even "consenting adults" *that's* how wicked it is)

It's... fascinating.

@futurebird The idea that you should have to talk to someone rather than about their post of public importance is so batshit and contrary to the way the real world works.

Imagine if students were assigned to @ authors over and over rather than writing about their books. 🤦

@futurebird I think their hidden assumption is that there should not be things of public importance here.

That everything here should be "politics free" interpersonal spaces for hobbies and feel-good stuff and everyone should ignore that the person they're engaging with about their hobbies is a nazi as long as they don't bring it up. 😠

@dalias @futurebird there is a goofy conflation of small and large posts and accounts. It can be annoying for a small time poster to end up in the public eye. But if you have news agencies, politicians, and billionaires on your network, spewing their stuff, we absolutely should be able to treat their statements as objects to be examined, rather than responding asking with 5000 other people, 99% of whom will be ignored.

And honestly I wouldn't want big accounts to be able to turn off #QT

@stevenbodzin

This line of thinking is fascinating to me in a good way.

In any social network large accounts have real power. I don't care if we have #qt or not, when there is an account with a million followers they can create abuse in ways that others can't.

I always thought that big accounts should have been held to a higher standard-- though twitter always did the opposite.

A big account attacking a small one is objectively different from me calling IDK the mayor of NYC an idiot.

@futurebird @stevenbodzin for the record “IDK the mayor of NYC” is when I guffawed and smashed that follow button