It’s unfortunate that, in an effort to avoid the supposed mistakes of Twitter, Mastodon has descended into a navel-gazing debate about.. avoiding the mistakes of Twitter.

Arguing over QT’s and search feels like it’s missing the forest for the trees: toxic behaviors and communities originate from a complex mix of norms, moderation (or lack thereof) and product affordances.

It’s never going to boil down to just a set of product features.

@fredbenenson what I have noticed in my over 20 years on the internet is that the lower the barrier to entry, the noisier the discourse. It's quite easy to download an app and get on Twitter - no invite code or wait list necessary - and start spewing the garbagé du jour.

Yes, that is an accessibility issue and I don't like it. But people being assholes is why we can't have nice things.