Annalee Newitz 🍜Let me put a phrase into your mind: nonconsensual virality. It's why quote-posts on Twitter led to harassment. People's words stolen, taken out of context, used purely to incite a mob of griefers. The answer is to give #Mastodon users control over whether someone else can quote-post them, with a simple "quote or not" setting that can be set before or after the post goes up. We should be allowed to stop people from taking our posts viral without our consent.
I've been a journalist for over twenty years -- I've written for venues ranging from tiny zines to the New York Times. And I think users should have control over quote-posts. If a journo wants to report something that they can’t quote-post, I believe that the ten-second friction required to cut-and-paste some text, or to screengrab it, is helpful to the journalistic process. Taking a beat to consider whether we really want to quote something, and how we want to frame it? Literally our job.
Derek Powazek 🐐@annaleen you’re absolutely right, but this topic is the third rail around here. Prepare for a lot of opinions strongly held and based on mostly on vibes.
@fraying so far people have been offering very helpful responses and sincere consideration of the issue. It's so weird! We're not on Twitter anymore! ❤️
@annaleen glad to hear it! This topic is one of the few that’s led me to have to block a few people here.
@fraying well I'm not saying there weren't a few blocks here and there lol. But it was genuinely shocking to find myself in the midst of a debate where 98 percent of responses were intended to be constructive, even if the person disagreed with me. it was actually what really made me fall in love with Mastodon.
@annaleen I love it.