Aral Balkan
Someone just went to the trouble of performatively “quote tweeting” me by adding a screenshot of my post as well as a link back and a mention to their worst-faith interpretation of what I’d written.
I have zero desire to see that toxic behaviour here and if you go out of your way to “quote tweet” me, that’s an instant block.
Keep your toxic “haha, look @thisIdiot!” culture on hell-site where it belongs.
@Gargron If you’re going to implement that crap here, please at least make it opt in.
Aral Balkan
@n0toose @Gargron Didn’t report him, no. While I may not like it, I’m not sure quote tweeting people like that violates any of the terms of mastodon.social.
n0toose
@aral @Gargron Hope it was an instant report too, throw it riIIIIIIIGHT in the trash.
Aral Balkan
@schrotie That’s true for broadsheets, not tabloids.
With the latter you have paparazzi hiding in bushes to try and capture that blurry “gotcha!” photo so you can caption it with the most sensationalistic and toxic headline you can dream up.
I guess the real question is do we want Mastodon to be the social media equivalent of a tabloid or a broadsheet?
schrotie
@aral @Gargron If you interview someone it is good journalistic practice to have the interviewed review the text before publication, and the same _should_ be true for most cases of quotes. Aral's case calls for the quoted to be able to confirm her/his agreement to be quoted thusly _before_ publication or at the very least to veto it afterwards.
Aral Balkan
@benjamineskola In my experience (since 2006 on Twitter, and since 2016 here), there’s a marked difference in how a space with quote posts and one without feels/behaves (and makes me feel/behave).
Personally, I feel the cons far outweigh the pros.
But, sure, folks are free to implement and use them and I’m free to block them. All I can say is I won’t be interacting with quote posts if they’re implemented here as I don’t like how they make me feel or how they make me behave.
ben
@aral @Gargron you seem to be assuming that all quote-tweets are bad-faith, that it’s impossible to have a good-faith quote-tweet. And, implicitly, that replies are always good-faith and never bad-faith? People can respond in good or bad ways by either method in my experience.
Aral Balkan
@benjamineskola Oh, I do. This isn’t about that. This is about whether or not a feature is implemented that makes it easier to engage in a certain type of behaviour.
There’s a major difference between the culture of a system saying “that’s frowned upon here” and “go on, you know you want to!”
ben
@aral @Gargron I can certainly believe that quote-posts are on average worse, and I can believe that the negatives outweigh the positives. But talking about a blanket ban makes it sound as if negative interactions only happen through quotes, and never through replies, etc. i.e., why not simply block anyone who engages in bad faith regardless of the mechanism?
Aral Balkan
@af “Quote tweeting” does create toxic behaviour. And toxic people exist. These are not mutually exclusive.
If we don’t believe design shapes behaviour, let’s do an experiment: let’s get Elon to hand Twitter over to Eugen and let’s rebrand it Mastodon but not change anything else. If you’re right, it should magically become like Mastodon.
If not, perhaps design (i.e., the restrictions of the software) does matter and we should be careful not to make Mastodon into Twitter.
Andreas F.
@aral @Gargron "quote tweeting" does not create toxic behaviour. Toxic people behave toxic and should be reported/blocked/banned if they do, no matter what technology/functions they use.
But the software itself should not be restricted just because some toxic people also use it.
However, I do agree, some opt-in setting per toot with options who is allowed to QT (world/all, only followed, only mentioned, none) would make sense if it would be implemented.
Aral Balkan
@sjors Why don’t we also make whether DMs are public or private an instance setting? (I mean, if we’re saying that instances should be easily able to disregard people’s requests for how their posts are treated, why just stop at quote posts? There’s nothing inherently private about DMs. It’s just a gentlemen’s contract like quote posts would be. So instances that want to – those that believe in radical transparency, for example – should be able to display DMs publicly if they want to.)
Sjors Provoost
@aral @Gargron whether it's opt-in or opt-out could be an instance setting. It's another nice differentiator along with moderation policy and full text search.
m@thias.hellqui.st
Aral Balkan
Andreas F.
@aral @Gargron I do agree that design can shape behaviour but I disagree that QTs by themselves can transform nice behaviour into toxic behaviour because I don't think it is a "defining/major feature" (for lack of better wording).
I think your thought experiment is not suitable as a comparison. Because I think twitter's algorithm, moderation rules and commercial intensions (to name a few) shape the behaviour of twitter users way more that QTs.
Aral Balkan
@JorisMeys Well, there are reasons to: if you’re punching up, you are trying to use the power of the many to hold someone in power accountable.
Quote posts are not the only way to achieve that though. And they are used as often, if not more so, by those with power to punch down and get their much larger audiences to pile onto those without.
On the whole (again, based on my personal experience of 16 years on Twitter vs 6 years here), I think the cons far outweigh the pros.
Joris Meys
@garuma @aral @Gargron I have never received a satisfactory answer on the question "Why on earth would you want to bring attention to someone who is genuinely harmful?".
I don't need to see anything genuinely harmful. Why would you willingly expose your followers to sth genuinely harmful instead of sth genuinely interesting, genuinely uplifting, genuinely funny, ...?
Garuma :nonbinary_paw: 📌 commissions
Aral Balkan
@Merovie Gotcha Culture™ (Coming soon to Mastodon?)
Loona Pavlichenko
@aral @Gargron I don't really like use screenshots as weapons at all. At least among those of us on the left.
I've posted things. Realized they were in poor taste or worded in a bad way but 5 minutes after I edit or delete it someone attacks me with a screenshot of what I posted and called it "dirty deleting."
Like, I took it down or edited it before you even came at me with this.
Aral Balkan
@mnl I think I’ve made it very clear what I want. And the difference in talking about a subject without tagging someone and doing so and plastering a screenshot of their post for good measure is clear.
mnml mnl (he/him)
@aral what do you actually want, I am genuinely confused?
That the person would have replied on the original thread? That the person would have anonymized your name, the way you are doing it? That they should have used a link not a screenshot? Or just that no one gets snarky about your hot takes?
Instead of replying to that person as you advocate, you are pandering to your audience. That’s totally fine by me, but you can’t have it both ways.
Aral Balkan
@jdp23 It doesn’t match my lived experience as someone who has been tweeting against the grain of Silicon Valley for almost the past decade.
Jon
@aral What's your evidence that quote posts are use "as often, if not more so, by those with power to punch down"? @Carwil recently looked at a couple of samples. of Twitter QTs and found the vast majority of them were positive uses -- and that matches my experience as well.
Aral Balkan
@jdp23@indieweb.social FFS, I told you it’s based on my lived experience. https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/109626397465040723
I’m not “just making it up.” Seriously, go away.
Jon
@fishidwardrobe @aral @Carwil @JorisMeys @garuma @Gargron Sure. It's a complex question. And, you also have to look at what people do if QTs aren't available -- screenshot and link, like just happened to Aral. So how much do the QTs actually contribute to the harm. But I wasn't trying to kick off that whole discussion.
Aral made a claim here and so I'm wondering if he has any evidence for it or he's just making it up.
Fish Id Wardrobe
@jdp23 @aral @Carwil @JorisMeys @garuma @gargron Just counting the numbers of positive or neutral uses and the numbers of negative uses is not enough, though.
Even assuming there are more of the former than the latter (which is questionable), you have to bear in mind how much harm the latter can do.
The real question is "how many good QTs does it take to justify the harm of a bad one?"
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