Mastodon officially introduced quote posts, enabling users to share and comment on others’ posts starting next week. This feature allows users to utilize the repost—or “boost”—button to augment their perspectives on shared content, reports 24brussels.
The decentralized platform had initially opted against launching quote posts due to concerns about potential harassment and the risk of misrepresenting users’ words. However, in February, Mastodon reversed this policy, recognizing that the absence of quote posts might discourage new users from joining its federated social media network.
During the initial rollout, quote posts will be available on mastodon.online and mastodon.social, with plans for broader implementation with the Mastodon 4.5 update. Users will have the ability to disable quoting entirely for their posts or apply restrictions on who can quote them, whether it be the general public, followers, or just themselves. Additionally, users can also remove their content from others’ quote posts.
Mastodon cautioned that quoting posts from external fediverse platforms may result in delays before the quote appears. The platform has also developed a technical specification for quote posting to encourage adoption by other federated networks. For further details on configuring quote post settings, users are directed to Mastodon’s official documentation.
