Mastodon’s development team has released version 4.5, allowing the microblogging service, after years of preparation, to now quote other posts. This is evident from a blog entry, and users will only have the option once their instance has been updated. On the by far largest instance, mastodon.social, this has been possible for a while; it is operated by the Mastodon team and is already running on a preview version of 4.6. The update now released for all instances also brings a feature intended to put an end to an annoying peculiarity of Mastodon: all replies should actually be displayed under a post.

A Long History

The fact that Mastodon – unlike its model Twitter – could not quote posts stems from a conscious decision by the lead developer. Eugen Rochko was long convinced that these “quote posts,” where the quoting account comments on a post and thus spreads it further, would heat the mood and be harassing. When, after the takeover of Twitter, many people switched from the microblogging service to Mastodon, some new users demanded the function they were familiar with and pointed to the positive side effects. In early 2023, he hinted at the change of direction and now Mastodon explains that it should always be possible to ensure that one’s own posts cannot be quoted.

After the update to version 4.5, Mastodon will now also automatically search for replies under posts from users whose instance is not known to your own server. Until now, Mastodon’s decentralized structure has repeatedly ensured that not all comments were displayed under a post, which made discussions enormously difficult. That is now supposed to be over; updated instances should search for new comments at least every 15 minutes to ensure the continuity of conversations. Further innovations are aimed at instance administrators, who will gain more control over how these appear to users.

Mastodon is one of several microblogging services currently competing with the big role model X (formerly Twitter) and aiming to benefit from more and more people leaving it. However, with less than a million active accounts, it is long since significantly smaller than Meta’s Threads; Bluesky is still slightly larger with about one and a half million active accounts. On the other hand, Mastodon is part of the so-called Fediverse: thanks to a common protocol as a basis, you can exchange messages with accounts on wholly different services and social networks without having to leave Mastodon. Furthermore, Mastodon’s technology is much more open than that of classic social networks; various applications use it and add interesting functions.

(mho)

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This article was originally published in German. It was translated with technical assistance and editorially reviewed before publication.