Mastodon, the open-source, decentralized social network offering an alternative to Elon Musk’s X and Meta’s Threads, is rolling out a number of updates with Tuesday’s release of Mastodon 4.4.
Most notably, the app is taking the first steps towards implementing a change that will bring it on par with other networks, but may also impact user behavior: it’s preparing to integrate Quote Posts, or what Twitter used to call Quote Tweets.
This type of repost allows users to quote another person’s post, and then add their own two cents and commentary above it. On Twitter, now called X, the feature’s addition led to a culture of “dunking,” where users would deride another person by quoting a post and responding with snark or insulting humor. Some argued that while dunking made Twitter entertaining, it led to more negativity on the platform instead of encouraging conversations or healthy debates.
Mastodon’s implementation of the Quote Post, however, aims to implement the feature in a way that will limit its ability to be used for hate and harassment.
As the company explained earlier this year, it will accomplish this by letting users control whether their content can be quoted, and even let users withdraw their posts from the quoted context at any time. Plus, users will get notifications when someone quotes their posts.
But Quote Posts aren’t being fully rolled out with Mastodon 4.4.
Instead, the organization is releasing the code that supports displaying Quote Posts, which will allow users to see quotes from compatible Fediverse platforms, including future Mastodon releases.
Users won’t actually be able to quote posts until Mastodon version 4.5 releases later this year.
Profiles, Navigation, Lists, Media Controls and more
The 4.4 version brings more changes designed to improve other areas, including profiles, navigation, lists, media controls and admin features.
A new “Feature on my profile” option will let you showcase what you want to promote, like all your posts with a specific hashtag, or other accounts — think profiles you find interesting, or accounts you run for your business, brand or side project.
Mastodon will now also display your Pinned Posts at the top of your profile in a carousel. Because the app lets users pin up to five posts, previously you had to scroll a lot if you just wanted to see more recent content on someone’s profile.
There’s a new profile widget, too, that shows how many of the people you follow are following the person whose profile you’re viewing.
It’s also now easier to add and remove users to Lists both directly from profiles and from your own Following and Followers listings
Version 4.4 also updates Mastodon’s media player with a new design: the play and pause buttons are more centrally located and easier to click, and we get hotkeys for seeking, volume control, and going fullscreen.
On mobile, you can double-tap or pinch photos to zoom in and out, and to close a zoomed-in image, you can swipe up, similar to your native photo app. There’s also a new reminder to add alt-text to images, which helps vision-impaired people better use apps.
Meanwhile, the mobile website now more closely mimics the native mobile apps, with action buttons in a bottom toolbar and more consistent navigation across platforms.
Elsewhere, the “Explore” section has been renamed “Trending,” and the sidebar navigation controls have been organized into three sections: one for the main navigation buttons, another for curated content (like Lists, Bookmarks, and Favorites), and a third for other elements.
For new users, onboarding has been shrunk to a two-step process from the previous four-step process, in the hopes of addressing concerns that it’s too complicated to get started on Mastodon.
Server admins have access to new legal compliance features, like managing Terms of Service, offering translations of server rules in different languages, and an option to set a minimum age requirement for new
users.
The changes follow a number of other updates for the social network this year, including a decision to create a new non-profit in Europe to move away from the app being run by a single individual, and other expansions to its team. More recently, Mastodon announced plans to offer additional services in the form of commercial offerings to grow its revenue. The company, for the first time last year, hosted the European Commission's Mastodon instance, which suggests that this could be the direction it’s headed.