If you’re new to Mastodon, you may at some point find that you’re being pressured to put your posts behind a content warning (CW). Although CWs make sense for things like images of violence or nudity, some people are bullying others to put CWs on discussions of politics, racism, etc.
Please know that you should not feel pressured to obey these individuals. They do not speak for all. If someone does not want to be exposed to these topics, Mastodon gives them all the tools they need to avoid them, such as keyword filters and the ability to block or mute people who are posting things they don’t like.
I just want to say that I’m really blown away with the quality of most of the responses here! I don’t agree with everyone, but most have made this a polite and civil discussion, with only a few “I don’t like you and want to let you know without contributing anything” responses. Thanks to everyone for the great (and ongoing) discussion!
Personal opinion
One thing I do want to address is that there are a lot of folks advocating that we “be considerate” so as not to potentially trigger someone. I absolutely am a big fan of being considerate.
However, the world is not considerate. If someone is, for example, triggered by a picture of food, the world is an actively hostile place. There are pictures of food EVERYWHERE. You will be ambushed by them at every turn. This will never change. Food is not only an enjoyable, but an absolutely essential part of our daily lives. If you haven’t figured out some kind of defense mechanism, I don’t feel that it’s okay for you to fuss at a person if they post a picture of food. This is just one example, of course - this isn’t all about food, but the same stands for other everyday topics, like politics, racism, etc.
As with everything, others are going to have different opinions, and that’s okay. I’m not telling anyone to use CW in a particular way. Absent any specific rules on your instance, it’s something each of us has to figure out on our own. Just please don’t be rude to other people about this. Understand that this is a community, and it’s not realistic to expect everyone to accede to your personal preferences.
Personal opinion
Aside: IME pictures of food aren't that common IRL. In places that ban billboard ads, I don't expect to see pictures of food outside other than in places that do something with food specifically (places serving food, grocery stores, ...).
Regardless of conclusions, I think that this line of reasoning is somewhat suspect. I would summarize the way I understand it as "things that are common IRL cannot be avoided anyway, so making avoidance easier is not too important" (please do correct me if I misread).
First, "common IRL" changes over time. For example, punishment by public humilation became rarer, while public wearing of more revealing clothing became more common. Anchoring at "currently common IRL" serves as a status quo bias and I would imagine that it can be strong enough (if present across the society) to create a local minimum. (Also, commonality changes over space: e.g. there are places where war is a very common and inescapable topic.)
Second, if one wishes to avoid mentions of a thing that's reasonably common in public space, they often can do so at the cost of expending effort (or money, or not taking part in some situations). This has costs that are mostly additive across different situations when one has to do that, so the cost delta that depends on decisions of e.g. posters on fediverse is not affected by the popularity of the concept IRL _for people using these kinds of strategies_.
