GlitchCat Policy on Global Fulltext Search 
By default, Mastodon only allows fulltext searching on posts that a user has interacted with.
Some instances have recently decided to remove that limitation. This document comprises our policy with respect to those instances.
https://github.com/GlitchCatFedi/Policy/blob/main/Global%20Fulltext%20Search.markdown
Fully agree with GlitchCat’s reasoning (see above) for silencing instances which enable global fulltext search. however the doc primarily focuses on the detrimental effects of global fulltext and i’s like to additionally suggest that intentional discovery methods (eg guppe groups, hashtags) tend to actually be more effective for community formation than fulltext search because they’re explicitly opt in
for example, by adding a particular tag, i’m indicating that i expect regular readers of said tag to see said post and potentially respond. an equivalent post surfaced via global fulltext search doesn’t contain that same implicit invitation
ultimately, i’m unlikely to be seriously effected by any implementation of global fulltext — almost all my posts are locked to followers only and the ones that aren’t are often already intentionally hashtagged with the relevant tags (for the reasons outlined above)
but i still want to think that we are building a good thing here, and that means supporting better policies even when i’m not personally effected