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It should be common practice if you commonly share links. Try removing the query string (everything after and including the question mark). See if you get to the same page. If you do, don’t use the query string.
Query string parameters are rather often used for tracking. Look for gclid parameters after you click a google ad, for example.
The harder ones to bypass are Facebook and Reddit share URLs, which give zero indicator of their destination; it seems impossible as the recipient of such a URL.
At least with bit.ly, one can add a + to the end of the URL and see data on it, including the original link (to then safely access without adding to its click counter).
Yeah, there are always ways… any service could easily generate unique paths that require a server-supplied redirection to the main target. Then the server just needs to stitch up (1) where was that link generated and (2) who arrived at the redirection page. Users would have no way to determine the target link without exposing themselves to being tracked.
A platform like Reddit can do this too, by replacing the links you put in your comments/post, so they redirect to the original link. They can even make it continue displaying the original link, while actually linking to the redirect page.
Right, I've seen Slickdeals and I think Bing eventually take that on over the years: on-mouse-hover shows the original link, temporarily, until you actually right-click and copy, at which point the evil reveals itself lol.
Hmm... now I wonder if a browser add-on could circumvent the right-click interaction and stealth-copy the originally displayed link... lol, it's nuts how far into the weeds of privacy our guerrilla warfare has been getting.
The frequency with which I've seen the si attribute included in youtube links has made me painfully aware of just how many people are not using the internet the same way I do; they're experiencing the internet through a handful of mobile apps, not through a web browser on the desktop.
even some IT pros are leaving it in, knowing well what it does. some people just couldn't care less.
I'm not an IT pro but I am ashamed I didn't know this. I've spent a lot of time cutting up youtube links for shiz.
yup. I don't use the google apps for ANYTHING. Even on my tab/phone, I use a browser (orion, with ublock origin installed) to watch youtube. It's really annoying, but it's better than using their spyware app.
Even then.. what proportion of people do you think know the parts of a URL? Or know what a URL even is...
You may be in a bubble, friend
I know all this stuff and even I don't look at the technical stuff in the URL. I just make sure it doesn't have dQw4w9WgXcQ in there.
YSK PieFed automatically strips that out.
Edit: posts only, not in comments.
Like if you post a YouTube link, the platform detects it and automatically edits the link?
til people don't reflexively strip out everything after the ? unless you know exactly what it's doing
tbf, it's intentionally designed to be malicious and deceiving
I remember telling this to people on reddit and getting downvoted to oblivion while redditors squawked "who tf cares bro"
We set up a bot on r/asmr to reply to anyone posting a YouTube link containing the "si=" parameter, warning that it was likely a tracking ID that Google could potentially use to tie their YouTube account to their Reddit account with some degree of probability and suggesting that they delete their post and re-post without the si= parameter. Many were grateful for the warning and info but some didn't care. We decided to disable the warning after a few weeks.
why did you disable the warning?
You should also known that TikTok does this by default and the generated code is impossible to remove afaik, it's part of the video identifier.
So when sharing a tiktok video always download it and share the file.
I recommend downloading it anyway, since that doesn't require people to use tiktoks site, but if you paste the vm link yourself into a browser, it'll redirect to the canonical link, without the tracker.
Along similar lines be careful of the images you post if you location tag your photos. A lot of the larger websites will strip the location data by default but some do not. I’ve saved a handful of photos from reviews off the internet and now have people’s home addresses where the photo is of the product in their living room or whatever.
If you go to the ‘map’ section of your photos app it arranges them by location.
You can turn location tagging off globally when photos are taken or usually when you go to share a photo there is an option buried in a menu to strip location data(on mobile).
Always remove those search parameters before pasting links, even to my friends. F—k these big tech platforms, I'm not giving you any sharing data!
It would be great if link cleaning and auto-mirroring was part of the lemmy UI itself.
The problem is that there is an almost infinite way to design these kinds of URLs, so maintaining a database of what should be stripped out isn't trivial.
FYI on desktop you can right click on the video and select "Copy video URL", it doesn't include the tracker string. Wish they'd let us remove it from the Share button, I've simply removed that button with uBlock Origin.
It's also missing from my patched YouTube app's Share on Android, not sure if that's one of the patches.
Yeah, that's certainly a patch. NewPipe, PipePipe, etc. all also remove ?si=.
Since 4 March 2026 I am seeing "is=" in some YouTube links instead of "si=", also with the 16 character ID.
On my forum, youtube links get stripped of any extra url parameters. Every site should have to do that.
That's a great extra layer of protection, but people shouldn't rely on it and get/stay in the habit of always removing the tracking code themselves.
On android, urlcheck is a great app to modify URLs before sharing or opening. For this problem, you can use the json editor, and add the following two entries with small a regex I wrote:
"shorten Youtube": {
"regex": "^https?:\/\/(?:[a-z0-9-]+\\.)*?youtube\\.com\/(.*)&.*",
"replacement": [
"https:\/\/youtube.com\/$1"
],
"enabled": true
},
"shorten Youtu.be": {
"regex": "^https?:\/\/(?:[a-z0-9-]+\\.)*?youtu\\.be\/([^?]*)?.*",
"replacement": [
"https:\/\/youtube.com\/watch?v=$1"
],
"enabled": true
},
A button to shorten the link appears in urkcheck when the pattern matches. You can all auto shorten them by replacing
"enabled": true
With
"automatic": true
Done. Thank you.
Not sure if my anxiety is justified here, but I am not tech savvy whatsoever. And I worry about all the things I’m doing that’s probably completely giving myself away that I’m just unaware of. I didn’t know about this at all.
i have never shared a youtube vid while logged in
I just share the URL from the browser.
Even on mobile: I don't use the YouTube app. On Android, this is a no-brainer, since you can run Firefox and uBlock Origin and bypass all the ads. On iOS it is a bit more dicey, but still advantageous to forego the app. Currently DuckDuckGo can bypass the ads for free. If you don't mind paying, Wipr2 can also do it, in Safari. Then you just put a web shortcut to YouTube and bam, ad-free YouTube. Shitty icon though (it's the regular icon in a white squircle). Either way, share from the browser, not YouTube.
Also, of course you can remove all the extra shit from the URL if you know how. That wisdom is lost on younger generations, but innate to older ones (who grew up around tech, like Millennials; or younger Gen X who adopted it at a young age — not like these iPad babies you have now).
If you never sign into YouTube and sharing links from a third party application, what is it that they append? Curious what makes up that shared id.
Here's another. If the video you want to share is on youtube, it's also on invidious. Without ads, downloadable and just generally none of youtube's bullshit. It even uses the same video vURL address.
Additional PSA: TikTok does the same. Also Instagram, but in my experience it doesn't reveal the sharing user (yet).
Insta does. if you open it on web and you didn't log in, the popup that beg you to log in will also include the user who shared it.