this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023

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YSK: Social media platforms attach trackers to the end of share URLs (which you can and should delete) (self.youshouldknow)

submitted 1 year ago by hiramfromthechi to c/youshouldknow

81 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Why YSK: Trackers don't do good for anyone except the platform, and they're not necessary to view the content in the URL.

It's courteous to not subject the recipient (most likely your friends and family) to this tracking. You're already sending them to the platform, which is tracking them in other ways. But you can help reduce that tracking by removing everything after the ampersand in the URL. Here are some examples.

Twitter example

URL: https://x.com/CookieSlayers/status/1623712884902567937?s=20

The s=20 is a Twitter-specific parameter to show that the tweet was copied from the web app. s=46 is iOS, and I can't remember what Android's code is. This is a relatively clean link, but there are some links that'll concatenate unique identifiers, like: https://x.com/CookieSlayers/status/1623712884902567937?s=20&t=Fn47fnSDJUD74bd9.

In this case, you'll notice there's also a &t= parameter, which is a unique identifier to the person who shared it.

The only part of the URL you need is https://x.com/CookieSlayers/status/1623712884902567937.

Instagram example:

URL: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzP877du2EB/?igshid=MzRlODCFWFlZA==

The only part of the URL you need is https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzP877du2EB.

TikTok example

URL: https://www.tiktok.com/@inthepaintcrew/video/7301348328602717482?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7302915057791436331

You'll notice TikTok's is a lot more readable in terms of what the URL contains.

The is_from_webapp parameter is self-explanatory, as is the sender_device, and then there's the identifier that's unique to you. In this case, 7302915057791436331.

The only part of the URL you need is https://www.tiktok.com/@inthepaintcrew/video/7301348328602717482.

The best route^1^ would be to use privacy-respecting frontends, but if you don't, simply deleting everything after the ampersand goes a long way.

^1^The best route would actually be to not use/reward platforms that are literally destroying humanity, but we're not there yet, so... in the meantime, let's just try to decrease the tracking and stop subjecting our friends and family to it as much as possible.

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[–] candybrie 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If the goal is to share clean links, getting the url after the redirect accomplishes it. The tracking that's done isn't on your friends/whoever you share the link with, but done on the app. Which does generally defeat the purpose of their tracking.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

true, my comment was primarily from the perspective of the recipient of tracking links