When you share a YouTube video using the share button it adds “si=some_unique_code” to the URL. If you don’t remove that it shows your personal account to anyone who receives it so that they can chat directly with you. For a lot of people this is their real name.

I’ve seen it all over Lemmy so I figured I’d mention it here! You only need the stuff before the question mark in the URL to let others see the video.

This can also be turned off in your YouTube settings under the privacy section. The setting is “channel visibility for shared links”. It will still add the si code for tracking though.

  • Dymonika@lemmy.ml
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    5 days ago

    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.