Tom Jul 8

With Mastodon v4.4.0 instance owners can enable HTTP referrers. That means:

If somebody clicks a link in a Mastodon post (e.g. to a news article), the link target owner (such as the news site operator) can see that a user from that instance has visited their website.

They do _only_ get the instance domain (e.g. metalhead.club). No information about the user!

I've enabled this setting, because I am sure that it will increase awareness of Mastodon's existence. 💪

Edit: (in previous versions, Mastodon did not send referrer-Headers)

#mastodon #mastoadmin

Show threadtsk

@thomas So this still doesn't fix the UX hell that happens if, say, a news site puts "Share on fedi" links on their articles... and then fedi users click on them.

You may think its an 'awareness' issue with those orgs not adopting Mastodon... but many of them have already covered it during the initial surge and they know that user adoption is very low because of the bad UX that Linux geeks like us can hopscotch over almost without thinking.

Jul 9 at 1:22amWeb
Show threadtskJul 9

@thomas Here is a site that puts a link to their Mastodon account on their front page: https://www.euractiv.com

But notice the articles have a Share button that does not include Mastodon or anything ActivityPub. @euractiv

EURACTIV.com – EU news and policy debates across languages