C_Chell
Thomas FuglsethPublic service announcement.
(Created by https://bsky.app/profile/campfireharve.st )
Yeah, just an FYI: I muted this, I don't have the energy to go through that many notifications while I'm on vacation. Sorry.
Mathias 🏳️🌈@Uglesett Helt enig, men den utm source er jo ikke så gale da. Tenker da på nyhetspublikasjoner som legger ut linker her på Mastodon, gjerne har utm source = Mastodon. Det er jo greit for å få synliggjort Mastodon som en tjeneste å satse på.
Men det kan vel hende at det blir overflødig med Mastodon versjon 4.4?
Manny (admin) ⚡ Mikrobloggen (@manny@mikrobloggen.no)
Attached: 1 image Med Mastodon 4.4 kom også muligheten for en instans til å vises som referanse i Google Analytics og lignende analyseverktøy. Dette gir en økt mulighet for å synliggjøre bruken av Mastodon for markedsførere og lignende, dette kan oppfattes som bra eller dårlig alt etter prioriteringene til instansen. Det er ingenting ved denne nye muligheten som sender videre personlige data utover at kilden er (feks) "mikrobloggen.no". Vi på Mikrobloggen har for øyeblikket valgt å slå denne innstillingen på.
🏳️🌈🎃🇧🇷Luana🇧🇷🎃🏳️🌈Everything after the "?" symbol can be removed without issue
Uhhhh not really
That also has stuff like timestamps. And in some links, such as on youtube.com/watch?v=videocode, the actually important part of the link is also after the ? (as opposed to on youtu.be/videocode).
3A29, raspberry pi in a fox
Alice 
@luana @Uglesett playlist also. So e.g. how would one clean up this link?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsiKUsrqFkc&list=PLvoAL-KSZ32dRMGLza8Dw4xZK6_1ItjNr&t=52
So much stuff here, but all of it is necessary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsiKUsrqFkc&list=PLvoAL-KSZ32dRMGLza8Dw4xZK6_1ItjNr&t=52
So much stuff here, but all of it is necessary.
v indicates which video it is, list indicates which playlist it is, t indicates the timestamp. Granted, this isn't a youtu.be link, but only because that one already removes playlist, so it's not useful for sharing videos with their context intact.
The Problem with Video Essays
Nomdeb
Tock@Tock @Uglesett @luana no, as a matter of fact taking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsiKUsrqFkc&list=PLvoAL-KSZ32dRMGLza8Dw4xZK6_1ItjNr&t=52 and cutting off everything after ? - that is
Those 4 are safe to cut, yeah, but "just cut off everything after ?" is straight up misinfo - that's how you end up with people sharing broken links
v=IsiKUsrqFkc&list=PLvoAL-KSZ32dRMGLza8Dw4xZK6_1ItjNr&t=52 - will not show the intended video - https://www.youtube.com/watch is not a video URL. Time is also important - I might be linking to a specific point in a 4h video, for example.Those 4 are safe to cut, yeah, but "just cut off everything after ?" is straight up misinfo - that's how you end up with people sharing broken links
The Problem with Video Essays
@Tock @Uglesett @luana v doesn't have to be the first parameter + again, you stil have time and playlist. Like I said, time is important - maybe you're linking to a specific point in a 4h video essay, for example. Playlist is important if you're , say, sharing a music video from a soundtrack or album split into individual tracks per video rather than a single video for the whole thing.
So - again - you can't blindly remove things - know what is safe to remove and use common sense. Sometimes it's fine to omit both time and playlist (sometimes even desirable), often not.
So - again - you can't blindly remove things - know what is safe to remove and use common sense. Sometimes it's fine to omit both time and playlist (sometimes even desirable), often not.
Lin NahThat's not tracking.
The link to the video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsiKUsrqFkc
the "&list=" means the video is part of a playlist - there are other videos following it.
t=52 means start the video 52seconds in. If you remove "&t=52" it just starts from the beginning
The Problem with Video Essays
cwicseolfor@alice @Uglesett @luana With YouTube specifically you need to look for that si= part, the Share ID. In URLs with multiple ampersanded sections you can usually just pull the troublemaker. Unfortunately these are often idiosyncratic to different sites.
Easier: use Firefox, and when you go to grab the link use the “copy clean link” in the right-click menu.
Yuki Hazuki ·𐑘𐑵𐑒𐑘 ·𐑾𐑨𐑟𐑵𐑒𐑘 葉月膤 ❄️ 🏳️⚧️@luana @Uglesett well, everything that doesn't look useful, of course you don't want to remove things you know are identifiers like
every good website these days rewrite their URLs to avoid putting these IDs after the ? so on most commercial sites it's mostly for tracking and YouTube is pretty much an exception
id and vevery good website these days rewrite their URLs to avoid putting these IDs after the ? so on most commercial sites it's mostly for tracking and YouTube is pretty much an exception
Dataline@luana this campaign is overall good because oftentimes, this will only discard information that is easily recoverable, and generally we err on the side of privacy. only removing the si= and utm_*= parameters and experimenting to see which parameters you can get away with removing is accessible to anyone who can understand the very simple URI parameters syntax, which my 14yo does. so I think we can just expound on this first pass. my organization has been doing this for years
Helical = |
⟩@Uglesett @luana yeah, usually just looking for
Caching servers often need to easily recognize them so they don’t just think a different tracking link means they need to generate a totally new page, so it’s pretty rare for them to be something totally random
si or utm or source or ref does the trick those 4 are all ive ever seen lol Caching servers often need to easily recognize them so they don’t just think a different tracking link means they need to generate a totally new page, so it’s pretty rare for them to be something totally random
(((Ttown)))🌐✌
noodlejetski 
@Ttown @luana @Uglesett there's the webapp at https://linkcleaner.app/ by @corbin that's quite handy
Tyler 
серафими многоꙮчитїи@luana @Uglesett I'm glad someone said it! I thought it was an issue, and checked with the share button (producing a youtu.be link) and thought "huh, I must have been wrong, that person on the Internet seems to be saying it with a high degree of confidence and my quick check agrees"
(Obviously I would notice if I was actually editing a YouTube URL and removing all references to what I was linking to, I would hope...)
Airikr 
monkee 
aww-yawn
non-obese Fiona 
🔜 BornHack
Bizcochito 
@Uglesett "all after ? Can be removed" fun misinfo, qnd this does not prevent people from shating tracking like its done in amazon with path params instead of queryparams xD
nicole mikołajczyk
Carsten RaddatzFortunately, there are Clean URL and Clear URL type browser extensions that help you do this automatically. Check what is available for your browser. :)
fbievan (powered by REAL polymaths)
Toni Aittoniemi@Uglesett In Youtube links you want to only preserve the ”?v=(randomletters)” part up to the first & sign but not including the &
Theo Honohan@gimulnautti @Uglesett The & is just a delimiter and (as of right now) Youtube will strip a trailing & out. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_string)
As another post has mentioned, there are other parameters you might want to preserve in Youtube links.
Mx. Luna Corbden
Frost, glow wolf 🐺
@Uglesett Not everything after a ? can always be removed, for instance with youtube.com/watch?v=(barf) the v=(barf) bit is the video ID and you need that. But most things can go!
Lizzie she/her@Uglesett share and practice
chris actual@Uglesett Like the old saying from the 1930's:
"If its after the question mark, yeet it into the dark"
rakoo@Uglesett
You can even do that automatically thanks to uBlock Origin, you need to activate the "AdGuard URL Tracking Protection" list (for some reason it's not activated by default) and all tracking shit in the url is removed
You can even do that automatically thanks to uBlock Origin, you need to activate the "AdGuard URL Tracking Protection" list (for some reason it's not activated by default) and all tracking shit in the url is removed
Juho Mäntysalo
Osteopenia Powers ,@Uglesett
Thank you for this clear explainer. Yes! Remove the tracking gibberish in URLs you post.
Thank you for this clear explainer. Yes! Remove the tracking gibberish in URLs you post.
IAintShootinMis@Uglesett I leave it if it's mastodon just for the benefit of knowing brands should know I'm here and I care about democratization of tech
Juno Jove
Sunny
irelephantAlso: when sharing reddit links, make sure they're normal links and not /s/ links (eg, reddit.com/s/efFde3FS vs https://www.reddit.com/r/Lemmy/comments/14h88gb/ )
Stellae Alis 
@Uglesett Enough people have already mentioned that you can NOT just remove everything after "?", but there's more wrong here.
While YouTubes "si" query parameter can track you and who you send a link to, that is NOT true for static parameters like "utm_source" with "newsletter" or "utm_medium" with "email". All they tell the website operator is that the link was clicked X times from within the newsletter and Y times from an e-mail, but it's impossible to draw any connection here between two individuals that shared this link in some way.
These parameters aren't only important to advertisers (they usually aren't at all), but they are important to the website operator, especially if it's a small business with limited resources. It shows them if a newsletter is actually read or how many clicks they received from Mastodon and so on. It shows them that the mediums they are using are actually worth pursuing or if they should focus their attention on something else.
While YouTubes "si" query parameter can track you and who you send a link to, that is NOT true for static parameters like "utm_source" with "newsletter" or "utm_medium" with "email". All they tell the website operator is that the link was clicked X times from within the newsletter and Y times from an e-mail, but it's impossible to draw any connection here between two individuals that shared this link in some way.
These parameters aren't only important to advertisers (they usually aren't at all), but they are important to the website operator, especially if it's a small business with limited resources. It shows them if a newsletter is actually read or how many clicks they received from Mastodon and so on. It shows them that the mediums they are using are actually worth pursuing or if they should focus their attention on something else.
Håkan Geijer@Uglesett the last sentence is trivially incorrect as YouTube marks videos with: /watch?v=someletters
CellularMoose@Uglesett
Always, always, always make the url you share as short as technically possible.
Always, always, always make the url you share as short as technically possible.
Jonathan Lamothe
Sean C.@Uglesett i try my best to, but apologize for any i miss @pathfinder
Douglas Edwards 
@Uglesett More about the "UTM parameters" — Google Analytics tracking devilry — from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTM_parameters
As some other commenters have noted, it isn't literally true that EVERYTHING after the "?" can always be removed harmlessly. But you definitely want to get rid of the "utm=" garbage.
WokStation@Uglesett I mess about with them, often replacing "source=xyz" with "source=heinz" and the like. Childish, but it makes me happy.
Adam R. Wood@Uglesett Those using the Waterfox browser can right-click links and select "Copy Link Without Site Tracking" to get such things removed automatically.
ferricoxide@Uglesett I like Firefox's "copy clean link" option.
justbob@Uglesett Please stop spreading missinformation: The get-parameters are by no means always, not even usually for tracking. They can be used for that, but claiming that they always are or that they can always be safely removed is complete and utter nonsense!