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.

  • partofthevoice@lemmy.zipEnglish
    16·
    6 天前

    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.

    • Dymonika@lemmy.mlEnglish
      3·
      6 天前

      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).

      • partofthevoice@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2·
        6 天前

        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.

        • Dymonika@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          4 天前

          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.

  • username@piefed.zipEnglish
    1·
    4 天前

    I share everything through URLCheck on Android. You can also set it as your default browser to clean every link you click as well.

  • asmr@feddit.nlEnglish
    9·
    7 天前

    Since 4 March 2026 I am seeing “is=” in some YouTube links instead of “si=”, also with the 16 character ID.

  • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    6·
    7 天前

    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.

    • irelephant [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      2·
      6 天前

      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.

  • Krompus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    6 天前

    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.

    • Dymonika@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      6 天前

      Yeah, that’s certainly a patch. NewPipe, PipePipe, etc. all also remove ?si=.

  • NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2·
    6 天前

    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.

    • Dymonika@lemmy.mlEnglish
      6·
      6 天前

      That app seems not as transparent as it could be since it doesnt give any detail on the removed stuff; I recommend URLCheck instead, which is fully transparent about all trackers and even lets you pick which ones to remove at will.

  • Rimu@piefed.socialEnglish
    1142·
    6 天前

    YSK PieFed automatically strips that out.

    Edit: posts only, not in comments.

      • MonaySimpson@lemmy.mlEnglish
        9·
        8 天前

        I’m preeeeety sure PipePipe is the successor. Or atleast a different fork with more updates.

        • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          8 天前

          You are correct. Or, rather, not the successor but an independent fork (doesn’t necessarily adopt upstream changes).

          I don’t know what the hell I saw just the other day. I am 100% certain that I read that some GitHub project I was looking at said it was a fork of PipePipe, or in reverse, that “you should use NewPipe as it supersedes this repo”.

          🤨 I need to dive into my browser history…

          Edit: ah! It was PipePipe! I just misinterpreted this line:

          NewPipe, reimagined: faster, more stable, and packed with more features.

          I took this to mean:

          NewPipe is a reimagined fork of this project, which is faster, more stable, and packed with more features.

          🤦‍♂️💁‍♂️ D’oh.

  • Victor@lemmy.worldEnglish
    37·
    8 天前

    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!

    • Crescent@fedinsfw.appEnglish
      31·
      8 天前

      Same here, the awful thing is if they click on it, they cannot see the comments under the video and can only “reply” to you. Not sure what that should do, since the link has already been shared.

  • The Velour Fog @lemmy.worldEnglish
    351·
    8 天前

    I remember telling this to people on reddit and getting downvoted to oblivion while redditors squawked “who tf cares bro”

    • asmr@feddit.nlEnglish
      5·
      7 天前

      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.