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.


Additional PSA: TikTok does the same. Also Instagram, but in my experience it doesn’t reveal the sharing user (yet).
Insta does. if you open it on web and you didn’t log in, the popup that beg you to log in will also include the user who shared it.
What the fuck
Instagram absolutely does reveal the sharing user
Holy moly, better pay attention