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.


Along similar lines be careful of the images you post if you location tag your photos. A lot of the larger websites will strip the location data by default but some do not. I’ve saved a handful of photos from reviews off the internet and now have people’s home addresses where the photo is of the product in their living room or whatever.
If you go to the ‘map’ section of your photos app it arranges them by location.
You can turn location tagging off globally when photos are taken or usually when you go to share a photo there is an option buried in a menu to strip location data(on mobile).