To sanitise links typically found in e-mails or on commercial websites, there's roughly two things you can do:

If you know which website is meant, open that website yourself by typing https:// followed by the website's name into the address bar of your brouwser.

If you have an account on that website and were already logged in: logout and reopen the website from scratch as described above (this minimises chances that the link will contain information identifying you or your account).

Look in the menu for News etc. (in this case I had to look under "Perpetrators" in the menu). Open the page that is referenced to.

Continue at .

Alternatively, click on the link in the mail and wait for the intended website and webpage to be opened.

If you have an account on that website and were already logged in: logout and reopen the website from scratch as described above (this minimises chances that the link will contain information identifying you or your account).

Look for unneccesary trailing junk (possibly identifying you) at the end of the link in the address bar of your browser. Usually everything starting with a question mark can be removed.

Test: ensure that the final link actually works.

@irishphoto

@waxy Google just cannot keep itself from killing its own products, can it? I'm honestly surprised that YouTube still exists, tbh.

@eloquence
Having posts or other indexed/indexable content refer to URL shorteners is dangerous for referrals/archiving/…:

#ArchiveTeam, the people behind e.g. the effort to archive US government websites in a hurry—before they were deleted/changed in an even greater hurry by the current administration, write about #URLShorteners:

"Such services are a ticking timebomb. If they go away, get hacked, or sell out, millions of links will be lost (see Wikipedia: Link Rot)."
https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/URLTeam

@dutchnewsnl :

I *never* boost toots that contain one or more "shortened URL's" (if a third party is involved). It would be great if erveryone did like me.

A "make internet safer" request: please stop using "URL shorteners".

They are not necessary, they invade the privacy of people who click such links (such services sell "visitor" behaviour"), "visitors" do not know to which website they will be sent AND NEITHER DO YOU (it may work for you today, but there are no guarantees - at all).

More info (in Dutch) in https://www.security.nl/posting/879514/rant+-+onveiliginternetten_nl.

Mastodon.social (like "my" instance) truncates the readable alternative of long URLs in a smart way, as can be seen in a toot from Dan Gillmor
(@dangillmor@mastodon.social) below (tap "Alt" for textual info "behind" the image).

There is NO REASON whatsoever (unless buff.ly pays you, which wil lead to even more Mastodonts hating you) to use *inherently risky* third party URL-shorteners.

As an alternative, you could set up a shortened URL service on your own website, like NOS.nl does. For example:

https://nos.nl/l/2558946

which actually is (readable but not clickable):

https:⧸⧸nos.nl/l/2558946

It opens:

https:⧸⧸nos.nl/liveblog/2558946-vs-en-israel-polsten-oost-afrikaanse-landen-over-gazaplan-trump

(I replaced https:// by https:⧸⧸ in the non-clickable links to prevent Mastodon from shortening those URL's).

@dangillmor@mastodon.social