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1. Embed this notice
   FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 01:22:27 JST FediTips has moved!

   Hello new people, welcome! 👋

   You don't need to use link shorteners on Mastodon!

   All links in Mastodon posts count as 23 characters towards your limit, no matter how long they actually are.

   #FediTips #MastoTips #Mastodon

   • Embed this notice
     Simon Müller :sparkles_trans: (rush@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 01:24:06 JST Simon Müller :sparkles_trans:

     in reply to

     @feditips I actually didn't know that, is this something specific to mastodon or does other software on the fediverse implement this too?

   • Embed this notice
     FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 01:29:30 JST FediTips has moved!

     in reply to

     • Simon Müller :sparkles_trans:

     @Rush

     I'm not sure if others do, but the others tend to have much larger limits (or make it easier for admins to set larger limits).

   • Embed this notice
     Simon Müller :sparkles_trans: (rush@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 01:31:09 JST Simon Müller :sparkles_trans:

     in reply to

     @feditips that's also true, I guess other software doesn't need it as much :P

   • Embed this notice
     FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 01:52:26 JST FediTips has moved!

     in reply to

     • Petra van Cronenburg

     @NatureMC

     To be fair, a few people do use them as a cheaper alternative to domain names, I've seen some activists use them on real life posters for example.

     But, yeah, that doesn't apply to vast majority of shortener links!

   • Embed this notice
     Petra van Cronenburg (naturemc@mastodon.online)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 01:52:28 JST Petra van Cronenburg

     in reply to

     @feditips I think that most people use link shorteners *because* they (not only the tracker company) can track their visitors.😉

   • Embed this notice
     Kevin Russell (kevinrns@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 03:02:50 JST Kevin Russell

     in reply to

     @feditips 4

     Thats great news.
     In a related subject, markup shouldnt hide urls, Maston should reveal the url/domain, should display them beside.

   • Embed this notice
     Kevin Karhan :verified: (kkarhan@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 07:04:03 JST Kevin Karhan :verified:

     in reply to

     @feditips In fact, #LinkShorteners are harmful since they prevent #Previews and obfuscate the destination, bricking #ShinigamiEyes in the process...

   • Embed this notice
     FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 09:15:56 JST FediTips has moved!

     in reply to

     • Kevin Russell

     @kevinrns

     The URL is visible on a computer if you hover the mouse over it without clicking. Equivalents on mobile are trickier, but it's a general problem with browsers as most links are behind links rather than just written URLs.

   • Embed this notice
     FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 09:35:15 JST FediTips has moved!

     in reply to

     • Charlie Owen
     • Laura Lis Scott

     @LLS @whalecoiner

     Of course.

     And yeah, the services eventually shut down and break all their links. Even worse, someone might take over their domain and redirect the links elsewhere to something nasty.

   • Embed this notice
     Laura Lis Scott (lls@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 09:35:16 JST Laura Lis Scott

     in reply to

     • Charlie Owen

     @feditips @whalecoiner Link-shortener & proxy URLs are mystery meat. They track you. They inject a middleman between you and what you’re hoping to see/read. They slow down the web. Over time, they disappear, breaking connections.

     Bitly, tco, AppleNews, Flipboard, whatever … No thanks, I don’t care what it is, if it’s a link-shortener or proxy URL, I scroll on by.

   • Embed this notice
     FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 10:08:55 JST FediTips has moved!

     in reply to

     • StaringAtClouds

     @staringatclouds

     Thank you for your service! 👏

   • Embed this notice
     StaringAtClouds (staringatclouds@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 02-Nov-2023 10:08:56 JST StaringAtClouds

     in reply to

     @feditips I go out of my way to avoid using short links when posting on mastodon as short links can be used to track people

     I follow the link in my browser until I get to the actual site

     Then I strip away everything after any "?" In the url & resubmit it to get rid of any tracking goo & dribble

     Then I cut & paste the resulting url in my mastotoot

   • Embed this notice
     EveryPizza :mastodon: (everypizza@social.vivaldi.net)'s status on Sunday, 05-Nov-2023 02:04:19 JST EveryPizza :mastodon:

     in reply to

     @feditips why 23

   • Embed this notice
     FediTips has moved! (feditips@mstdn.social)'s status on Sunday, 05-Nov-2023 02:04:19 JST FediTips has moved!

     in reply to

     • EveryPizza :mastodon:

     @EveryPizza

     It's how many characters were on Twitter's original link shortener.

     The original idea was to show that shorteners aren't needed on here because the link is the same length.