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.

  • vogi@piefed.socialEnglish
    2·
    10 days ago

    Me neither. Even tried to host it locally at home it the hopes that a private IP would go under googles radar, but after a month or so they blocked me as well. Same goes for LibreTube NewPipe and what not. All just fail on me after a while. The only way is to make it usable with uBlock + Unhook and Morphee Patches on Android. Its honestly not a bad experience except for the added setTimeout when Youtube notices. :)