Please accept this in the ethos of no stupid questions.
The only programming I do is to defy tracking by deleting hash lines after ? In the url.
Some popular sites I am embarrassed to admit to even viewing have found a way around this by offering me share links without the ?.
It’s Instagram I am ashamed to mention.
What do I do to get rid of the tracking now?
Removing referral info from URL parameters does very little to defeat tracking. Facebook, and others, can track most of your browsing history with cookies alone.
If you’re literally signed into a Facebook account and using their services then you can’t realistically avoid tracking….
It’s not about defeating tracking of yourself, but who you share the link to, your relationship with them.
Without that tracking parameter, if the URL is common among many people (which it usually is, since usually one thing has one URL for everyone), then it’s impossible to know who shared to who.
If you have the tracking parameter, then the service can know that you shared the URL, as well as who you shared it to, being able to put that information together and thus built more of a profile on your social connections.