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.
til people don’t reflexively strip out everything after the ? unless you know exactly what it’s doing
yup. all you need is the v=vkjlhaswlikuj3hg4 thing. that is the only thing you need, as it identifies the video. Strip everything else.
tbf, it’s intentionally designed to be malicious and deceiving