I don’t know if there’s something I’m missing but it’s not clear to me where the tracking link is with those links, or if there’s even a tracking link at all.
I posted a link like this earlier that didn’t get removed although I still got a notification that it would
http://xhslink.com/a/M02fJK3FBAT3
Click at your own risk I have no clue if this link tracks
It tracks. It’s just all being done server side. We basically need an anonymizer version of hexreplybot, if that’s even possible with rednote’s framework.
I’ve removed the InsidiousTrackers report, because to be honest I’m not sure if these links have any tracking in the typical sense. It’s quite annoying though, so maybe an admin could look into this if there’s a way to make the bot ignore Xiaohongshu links. For now I’ll just ignore these reports when they pop up. Good thing the bot isn’t a moderator.
I would be shocked if Xiaohongshu doesn’t use URL arguments for tracking with how permission thirsty that app is and how quickly the algorithm hones.
The link has an automatic redirect which takes you to a different URL with tracking parameters baked in. So you need to follow the redirect in order to remove the tracking parameters.
Here’s an example (possible tracking parameters redacted). Random video from my feed.
http://xhslink.com/a/abcdefg1234567Redirects to
https://www.xiaohongshu.com/discovery/item/6786cfb3000000000100860e?app_platform=android&ignoreEngage=true&app_version=8.59.0&share_from_user_hidden=true&xsec_source=app_share&type=video&xsec_token=XXXXX%3D&author_share=1&xhsshare=CopyLink&shareRedId=XXXXX&apptime=1737091379&share_id=XXXXXNow you can remove everything after and including the question mark ?
https://www.xiaohongshu.com/discovery/item/6786cfb3000000000100860e
At least I think it works, let me know if you don’t get a video talking about the Jakarta Method.
Still requires the xsec_token in there. The URL when linking to a video is invalid without that token (but still works for profiles etc), which makes me think that it still resolves to something on their backend, but it’d get more expensive to process it that way with so many users.
Anyway, the bot was demodded by an admin when the new Lemmy update came out so people can share their rednote links willy-nilly for now. There’s a reason this issue cropped up now, because the Lemmy update didn’t take into account cases like this which use rainbow tables to obscure all the tracking info. Things like Instagram (instagram.com/share/a/blahblah), TikTok etc. will all leak information, which is why I think the admin’s reasoning for this bot’s removal was misguided. As far as I know, rednote shouldn’t leak personal information to people following your links, unlike TikTok… I think. It might recommend the sharer’s account though, but that’s just conjecture, I haven’t used it long enough to test.
@CARCOSA@hexbear.net admins should make the call on whether to continue allowing xhslink URLs or not.
Also note that TikTok links are not being removed by the bot because it cannot, but no one shares TikTok links here because of the site culture that we’ve inculcated, though this relies on people continuing to adhere to it themselves.
Could just be me but this leads me to a page to download rednote, it’s all in mandarin tho so I’m just guessing based on the icons. Some other links in this thread lead to the actual app for me
The issue with that, unless I’m mistaken, is then it wont open up the video in browser and asks you to open it through the app. I haven’t tried on desktop but it doesn’t appear to open in a browser window with the shortened link.
I assume when it generates a link it bakes tracking into it. It would be weird for them not to have any, but the url they generate doesn’t have the typical tracking stuff.
Just delete everything after the ?
Yeah but the problem is then it doesn’t seem to open up the video in browser and asks you to open it through the app.
Trackin round 2. Either through the link or though the app.
Talking out of my ass because I don’t know what links are getting removed for you or what the links look like:
Delete all of the URL params (everything from the
?to the end of the URL).So if your link looks like
https://hexbear.net/post/4294116?scrollToComments=false, edit it to look likehttps://hexbear.net/post/4294116.The xhs links don’t have any, its just a single code. It looks like this. Maybe it has a tracker built in.
http://xhslink.com/a/###########That is a shortened url that redirects to the full url. You can see the real url by simply visiting the first one in a browser and seeing where it redirects.
The issue I encounter is that if I remove the rest of the stuff after the question mark, it presents a page to open in the app instead of opening in the browser.
