X has started tracking what you share. But you can do something about it

Users are being warned to clean their links before sharing content, as X has introduced invasive tracking parameters.

X (formerly Twitter) is tracking its users via shared X links. While most users wouldn’t think to investigate URLs, certain people noticed links were getting longer and contained values not previously seen.

URLs generated from copying and pasting links on X show identifying information about those who shared the post.

For example, when copying a link on X, it shows a value that identifies how the user shared the post and on which site (app or desktop).

If you see “s=46” at the end of the URL, it indicates that the link was generated when a user clicked “copy link” on an iPhone via the X app.

Cybernews investigated the copy link option and found “s=20” at the end of the URL, which indicates the post was shared on Twitter's desktop and copied using the link button, according to Link Cleaner.

Another value is “t=,” which shows whether a post is actually going viral or being artificially inflated, as the t= signifier is unique to the session time and device.

Therefore, if there are repeated identical t= across a shared tweet’s URL, it's likely that the engagement is artificial and inflated by a botnet or coordinated sharing operations, said Link Cleaner.

This could be a way for X to monitor bot activity on its platform and flag users who may be violating its terms and conditions.

However, users report that t= is also connected to X users’ identities. The value is an encoded user ID, meaning that X can track who has viewed the link the initial user shared, according to software engineer Gergely Orosz.

There’s also “si=” to be aware of, which is directly related to the sharers or source ID. This tracking token shows how certain content is spreading across the internet.

It shows the platform what kind of content users are sharing. It's likely that X has introduced this to personalize users' feeds and deliver targeted content or ads based on their behavior.

Si= is predominantly used by YouTube and Spotify, which have been using the same method for a while now.

Developer and computer scientist Wesley Kambale said that when users share a YouTube link with another person, the platform will likely associate that content with both users' accounts and may push similar content to both accounts.

Clean your links

But there is a way to remove these identifiers when sharing content with other users. Simply delete the values before “?”

For example, this is a copied link URL from Kambale’s post:

• https://x.com/weskambale/status/1952305181955133871?a=RFELiAObBLe_jLlG8Ms&s=20

The only part of the URL needed to open the link is this:

• https://x.com/weskambale/status/1952305181955133871?

Removing all identifying information from the end of the URL doesn’t break the hyperlink, so users can still access shared content without tracking information.