@argv_minus_one@mastodon.sdf.org
Post #2110389
2026-04-27 15:21 UTC
@ClarusPlusPlus
I've made posts with YouTube links that also didn't get a preview. Like this one: https://mastodon.sdf.org/@argv_minus_one/115498631738824928
I notice that when I view your two posts on my instance, *both* of them don't get a preview. I wonder if the admins on my instance have turned off preview generation for YouTube in particular? Maybe to save bandwidth and/or CPU power?
Replies (1)
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@argv_minus_one@mastodon.sdf.org 2026-04-27 15:21
@ClarusPlusPlus Fun fact: because all Mastodon instances must separately fetch the linked page to generate a preview, a link that goes viral on Mastodon can generate a large surge of traffic to the linked page and overload the server. Everybody gets a preview but nobody can see the actual page! All the more reason to code one's website efficiently, I suppose. Besides viral Mastodon posts, websites also get a lot of traffic from AI crawler bots these days.