mastodon.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit

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In case you missed it, all links on Mastodon count as 23 characters towards your limit, no matter how many characters the link really is.

So, you don't need to use link shorteners on Mastodon as they won't actually affect the link's length.

Mastodon does this because it's better for everyone's privacy to avoid link shortener services, it means people can see what they're clicking on, and the link won't stop working if the shortener service shuts down.

More info at:

➡️ fedi.tips/you-dont-need-link-s

fedi.tipsYou don’t need link shorteners on Mastodon | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse
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FeralRobots

@feditips This was a good design decision for accessibility & usability. We do complain sometimes about Mastodon's support for , but there are many small decisions like this that demonstrate people did *want* to do the right think.