Enemy at the Gate

I temporary redirect requests from unwanted locations back to those locations. If the HTTP referrer is the same location where the link was on, then users might notice a short flicker on the screen. And can try again, greeted with another flicker.

I know that I might hurt unsuspecting potential readers, but I don’t want to support those sites or services they are using in any way. Others might be happy about the increased traffic; I don’t care.

Here’s my relevant nginx config:

map $http_referer $referrer_unwanted {
  ~facebook\.com/ 1;
  ~fb\.me/ 1;
  ~instagram\.com/ 1;
  ~news\.ycombinator\.com/ 1;
  ~reddit\.com/ 1;
  ~threads\.net/ 1;
  ~twitter\.com/ 1;
  ~t\.co/ 1;
  ~x\.com/ 1;

  default 0;
}

if ($referrer_unwanted) { return 302 $http_referer; }

Update 2024-04-10

I also added the same for tagged outbound links like `https://exmaple.com/linked-page?ref=example.net`. Ghost does this by default. This feels like those sites are taking ownership of the link to elevate their own importance, while at the same time reducing the privacy of their visitors. An ordinary HTTP referrer is good enough and can be avoided if visitors want to.

if ($arg_ref) { return 302 https://$arg_ref; }

-- Response ended

-- Page fetched on Tue May 21 09:29:16 2024