The appearance of a link auto-generated from a URL and of an embedded hyperlink are identical, which makes it trivial to create misleading links:
[images omitted]
Some solutions brought up in that thread (as of writing this):
add a small UI element next to the link to indicate it's not auto-generated
include actual address next to the link
use different colors for links depending on if they're auto-generated or not
Another one I think is worth considering:
have confirmation dialog showing the actual address before directing them
... although as jakimfett points out in that thread, some tend to ignore those warnings and click through anyways. I think that's just a case of confirmation dialogs being used so often in other software that they become more annoying than useful, but that's just me.
From glitch-soc/mastodon issue #1162:
Some solutions brought up in that thread (as of writing this):
Another one I think is worth considering:
... although as jakimfett points out in that thread, some tend to ignore those warnings and click through anyways. I think that's just a case of confirmation dialogs being used so often in other software that they become more annoying than useful, but that's just me.