Greetings. I'll probably post this occasionally. I'm sometimes asked why many of my posts here include an empty white box or a photo of a darling cat -- for no obvious reasons.

#Mastodon -- like #Twitter -- may automatically include photos pulled from a website mentioned in an included URL. The posting user has no direct control over this and whether or not it occurs is unpredictable without manually examining every referenced site's page markup ahead of time -- impractical.

I object to having essentially randomly selected images associated with my posts without my control or knowledge. The only way to absolutely prevent this is for a user to include their *own* image with the original post.

That's what I do, here as I did on Twitter. Unless I feel comfortable with a known and expected image from a page, I will insert a small white box or a lightweight photo of my wonderful Leela the Siamese Snowshoe. Over time I will endeavor to expand this for less repetition, though how anyone could get tired of seeing Leela is difficult to imagine. Thanks all. Best, -L