It also reduces the possibility of being tracked
this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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The images would be hosted by the Lemmy instance though, so how would this enable tracking? It's not the same as email.
it depends if your Lemmy instance is configured to copy and host images, or proxy images (in which case they won't get your IP but they'll know when you look), or neither (they get your IP if they're running their own instance or self-hosting the image itself)
I just sent myself a PM to test:
programming.dev shows the image as hosted from retrolemmy.com
it might also be currently bugged: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/5538
You can embed external images in Lemmy. Unless image proxying is enabled by the target's instance, tracking individuals is possible.
e.g. 
Yeah, I would like an explanation too.
added
That would be nice. Maybe as an opt-in option for users.
Opt out, would serve first time users better.
You could open an issue on lemmy's github for this