They already know your IP address, you're using their website/app.
It's either to track outbound clicks (And potentially block them if they're harmful, YouTube and Steam do that), or a much more unlikely option is to hide the referrer from the target site (Since browsers have better ways to handle that now, but old ones don't)
Addendum: Yes we know that you think ml/hexbear/grad are tankies and or .world are a bunch of liberals but it gets old quickly. Try and come up with new material.
This is not the place to start flamewars between Lemmy, Mbin and Piefed.
They already know your IP address, you're using their website/app.
It's either to track outbound clicks (And potentially block them if they're harmful, YouTube and Steam do that), or a much more unlikely option is to hide the referrer from the target site (Since browsers have better ways to handle that now, but old ones don't)
Wouldn’t it be easier to just scan the original post for harmful links?
Websites can change