"Facebook truncates most URLs, so a 250+ character URL is not so noticeable with Facebook's thumbnail format. Plus, if the message is sent via Facebook Messages, it might get sent to one's email, and trusting the originating sender, he might not be compelled to look at the preview and might just click on this (malicious?) link. It's tricky. It probably happened thousands of times which is why this happened to begin with. (As for branded URLs, I have no problem with that -- see my reply to Robin below.) I don't think this has anything to do with innovation at all and think that's more of a comparison to apples and oranges." - Tamar Weinberg