"I don't understand why people in the comments are faulting Facebook for this. Shortened URLs only have their place on Twitter where brevity is a requirement. Facebook doesn't exactly restrict you to 140 characters. Shortened URLs are nice for statistics, but to end users, they are horrible -- and I personally don't click on them. Not everyone knows what they're clicking on, and the URLs *could* be malicious. Personally, I hope Facebook bans all shortened URLs and that other sites do the same. The only place shortened URLs belong is on Twitter." - Tamar Weinberg