Wow, what a terrible way to implement this! Even links to other Strava activities from within activities, or within club posts are gone! Imagine if Facebook's anti-spam filter simply removed anything with a dot in it 🤣

Really keen to see this fixed and implemented correctly...

Huh, it's hard to believe this. I REALLY hope that Strava is simply not rendering the links currently and they have not actually deleted anything from their database. I, for one, had a lot of important links to race results and whatnot. If they really deleted the links (and anything with a dot), they better have good backups to bring everything back exactly as it was.

The communication about this issue is really lacking. I think there should be an announcement on the front page and/or an email to every user. If it is about merely not rendering the links, it's probably important to not modify any of your descriptions etc while this is being fixed, in order to avoid actually losing the links.

I'm eagerly waiting for an update. If it turns out that Strava has actually deleted parts of theirs users' valuable data, this is really serious. If I cannot trust Strava even in the most basic task of retaining my data, there is no way I will ever subscribe again.

I'm slightly worried that it is more than just a UI/rendering change, as when getting activity title and descriptions via their API, it also returns it without any links.

Granted, their API may also be stripping these out from the raw data, but.......

It has been removed including from the Strava clubs! Incredible! Please increase the level of priority to fix it

Take a look here...

https://strava.app.link/tMusX2iKlNb

Hello all, please find more information regarding this here. Thank you. 

Now that the Community Hub has been updated to its new form, re-pinging this thread because this is still an ongoing issue & Strava has not yet laid out a plan for remediating & fixing the lost user data.

Marya — the link you provided a month ago is broken. I remember it working before the Community Hub UI/UX update, so it might still be around but the link is not correct — mind sharing a new link to that post here for posterity? I also remember that post saying that Strava updates regarding this issue would be posted there, which is why I think many of us would be interested in having it handy.

This is devastating. For the past 2+ years on every single activity I have linked a song that I attribute to that activity, either in the description or comments. These were usually Spotify, Youtube, or Soundcloud links. Every single one of those song links for every single activity over those 2+ years is now gone. I’m completely letdown as a Strava subscriber by this overarching attempt to “ensure athlete safety.”  This feels like Strava attempting to protect us whether we like it or not. Also, the implementation of this was done with a complete lack of forethought. If there is any way for these to be restored, I would be very grateful, if only to save them for my own personal memory.

Signed, Extremely Disgruntled Strava User

Hi izzy, 

Thanks for flagging re: the link -- the URL has been updated.

Best,

Marya

Same here. I have contacted the support and asked them a) whether the urls have been removed finally or if they will be restored at some later point and b) what happens to activities with stripped urls when I edit and save them - would that mean that a theoretically restorable url will be lost by the edit and save process. I only received a standard boilerplate response without answers to my questions. When I asked again for concrete answers to my questions, the support request was marked solved without further notice. I opened another request and asked again for answers. This sescond request was closed, too, again without any notice. As a paying subscriber, I never encountered elsewehere a similar arrogance paired with so much incomptence. Consequently, I have canceled my subscription. This have become a too frustrating experience...

Okay, I have been patiently waiting for weeks now but it's getting a tad absurd now that we are still not being able to link to our own websites or helpful articles on the web. 

Please update the community if this is the new policy for the future as this would absolutely make me cancel my premium subscription I have had since day 1 being a member here. 

I have to say, even though it doesn’t make *that* much difference in the grand scheme, blocking all external links completely breaks one of the key elements of a fun online community. People like to share stuff, it’s basic social media (this is also (one of many reasons) why Instagram sucks). I’m unimpressed Strava.

If this really is the reason, Strava would be much better off either creating a blacklist of sites that won’t link, or creating a “whitelist” of acceptable sites and not including their competitors in said list. Blocking everything is a terrible decision. The reason Strava took off in the first place is because of the social-media based philosophy and design.

This is absolutely embarrassing and inexcusable. You need to fire both the product owner that approved and the developer that implemented this feature to “protect” your users. You clearly don’t know a thing about how people use your platform if this is the kindergarten level of implementation you go through to remove spam from your platform. Like, you’re joking right? You’re a $300 million/year company and you’re treating us like you have a user base of 20 beta testers right now. I cancelled my subscription over this, you clearly have a disdain for your users or you really are that clueless. 

​@Marya is there an answer to the links yet? How can you not provide your consumers with answers on this topic yet?

​@Marya  How come all other social media platforms and other activity tracking platforms like Garmin Connect don’t have this issue? This sounds like censorship. How is “inauthentic content” defined by @Strava? What’s an example? 

“Recently our team has been dealing with a sustained campaign of inauthentic content posted to the platform and as a result we have taken certain necessary steps to safeguard the community. One of the many measures we have taken is filtering links across multiple app surfaces. This was necessary to protect the community from harmful and violating content. We recognize that this has impacted many of you. We are also aware that non-links were inadvertently included in this filtering and we apologize for the disruption this has caused.

Community safety is our highest priority, and we will take any action necessary to protect them. As this is an ongoing situation, we do not currently have a timeline for when the filtering of links will end, but we appreciate the community’s patience as we work to keep everyone on Strava safe.

-----

UPDATE: As part of our continued efforts to reduce inauthentic content from being posted to our channels, and in order to maintain a safe environment for our community, we are temporarily turning the Community Hub into read only mode. During this time you will still be able to view existing content and access resources, but certain functionalities like posting and kudoing will not be available. 

We will be diligently working to bring you a new experience as we migrate our Community Hub onto a new platform. We expect the forum to be fully operational in the next few months. 

We apologize for the inconvenience and we thank you for your patience. You can check back here at any time for additional updates.”

It's been weeks since this poor decision was made. It's obviously not acceptable to be unable to post links on social platform like Strava. The lack of any communication from the platform regarding the expected timeframe of resolution of this issue is appalling. I'm going to cancel our family subscription and continue with free account only for a while. The recent change of pricing, limitations to API for third party platforms and now URL blocking is just a bit too much.

There are athletes who are brand ambassadors and they use referral links as part of their duties.

This types of measures indicates that Strava has poor decision making that directly impacts the large cohort of users.

Strava must reconsider this approach and use A/B testing before rolling out such features. 

Obviously, the current implementation is a direct result of exceptionally poor engineering skills and must be immediately reverted. 
The old data has to be restored from the backups. 
 

The lack of official response to this topic says so much. I think @grumbledook was spot on with his assessment. This is being done to avoid people to link to Komoot. 

I am not a Komoot user myself but if you really fear the competition THIS much you should consider improving your own product before taking such childish measurements. 

Cancelled my premium and I won't resub if this isn't been fixed. 

I encountered this bug when trying to add a link to my official race results on an activity.  Blocking all URLs is so incredibly stupid.  It’s like using a nuclear bomb to swat a fly.

THere is no ned to pay for strava with this user-alienation policies

I am considering unsubscribing from Premium. This is annoying. I tried to help someone I follow with a suggestion for a dropper post and I can’t share the link! 

Me too! i cant stand this level of alienation of paying customers!

I let this subscription run and not renew next year

Bumping this thread, because it's needs to get more attention.

The words “maddeningly unhelpful” don’t even begin to describe the official response. ​@Marya, ​@Scout, has there been any movement on this? ​@k1zmt probably put it most accurately and succinctly:

​@JbalColgate ​@VikAnis ​@tpiszel ​@BramH and anyone else who currently has a Strava Premium subscription: you should absolutely cancel that immediately until Strava can implement a fix! Maybe just maybe they’ll realize how silly their “solution” has been if it starts to affect their subscriber base...