🐛 Bug - YouTube embed links open blocked or malformed URLs when opened in new tab on SSW People profiles

[0xharkirat]

Requested by: @0xharkirat via YakShaver.ai 🦬
cc: @0xharkirat, @Calinator444, @bradystroud, @jakebayliss, @jeoffreyfischer @adamcogan

Hi Team!

  🟥  Watch the video (2 min 17 sec)

  Url from screen share: Hark Singh People Profile

Pain

On SSW People profile pages, YouTube videos embedded in the profile play correctly within the page, but clicking the YouTube link to open the video in a new tab results in a blocked page or a malformed URL. The generated URL appears to include unexpected embed and referrer parameters (e.g. referencing ssw.com.au), causing YouTube to block playback. Copying the same URL and pasting it directly into a new browser tab works correctly. The issue may be related to Cloudflare path rewrites or embed handling across app services.

Acceptance Criteria

1. Clicking a YouTube embed link from an SSW People profile opens the video successfully in a new tab on youtube.com
2. The generated YouTube URL is clean and valid (no malformed embed or referrer parameters that cause blocking)
3. Behavior is consistent across all profiles with YouTube embeds
4. Opening the YouTube video via click behaves the same as copying and pasting the link manually
5. The fix works in production and local builds
6. Cloudflare path rewrites do not interfere with YouTube embed or outbound link behavior

Reproduce Steps

1. Open an SSW People profile that contains a YouTube embed
2. Play the embedded video within the profile and confirm it works
3. Click the YouTube link or 'open in new tab' option from the embed
4. Observe that the new tab opens a blocked YouTube page or a malformed URL
5. Copy the same URL from the address bar
6. Paste the URL into a new browser tab
7. Observe that the video plays successfully on YouTube

Screenshot

Figure: YouTube embed link opens a blocked or invalid URL when opened in a new tab, but works when the same link is copied and pasted