Youtube blocks the hexbear server because it detects hexbear as a bot. Some users don’t set the thumbnail manually.

You can hypothetically make the thumbnail any image you want, though it’s best to have a thumbnail that is related to the post link.

You click “upload image” button on hexbear. Pick an image from your computer. Try to use an image with a small file size. (Less than 1 MB, preferably around 256 KB). Once you upload the image to hexbear, copy/paste the URL into the thumbnail field.

Its because tankie.tube responds with content that allows Lemmy servers to set a thumbnail whereas youtube doesn’t.

Edit: after a bit of testing, you can set the thumbnail URL, though it doesn’t federate. Instead of uploading an image to hexbear you could just set it to the youtube thumbnail URL https://youtubethumbnailimage.com/blog/how-to-get-youtube-thumbnail-url

Edit: slightly unrelated, if you add @ in front of the name of the bot in your bio it should make it into a link to the bot, right now it is a mailto: link

ⓘ This user is suspected of being a cat. Please report any suspicious behavior.