# External Link Shield – Exit Confirmation & Trust Gating

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/external-link-shield-exit-confirmation-trust-gating/392962
**Category:** Theme component
**Created:** [January 8, 2026, 11:21am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/external-link-shield-exit-confirmation-trust-gating/392962 "2026-01-08T11:21:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 12

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### Author: ![joo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/joo/32/334852_2.png) [@joo](https://meta.discourse.org/u/joo)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2026, 1:34pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/external-link-shield-exit-confirmation-trust-gating/392962/12 "2026-09-07T13:34:10Z")

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When previewing a topic in the Topic Preview Modal, clicking an image to enlarge it (opening the lightbox) also triggers the “exit confirmation” modal from the External Link Shield component — even though these image links are not external links. They are locally uploaded images served from our own domain/CDN, not hotlinked or external images.

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/external-link-shield-exit-confirmation-trust-gating/392962)._