Strange Facebook favicon behavior

Perhaps this is nothing, but I might as well document it anyway. So I was browsing my news feed a few moments ago when I noticed MG had liked a few tumblr posts. So not one to ignore, I clicked through.

Screen Shot 2012-06-28 at 10.32.33.png

I opened a few extra tabs but when I opened the second thumbnail, a link to Path’s blog, I noticed the Facebook favicon in the corner.

Screen Shot 2012-06-28 at 10.30.56.png

This is the link from the image above:

http://blog.path.com/post/26045642389/pathspeaksmorelanguages?og=1&fb_action_ids=10101751342721963%2C10101751341574263&fb_action_types=tumblr-feed%3Alike&fb_source=feed_opengraph

I figured it was a bug, but then again this is Facebook, there’s probably something a little more sinister at work here. I opened a few more links to see if they behaved similarly. Strangely, they do display the Facebook favicon, but only for a fraction of a second before it’s swapped with the proper favicon. It’s barely noticeable. Chrome shows that they are links to external websites, so why does it load Facebook momentarily?

Screen Shot 2012-06-28 at 10.39.15.png

This is probably totally normal, but this is Facebook, no doubt there’s something sleazy at play here. It’s probably no different to the way Twitter force a t.co route, either way I’m keen to learn more about it. Maybe one of you guys can shine a light on this?

Further Reading thanks to @jixop

How is facebook tracking our (outgoing) URLs?
http://mattiasgeniar.be/2011/03/30/how-is-facebook-tracking-our-urls/

The insanity of URL shorteners and tracking
http://mattiasgeniar.be/2012/06/18/the-insanity-of-url-shorteners-and-tracking/

 
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