Well afaik, most of the creators put their stuff up on shorts as well. And on YT you’ve the freedom of signing up with whatever email, using a VPN and adblocking services. Or you could totally use the popular frontends as well. And I’ve seen people use hashtags in shorts. I personally don’t use hashtags much so I don’t know if you’ll experience the same thing.

Isn’t it possible to follow the same people on YT shorts or something where you have more control over your privacy?

I’m on the apk from the signal website. This showed up for me as well.