diff --git a/packages/backend/src/remote/activitypub/request.ts b/packages/backend/src/remote/activitypub/request.ts
index 4904357d3..dae5d62d3 100644
--- a/packages/backend/src/remote/activitypub/request.ts
+++ b/packages/backend/src/remote/activitypub/request.ts
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ import { getUserKeypair } from '@/misc/keypair-store.js';
 import { User } from '@/models/entities/user.js';
 import { UserKeypair } from '@/models/entities/user-keypair.js';
 import { getResponse } from '@/misc/fetch.js';
+import { getApId } from './type.js';
 import { createSignedPost, createSignedGet } from './ap-request.js';
 import { apRequestChart, federationChart, instanceChart } from '@/services/chart/index.js';
 
@@ -128,7 +129,25 @@ export async function signedGet(_url: string, user: { id: User['id'] }): Promise
 			if (!isActivitypub(res.headers.get('Content-Type'))) {
 				throw new Error('invalid response content type');
 			}
-			return await res.json();
+
+			const data = await res.json();
+			// In theory, activitypub allows for `id` to be null for ephemeral
+			// objects, but we wouldn't be fetching those with signed get, since
+			// they are... ephemeral.
+			const id = new URL(getApId(data));
+			if (id.href !== url.href) {
+				// if the id and fetched url mismatch, treat it as if it was a redirect
+				// SECURITY: this is to prevent impersonation via improper media files
+				url = id;
+				// if this kind of "redirect" happens, there should be at most one more
+				// redirect since we now have the canonical url. setting to 2 because it
+				// will be decremented to 1 right away by the for loop.
+				if (redirects > 2) {
+					redirects = 2;
+				}
+			} else {
+				return data;
+			}
 		}
 	}