You certainly have the right, but it feels like you’re using a club to hit a gnat. Sure, it’s a persistent gnat, but a club just isn’t the right tool, and makes a much bigger mess of things than is warranted.
I appreciate that viglink started doing something new, so it was unanticipated. I understand this has been bumped to management, though frankly I’m not impressed with their willingness to consider this important at their level.
But why not just delete the link in question, replace with “[url for goatse removed here because we couldn’t keep it from forming an active link]”? Or just spoiler box it? Both of those solutions would have been just as easy, with the added benefit of keeping the rest of the thread around.