YouTube: Short views vs direct or unknown

Hey guys!
I’ve been making some shorts lately and have been promoting on my Facebook pages. When I look at analytics I’ll see external, direct/unknown and shorts. I would think external would be the highest however when I make a short majority views are direct or unknown. So I was wondering where would those be coming?

I read somewhere that short views could also be labeled as direct/unknown is that true?

If shorts are viewed from the browser or desktop, more often than not, it'll appear as the traffic source that sent the view.

But if your viewers watch the shorts video primarily from the mobile app, then it shows the traffic source as shorts feed.

id assume so since i find that direct views only appear on shorts usually. it is strange though since it is very on and off. one houe i will get 0 and the next hour i will get 5k from that source. it can also be caused by people using adblockers and other tracking protection, but this isnt whats happening in this case.