Online safety and who can see my posts

[MaddieHU]

Dear community members,

When writing a post, you may have noticed the "Who can see my posts" option. This is referring to the level of visibility of your post and any subsequent replies.

What do the options mean?

The "Anyone” option means that your post and the replies to it will be visible to both community members and visitors to the community, including those who are not yet registered on HealthUnlocked.

Selecting "anyone" will allow others who are searching for similar topics you have written about to find your posts through the HealthUnlocked search feature and on Google search. This allows more people to find this great community and the support available in it! In fact, more than half of users found their HealthUnlocked communities through seeing a HealthUnlocked post in their Google search result - can you remember how you found this community?

The “Only community members” option limits access to your post to community members only. This means that your post will not appear on the homepage of your community for visitors, and when viewing the direct link to your post, visitors will only be able to see the first few lines of the post but your username and all the replies will be hidden.

You can also change who can view your existing posts in the editing section. For posts that are limited to the community only, you should see a padlock in the upper right corner of the post.

Which option should I choose?

HealthUnlocked is designed for you to be anonymous. As long as you are following the guidelines by not sharing identifiable information (such as real names, specific location and contact information), your posts should be safe to be viewed by, and potentially help anyone. You can find our online safety tips here by clicking on the “what does this mean” link (image above) next to the Who can view my post options.

So when should "Only community members" be used?

This option is designed to be used when a post contains sensitive, high-risk topics which could be triggering for others reading it. Reading a high risk post when first viewing a community, without having a full understanding of the purpose and support available, can be very distressing for a visitor, so we ask for any post containing these kinds of topics are shared with community members only.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at [e-mail]

Best of health to you,

MaddieHU

[Nathalie99 Partner]

Thank you, Maddie, for explaining the difference.

If sharing very personal information, such as details of trauma, I think it is important to make the post private.

Many members, especially new, don't know about this setting and leave the post unlocked.

In case of very private information being shared, I will make those posts private and add a trigger warning if necessary, to protect the privacy of the person posting and everyone who replies as well with personal responses.

That means there is going to be a note "last edited by Nathalie99 [Administrator]" even if the post has not been edited. Changing the privacy setting counts as editing and there is no way to tell the difference between actual editing of the post.

I will leave other posts unlocked to minimize the instances of "editing".

In our welcome message we have a link to pinned posts where the privacy settings are explained and also the step-by-step instruction on how to make posts private.

I created notes in several places regarding locking posts (making them private) and I will continue to work on improving the information process.

Safety online is very important when sharing very sensitive and personal experiences.