Increasing user awareness of anonymity and privacy

Earlier this year, we asked the community admins to take part in a survey. The purpose of this survey was to understand what their thoughts were on online anonymity and privacy. We have used the survey's results to identify areas of improvement and ways in which we can educate everyone at HealthUnlocked on how to remain anonymous and safe while using the platform.

Our first attempt will be released throughout the coming weeks, and it includes:

Better information around staying anonymous and posting options

We have added a modal to the write a post page where users will be able to learn more on how to stay anonymous when posting, if they wish to do so, highlighting what information could allow others to identify them. Plus, we made it more clear what are the users’ options when posting and who can see their content.

Automatically scanning posts for possible identifiable information

We want to educate users on what personally identifiable information is and how sharing this type of information anywhere online is unsafe. One step we are taking is to highlight before submitting a post if it contains any possible email addresses or contact numbers. After a user clicks ‘Post’, the content will be scanned for these two pieces of identifiable information. If any are found, the user will be advised to check and edit their post before submission.

Adding “tips” to several, relevant pages throughout the site

We recently changed the sign-up flow that users see when they join HealthUnlocked, as part of this project, we included some advice on how to stay anonymous, such as choosing anonymous usernames only. We want to extend this advice to other pages where users’ share information about themselves. These pages are the edit profile page (underneath the bio), write a post page and when replying to a post (underneath the reply box). Some examples of the tips are: not to use a real name and not to share contact details or any other information that could be used to identify you.

The changes are examples of how adapting our platform can help users’ to remain anonymous on HealthUnlocked. We will be working to improve awareness via other methods over the coming months, so if you have any ideas or questions on this topic, let us know at [e-mail].

[Coling]

That's great info...I am probably more interested in how HU can screen out those individuals and organisations that seek to profit from our condition. I don't mean the odd book author but more someone who is selling us the latest substance that seems to be a panacea. Any ideas? Thanks

[Vesa in reply to Coling]

Hi Coling,

Thank you for your reply! We have lots of spam filters in place that catch the majority of spammers - but some will always slip through the cracks. When they do, please report them to us so we can handle it ASAP. Here's a reminder of how to report in case you've forgotten: support.healthunlocked.com/...

We really appreciate your support in making sure our communities only have quality, genuine content.

Best,

[Hidden in reply to Vesa]

Was one on here other day reported as peddling(or purporting to)stem cell injections to cure autism!

[helvella]

Thank you - certainly some of those changes sound to be in the right direction.

Did you do anything about the location/near me issues? Because I want to remain anonymous, I cannot readily test the features! However, it used to be the case that if you checked someone's location repeatedly, it would intentionally vary to make it look less certain. Trouble was if you repeatedly checked, the variations themselves would cluster in such a way that they would more closely identify true location.

I also asked if it would be possible to have very much less precise locational information - such as constituent country of the the UK, county/region, or whatever.

[Vesa in reply to helvella]

Hi helvella,

Thanks for your reply - glad you're pleased with our changes.

" it would intentionally vary to make it look less certain " - this certainly sounds odd! Would you be able to shoot us an email about this on our Help Desk? I had a search of previous emails and couldn't find anything about this, so perhaps you can help clarify the matter a bit further and we can find out what happened.

Best,

[andyswarbs]

Include how to know if an email is really from HU...

[Hidden in reply to andyswarbs]

Hello Andy!

Thanks so much for your reply.

Emails about content (new posts, polls, replies, private messages, followers) and also digests will come from [e-mail]

If you or anyone you know ever have doubts about an email just forward it to [e-mail] and we will be happy to help.

[Hidden]

Hi there. I am glad for extra privacy settings but my concern is actually about being followed from community to community via our profile page. Is there a way to hide our post headings from our profile page rather than just having them locked to followers only?