Enjoying the Simplicity of No Profile Pictures on Social Media

also uh, it's "HIPAA" : The Health Insurance Portability and Accountsbility Act (of 1996) 🙏

Due to HIPPA they can't. This app and it's developers have to comply with HIPPA since they handle medical info.

Eh, I've had a few people make sideways comments recently, only because they knew it for a fact because I'd said it, and that bothered me. I'm sure I just misperceived it due to recent events. I'm taking 31hrs of classes again so the emotional well is probably low also. No hard feelings. But srsly, read your ToSs 😜

I think Infinite was being lighthearted about the ADHD comment! Still, very impressive how thorough you are about this

Footer of the Terms, in case you scrolled looking for a "TL;DR:" "If you have any questions, concerns or comments about these Terms or our app, please feel free to contact us anytime via e-mail at hello@alike.health 💛" Hit them up, maybe they'll send you a cliff notes edition... 🤷🙏

I doubt they'd disclose future company plans to profit directly from collecting all this information, even if that *were* explicitly the plan. Thats said... It's clear you haven't done more than *think about* reading it, because the literal entire first Section is hammering that out in plain terms. They also include a disclaimer in small-er text at the very bottom of every single thread here. It's a shame people don't bother to read the terms they agree to. It's not that much effort and it prevents one from speaking in public forum with complete and self-admitted ignorance. I've read it, hence saying things from some point of awareness and qualifying it with "AFAIK." 👍 I've done the work, that's why I'm speaking on the subject. It wasn't hard, maybe a 5-10 minute read, to understand my rights regarding releasing my own personal information into the hands of a company providing an app for free to the end user, and so obviously profiting in some way as to continue providing the service and developing the platform. This is basic. Folks these days are so offended by intellect and earnest effort. I'll never understand why that is so consistently met with passive-aggression. "Hearts" or not, that's the stuff I was talking about NOT missing...

Why, because I actually addressed the issue in full with focus and clarity? "Being thorough" isn't exclusively a quality of neurodivergence...🤔

And if they sold it, Infinite, that's more to the point that the information privacy has been waived; as is your point that things aren't personally-identifiable (for those of us who aren't coming on here thinking it's a dating app and immediately blasting a dumb bio and hookup advertisement into the General thread listings 🤣) I think your subconscious understands there's no HIPAA here also 😋🙃

TL;DR: The HIPAA assumption is incorrect, AFAIK.

Here's the thing—HIPAA *particularly* ★doesn't★ apply here. HIPAA rules only apply to clinical settings in which you sign relative paperwork, and the privacy of your information is implied otherwise. This entire platform is essentially all of us "releasing our own information to third parties," which is what you sign an ROI, or Release Of Information, aka "HIPAA Waiver" for. The sentiment is there, surely, in that everybody here is here because we all have physical and or mental problems which are medically-concerning to some degree. Whether or not they are actually clinically diagnosed. (So any bigoted or hateful speech or actions against us *could* be considered "hate speech" against folks with conditions and self-reported disabilities... So I would imagine they try to maintain that air to keep things pleasant, which is appreciated) So one providing and maintaining such a platform should also attempt to promote such a mindset and behavior amongst the community as though they are in some sort of clinical setting and that their actions towards others and speech are being observed by some form of higher authority. But to put it bluntly, we're not. This is all voluntary and it's the same thing as anybody making a public Facebook post, the platform itself just happens to be harder to index and search from outside without a login, or even to search from within with a login (though that is quickly changing with the new update which highlights terms and provides a tag label search button underneath the thread posting for any keywords the algorithm has identified within the thread posting or its respective comments). If someone wanted, they could make an account and come in here and copy as much information as they wanted and release it wherever they wanted, and it would be very hard to take them to task in a courtroom for it because a) none of the information which they would have released outside of the platform is attached to any personally identifying information to anybody who does not have access to the back-end of said platform, and b) I haven't seen anywhere that the platform makes claim to all of our information which we submit, though absence of proof is not proof in and of itself, as any "good Christian" knows 🤣😮‍💨

I'm not overly familiar with HIPAA, but my guess would be that at least some of the design choices come from being HIPAA compliant

Kinda reminds me of the laye 90's chatrooms

It's very cozy! And I think the user icons are adorable