If everything you post on Patients Like Me is extremely private, personal, and possibly embarrassing - which is often the case - how do you keep people you know from finding out about your posts and profile? Anonymity is important for a website like this. Anonymity has been a part of Internet communication for as long as the Internet has existed, so we're no stranger to it - but it's getting harder and harder to keep the lines between your real life and your virtual life from blurring, and to keep people from finding out who you are (not to mention your social security number in some cases!). People on this website are confident that their postings will be anonymous regardless of whether or not they have entered in their names or not. My blog violates this trust automatically with its pictures - which is why I'll be taking them down after this class has finished (Writing for New Media of Summer 2011).
You can apply to belong to PLM as a patient, a relative or friend of a patient, a doctor, or a researcher. This all comes along with the agreement that you will keep the patients information confidential, but you can see how easy it has been for just anyone to join and out someone (me) so it's best to use a pseudonym and alternative profile picture if you plan on keeping yourself under cover. The fact that most people don't hide their identity tells me that this website is probably one of the most trusting and personal communities writing out there on the Internet today.
