For Patients & Families | Social Media Disclaimer

We welcome and encourage open discussion on Boston Children's Hospital's social media sites — including but not limited to our blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube pages, and online story-sharing forums — and look forward to any comments, stories, and experiences you want to share.

We make reasonable efforts to monitor participation to ensure that you stay on topic, are courteous, and avoid making offensive comments. Please remember that information posted on any of our social media platforms shouldn't be considered medical advice and shouldn't replace a consultation with a health care professional.

Please be aware that once you post something online, there's the potential for thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of people to read your words, even years from now. Even online sites or applications (“apps”) that are considered “private” or “closed” could be using or sharing data that it collects from you. As a result, we suggest that you exercise caution when posting medical information on any of our social media sites and that you not disclose personal identifiable information like your location, medical record number, financial information, etc.

That's the plain English version. Here it is in legal language:

The opinions and or views expressed on Boston Children's Hospital social media platforms, including, but not limited to, our blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages, represent the thoughts of individual bloggers and online communities, and not those necessarily of Boston Children's Hospital or any of its corporate affiliates or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, research staff, medical staff, or members of its respective board of directors. The opinions and views expressed on these pages do not in any way reflect the views of the site they are posted on, other sites affiliated with the site, the staff involved with maintaining the site, or any members of the site.

While Boston Children's Hospital makes reasonable efforts to monitor and/or moderate content posted on its social media platforms, we do not moderate all comments and cannot always respond in a timely manner to online requests for information.

Boston Children's Hospital reserves the sole right to review, edit, and/or delete any comments it deems are inappropriate. Comments including but not limited to the following may be deleted or edited by the moderators:

• abusive or hurtful comments about a blogger or another participant
• off-topic and redundant comments (this includes promotion of events, groups, pages, Web sites, organizations, and programs not related to or affiliated with the hospital)
• comments that use foul language or "hate speech" (for example, including but not limited to racial, ethnic, or gender bashing language)
• personal attacks or defamatory statements or comments (i.e., making negative personal or untrue comments about a participant), instead of just criticizing his/her posting, opinion, or comments
• comments that violate the privacy of our patients and their families

Information posted on one of our sites is not intended to be medical advice and should not be considered medical advice, nor is it intended to replace consultation with a qualified physician or other health care provider.

All links to other Web sites found linked from Boston Children's Hospital's social media sites are provided as a service to readers, but such linkage does not constitute endorsement of those sites by Boston Children's Hospital, and as such we are not responsible for the content of external Web sites.

By submitting content to any of Boston Children's Hospital's social media sites, you understand and acknowledge that this information is available to the public, and that Boston Children's Hospital may use this information for internal and external promotional purposes and fundraising purposes. Please note that other participants may use your posted information beyond the control of Boston Children's Hospital. If you do not wish to have the information you have made available via this site used, published, copied, and/or reprinted, please do not post on this page.