Facebook Now Lets You Advertise Your Organs on Your Profile

By Clay Dillow Posted 05.01.2012 at 1:03 pm 5 Comments

Zuck Brian Solis via Wikimedia

There are currently 114,000 people waiting for organ transplants in the U.S., and roughly 7,000 of them die every year while awaiting a donor organ to become available. Meanwhile, there are 161 million Americans on Facebook. That math must have seemed pretty simple to Mark Zuckerberg and company at Facebook HQ, where the team has just added organ donation status to its users’ profiles.

As the New York Times notes, this is less about social networking and more about social engineering. A declaration on Facebook doesn’t necessarily make a person a donor--those who are really serious about legally becoming organ donors should sign up at their state registry (you can do this easily at your local department of motor vehicles or online)--but it very well could help organ donation become a social norm, and spur people who are on the fence or who simply haven’t taken the time to legally register to go ahead and sign up.

But the Facebook declaration could carry some legal weight. Often the family of a deceased person simply needs evidence of consent in order to make a decision regarding the donation of their loved one’s organs. In such cases, the very public declaration on Facebook could serve as that evidence.

Regardless of the legalities involved, the campaign is more social than anything else, and given the fact that so many Americans are active Facebook users, it could make an impact. Of those 114,000 people waiting for donations 92,000 are waiting for kidneys, and the 161 million Americans on Facebook have more than 300 million kidneys to work with. If even a small fraction of users are compelled to join the donor ranks, the wait time for a kidney--currently the median wait is four years, though it varies depending on other factors--could be essentially cut down to nothing.

The organ donor option is rolling out in the U.S. and U.K. first but will be expanded to several other countries over the next few months.

[NYT]

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5 Comments

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poeblob

05/01/12 at 1:16 pm

I could see where this would help and others on Facebook would probably "like" your willingness to donate a kidney after your dead. My thinking is, I'm dead. I don't need it. Might as well give it to someone who does.

"A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?" - Albert Einstein

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Jed1337

05/01/12 at 3:35 pm

NO! Those are my organs, my precious precious organs. I need them after I die. If I cant let my organs rot with me, well that's just plain unAmerican!

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Robot

05/01/12 at 3:51 pm

I have a few pounds and warts I give away for free.
But I think no one wants to see my fat or warts....

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense, i.e. facts.
Religion sees beyond the senses, i.e. faith.
Open your mind and see!

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Metamorphosis

05/01/12 at 4:29 pm

S Monkey

This is great, if the whole world was a loving place, if people were good people. Unfortunately people are not as good natured as we would like to believe....Mr Zuckerberg.

X "My liver is kicking in, I need a new one"
Y "I found you that liver, only problem is the kid is still alive"
X "How many friends does he have?"
Y "100"
X "Perfect, make it happen"
Y "how do you want me to do it Sir?"

Too much information on Facebook, what you like, what you don't. Your virtually letting the world know your character, your phobias, if you can swim or not, where you are in the world realtime. Now with this app, you can let a dying politician/nutter/billionaire find a match and make it happen whether your dead or alive. If everyone was of good nature then fine. But we're not and people are desperate...

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Artex

05/01/12 at 10:46 pm

Got a bit of liver and a kidney for sale!

But seriously though, isn't that what the stamp on your driver's liscense is supposed to say? Dunno if I need to tell the world my spleen needs a replacement or something. Just another useless instance of Too Much Info.
---------------------------------------------
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.

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