Facebook’s all set to introduce a brand new blood donation feature only for its Indian users to help make the process easier for millions of people. It’ll begin rolling out on October 1, the country’s National Blood Donor Day.
The tool is meant to address a common blood shortage issue in India. It’s pretty common to find patients and their family and friends requesting donors through social media channels like Facebook. The site has now decided to step in between to make this process smoother and less haphazard.
Android and mobile web Facebook users in India will soon start seeing messages to sign up as a blood donor in their News Feed. They can also edit their Profile to take part. They’ll be asked what their blood group is and whether they’ve given away blood before. This data is private by default, but can be made public on their timeline.
On the other side, people and organizations like blood banks and hospitals will be able to create a special type of post that contains all the relevant information that potential donors need. Facebook is supposed to then automatically alert all the members who signed up and are staying in the vicinity.
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Donors will be able to respond by contacting the requestor directly via Messenger, WhatsApp, or a call. Their information won’t be visible to the person in need unless they themselves provide it. It sounds like an efficient system, though we’ll have to wait and see how effective it is.