Facebook Can Save Lives

You are probably wondering by the title, how it is possible for Facebook to save lives. I would have thought the same thing before reading this article from AOL News. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/11/lisa-and-chris-miller-fac_n_2104710.html?1352662357&icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl3%7Csec3_lnk1%26pLid%3D233231

The article was from the Huffington Post and was about how two people met on a Facebook game called Farm Town. Throughout their interaction, they got to know each other pretty well. Eventually, the one women, Lisa, found out that her Farm Town partner had a daughter who needed a kidney transplant. After learning this, Lisa became devoted to helping the daughter find the kidney. Long story short, Lisa's husband was a match and donated his kidney to the girl . I thought this was an amazing story. In reality how many people would donate their organs to a complete stranger? Because of Facebook, people are letting others into their close friend groups without even meeting them. Lisa felt like she had to help a friend. 

After reading this article, I found another one related to this topic. 

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/05/facebook-coo-sheryl-sandberg-our-dream-is-to-save-lives/\

This article was about how Facebook will add a new feature to the website about being an organ donor. The purpose of this article was to inform people of the many different capabilities of the social media site to solve social problems around the world. We are just beginning to discover the benefits that come from Facebook. It will be interesting to see how and if other problems will be solved using other types of social media in the future. 

Election Day

Happy Election Day! I hope everyone had the opportunity to cast their vote to make a difference today. After coming home from voting, I read an interesting article related to the election and social media. No it is not about political ads. Instead it was a video taken by a voter which showed a malfunctioning voting machine in Pennsylvania  When the voter went to select Obama, the machine automatically chose Romney. 

Seeing this computer error, the voter called over a volunteer and was provided no explanation or help. So the voter decided to take a video using his smart phone and upload it to Reddit.com. On the site, it got a lot of interest and soon the story spread to news channels like CNN. This is just another example of how fast information can spread with our technology like smart phones and the internet. 

No one knows if the machine was just malfunctioning or if it was hacked. The good thing is that the machine was removed so no false votes could be cast. I would be interested to know what time this person went to vote. If it was later in the day, the machine could have registered an incorrect number of votes for Romney. Who knows if this is happening in other places around the country with other candidates. This is just another example of voter fraud.

Here are two articles that talk about the situation. The first article is the one that I read first from AOL news. The second is one I found that has more information about what happened at the polling place.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/06/watch-voting-machine-change-obama-votes-to-romney-votes/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl3%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D230773

http://www.opednews.com/articles/2012-Voting-Machines-Caugh-by-Meryl-Ann-Butler-121106-290.html