Ideology in my Controversy

VideoDonor.com. "VideoDonor Organ Donation Love. " 8/20/2013 via wikimedia. Creative Commons Attribution- Share Alike 3.0 Unported.  

This blog will continue to discuss the issue of social media organ donors. I will discuss the different sides to the argument and what groups and kinds of people are for and against the movement put forward by Facebook in their pursuit of finding more organ donors.

1. Who is involved in the controversy?

Johns Hopkins hospital is for the Facebook organ donor status and believes that it will greatly increase the number of organ donors. The Amsterdam Medical center is another place were they do not really care how people match up with their organ donors, but if they can save a life they are for the process. The United Nation of Organ Sharing has very strict rules as to who gets the limited number of organs and who can donate to who. Since Facebook is an international communication site, this can lead to more government/law contrivers as to when is it ok to change the current system or to keep it in place. 

Facebook raises awareness for the necessity of organ donors, it is not what decides who gets a new organ or not.

     2. Who are some of the major speakers and writers within the group?

Since there are not large groups that are leading this ideas, but a lot of different individual organizations and people that are for and against it, Facebook is obviously the major supporter for this new system. Sheryl Sandberg was the major advocate of this idea to begin with at Facebook, as she came up with the idea at a college reunion with an old friend. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, was friends with Steve Jobs who received an organ transplant which greatly extended his life, so he has first hand seen the benefits of organ transplants. He too is a big supporter and advocate for this movement. 

      3.What kind of power does the group hold?

Facebook holds a great deal of social power and are very dominantly known just just with younger generations, but now business owners well. It becomes important to be incorporated with social media if you want to reach more customers. So when something on a site this popular changes, people notice. And that is what they did, and they reacted. 

Different government were conflicted about actions to take since finding potential organ donors on Facebook is outside of the law in how to find a donor. Governments hold great political power and control policies which effect everyday life. 

     4. What resources are available to different positions?

In this case, this was a change made by Facebook to effect the masses of people, they are creating their own initiative to go out and become organ donors. They are giving them the motivation to go out and sign up to be a donor.

     5.  What does each group value?

Facebook as well as other hospitals are in approval of finding donors through social media because it can lead to more people registering to become donors in the first place, and the main goal is to save lives, so if it is getting done more efficiently through social media, it shouldn't be stopped. 

     6. What counts as evidence for the different positions?

A lot of the evidence comes from the large increase in registration after the release of the organ donor status update. This brought the need for organ donors in the limelight. But then again, the true number of people saved by this movement will not truly be known until many years to come. But this is stirring up controversy in European countries who do not have such loose rules when it comes to finding organ donors. These countries have long waiting lists too, but they do not have the luxury of finding their own donors. So, this has the potential to change the way the system functions and save more lives in the process. 

     7. Differences in power?

The difference is that if more needs to be done to move the transplant list along, laws and policies will have to be changed. This gives the law making body authority over a corporation like Facebook. Though, Facebook's movement could be enough to create action in the government. It poses the question that is changing the system worth creating a bit of chaos to do it? Not everyone sees the direct benefit of a life being saved. Oftentimes it is seen a big picture sense. 

     8. Common ground?

Both groups see the benefit in more lives being saved, but one group feels that the political disruption in the process outweighs the quick fix of allowing people to find their own donors. 

   9. Unacknowledged common ground?

They both know the trouble that changing a process of that magnitude will bring, but one group feels that saving lives should outweigh the struggle of transition from one system to another. 

   10. Do the two groups ever communicate?

Technically what Facebook did was not illegal, but it created a gray area where, legally speaking, people did not understand that just putting that you are an organ donor on Facebook did not mean that you were truly an organ donor. There is the legal aspect with the DMV that needs to be taken into account which has been a rough patch for the movement. But I am not aware that Facebook themselves interacted with the government on changing the laws themselves, other than advocating for people to become organ donors.