Facebook is not just about chatting or posting pictures anymore. Over the time, it has proved to be much more beyond that. Right from selling products to solving crimes, Facebook has come handy in end number of ways for which it was not initially created.
Along with other activities and services, Facebook has emerged out to be an extremely useful platform for finding blood donors in emergency situations. There are pages and dedicated communities which are trying to reach out to people in times of need.
However, in an incident on Sunday, Facebook removed a ‘Plasma Requirement Post’ from a group, tagging it as against the ‘Facebook Community Standards’.
Sisir Kumar, the admin and founder of Guwahati Foodie, the largest online food community in the Northeast, approved a post shared by a person looking for a plasma donor on Sunday. Although the group is dedicated to food-based content, such requirements are approved as it enables the requirement to reach to a larger section of people owing to the large size of the group.
Taking Guwahati Foodie as a platform to ask help, a member shared a post looking for plasma donors for someone in need. However, the post was put down by Facebook.
On being inquired by the Admin, Facebook reverted with a response which unfortunately didn’t clarify the reason for the putting down the post.
This act of Facebook was highly slammed by some of the members in the group as currently Plasma Donors are very much in demand due to the rising cases of Covid-19.
The members stressed that the content of the post in question was not objectionable and demanded proper explanation from Facebook.
Even the state Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has urged Covid-survivors to come forward and donate their plasma so that some lives can be saved. Hence, in such a crisis scenario, putting down a post that might have helped someone in need was quite shocking.
Guwahati has already set up a plasma bank at GMCH and many donors have already donated their Plasma. Transfusion of Plasma from a Covid-recovered patient into an infected person can help in saving the person , as explained by the state Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. The Plasma therapy has been approved by ICMR and trials have been carried out across the country.
