Facebook Now Lets Organ Donors Tell Their Friends

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Jared Newman / TIME.com

Not content with merely changing the world, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks he can save a few lives as well.

Starting today, Facebook users in the United States and United Kingdom can post organ donor status to their Facebook Timelines. Zuckerberg went on ABC’s Good Morning America to announce the new feature, having hyped the news a day earlier as something that “has the power to save lives.”

(PHOTOS: Life Inside Facebook Headquarters)

“We think that people can really help spread awareness of organ donation and that they want to participate in this to their friends,” Zuckerberg told ABC’s Robin Roberts. “And that can be a big part of helping solve the crisis that’s out there.”

To add organ donor status to your Facebook Timeline, create a new “Life Event,” then click “Health & Wellness” and select “Organ Donor.” From there, you can say when and where you became a donor, and provide a story about it. But keep in mind that Facebook is not a organ donor registry. You still have to sign up through an appropriate registry, to which Facebook provides links on its donor page. Many states allow donors to sign up online.

Facebook’s feature is somewhat buried now, so I’m not sure how many people will notice unless Facebook sends out some kind of notification. But doctors and people involved with organ donations seem optimistic that Facebook will encourage more people to sign up as donors, according to the New York Times. “This is going to be an historic day in transplant,” said Dr. Andrew Cameron, the surgical director of liver transplantation at Johns Hopkins Hospital.