blood donation: no good deed goes unpunished

19 June 2018

I have been infected with the Ebola virus.

I have had sex with another man in the past year.

I am taking Coumadin^®.

Actually, none of those three statements is true. And Facebook knows it.

The American Red Cross has given Facebook this highly personal information about me, by adding my contact info to an "American Red Cross Blood Donors" Facebook Custom Audience. If any of that stuff were true, I wouldn't have been allowed to give blood.

When I heard back from the American Red Cross about this personal data problem, they told me that they don't share my health information with Facebook.

That's not how it works. I'm listed in the Custom Audience as a blood donor. Anyway, too late. Facebook has the info now.

So, which of its promises about how it uses people's personal information is Facebook going to break next?

And is some creepy tech bro right now making a killer pitch to Paul Graham about a business plan to "disrupt" the health insurance market using blood donor information?

I should not have to care about this, and I don't have time to. I don't even have time to attempt a funny remark about the whole Facebook board member Peter Thiel craving blood thing.