Change.org: Does it change anything?

‘Change.org’, if you are active on social media, you must have come across this name. You must have got many messages saying, “Can you help me out by signing this petition?” If not, you will. Let us find out what is behind those ‘annoying’ messages:

A platform that is said to give space for online ‘petitions’ Change.org’s main aim was to let people with the activist causes connect with each other and encourage them to donate to nonprofit organizations focusing on those issues using a social networking platform. The platform focused on social change, human rights issues and global warming initially.

Founded by Stanford classmates Ben Rattray, Change’s CEO, and Mark Dimas, the company’s Chief Technology Officer, in 2007, Chanege.org allows users to create, sign and promote petitions. Its website claims to have 389,407,417 people taking action[i], 45,184 victories in 196 countries[ii] so far, but is that all? Is everything that simple? No, things are not as clear as they seem, the ‘change’ they claim to achieve is not that honest. Let’s find out what is in the background of the clean face:

‘Changes’: Across the globe, the platform claims to have achieved ‘success’ on various issues through its petitions. The s of them are:

Justice for Trayvon Martin: A 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was killed on February 26, 2012, his parents started a petition calling for the arrest of George Zimmerman, the neighbourhood watch leader who shot him. More than 2.2 million people signed in support of the cause. Change.org declared the petition a victory in April 2012 after a Florida State Attorney announced that charges of second-degree murder would be lodged against Zimmerman. He was acquitted in 2013. But the movement forced a conversation about police brutality, and it helped give rise to one of the most prominent movements of the decade: “Black Lives Matter”.
Teen magazines stop Photoshopping models– In one of the early petitions of the platform, a 14-year-old Julia Bluhm petitioned the magazine ‘Seventeen’ to stop doctoring pictures of its models, she delivered a mock photoshoot outside of Seventeen’s headquarters as well, where she met with the magazine’s editor-in-chief. After more than 84,000 signatures on the petition, the magazine announced that it would no longer photoshop its models, making it the first mainstream teen magazine to take the “no Photoshop” pledge. “We vow to … never change girls’ body or face shapes. (Never have, never will),” the magazine stated as part of its “Body Peace Treaty”[iii](Soon after, Cleo Magazine in Australia, facing its own Change.org petition, followed Seventeen’s lead.)

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Pavithra Shetty made schools safer in Karnataka: When a 6-year-old girl was sexually abused by her teacher in a school in 2014 Pavithra Shetty, mother of a toddler, started the campaign as there were no basic guidelines for child safety in schools. On Change.org she asked the Education Minister of Karnataka to issue directives to impose security measures in all schools in the state. Thousands of people outraged over the abuse incident. Within the next 6 days, the signatures on her petition grew to a lakh and a half. There was plenty of media coverage about her campaign. Respond to the public pressure created through the petition, for the first time ever, guidelines for child safety in schools were issued in Karnataka.
Ban on Gay Boy Scouts ended: A12-years-boy as a Scout named Ryan Andresen was denied the Eagle Scout award by his Boy Scout, the highest rank in the organization in 2012 because he had come out as gay. His mother Karen Andresen started a petition to protest the decision, hundreds of thousands of signatures and national media attention came in her support. In a historic decision in 2013, the Boy Scouts of America voted to end its ban on openly gay youth. In 2015, the organization finally announced it would lift its ban on gay adult leaders.
Making Uber Rides More Responsible in India: A 25-year-old woman was raped by an Uber driver in December’14. The driver, though being a repeat offender and had already spent seven months in Tihar jail in a sexual assault case, was hired by Uber. Alina started a petition against the policy of Uber to start a background check and police verification of the drivers. The petition gained a lot of support and 60,000 signatures pressurized Uber. Uber then responded with a commitment to prioritize and commit to the safety of their customers and the petition was a massive success.

BUT! Things are as easy as they seem. The platform, the authority behind it, the ‘business’ module and the kind of petition it ‘promotes’ have been under the radar of governments since the beginning. Various claims have been made about that Change.org has been working on a special agenda and the neutrality of the platform is far from the truth. Some negative aspects pointed out from time to time are:

For Changeorg, the users are not just some random persons signing petitions of their interest, they are commodities for the platform. The policy of the platform allows its corporate clients to ‘target’ users on the basis of geographical locations, age, sex and many more.
‘Wired’ magazine writes: “If you sign one animal rights petition, the company says, you’re 2.29 times more likely to sign a criminal justice petition. And if you sign a criminal justice petition, you’re 6.3 times more likely to sign an economic justice petition. And 4.4 times more likely to sign an immigrant rights petition. And four times more likely to sign an education petition. And so on.”[iv]
While due to its .org name, people perceive it to be a non-profit organization, the platform is a profit-oriented company. org charges groups for the privilege of sponsoring petitions that are matched to users with similar interests. For example, when a person signs a petition about women rights and “submits,” a box pops up and shows five sponsored petitions on women rights to also sign. If a user leaves a box checked that says “Keep me updated on this campaign and others,” the sponsor can then send e-mails directly to that person. It’s not clear from the checkbox that your e-mail address is being sold to a not-for-profit.[v]
Just to state how the above-mentioned facts change everything about the platform, Change.org has 300+ paying clients, including Sierra Club, Credo Wireless and Amnesty International, and its revenue in 2012 was $15 million. Imagine earning huge amounts by ‘promoting’ petitions of a company’s interest. To put in perspective, it works just like Google where you see similar contents based on your ‘assessed data’ but here with change.org, you’re being a part of a ‘movement’ based on a company’s might of payment.

It surprised me to the core when I realized that the petitions at change.org are written by professionals. To gain attention, attract signatures and to succeed, the petitions are written in such a language that they appeal to general people who are reading it.

Secondly, Online petitions are being used to build databases of names, emails and phone numbers of those who can be called on to participate or donate money for a cause they are interested in. Gary Nunn, Change.org’s Australian Director of Communications said, “We’ve seen a tenfold increase in the number of people who use our Promoted Petitions product, which allows individuals who are passionate about a petition to chip in money to promote it to other Change.org users to build support.”[vi]

An initiative which was created to give a platform to the voiceless seems to have moved away from its path. It now has its own ‘business’, revenue, and agenda. “The site’s founding ethos of giving the public a platform to protest on the big issues – Female Genital Mutilation, racism, homophobia, domestic violence and so on – is undeniably admirable. But when a small, vocal minority of Change.org protestors tells the rest of us what we can or can’t laugh at, look at, or pay to listen to, it feels like sinister, tail-wagging-the-dog liberalism. One that runs contrary to the very cornerstones of freedom of speech – the very virtue Change.org claims to represent,” Martin Daubney writes for the Telegraph.[vii]

As no one is innocent as a lamb in the world of internet but those who pretend to be, they are the ones one should stay away from. Just because a platform gives you space to make your voices heard, you should not be a commodity of those people. Just like “Privacy is a myth”, online petitions are no better than that.

[i] https://www.change.org/ visited on 10-06-2020, 19:51.

[ii] https://www.change.org/impact visited on 10-06-2020, 19:52.

[iii] https://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/05/us/seventeen-photoshopping/index.html visited on 09-06-2020, 15:23

[iv] https://www.wired.com/2013/09/change-org/

[v] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2012/10/17/activism-for-profit-change-org-makes-an-impact-and-makes-money/#25c4c7ae7ffa

[vi] https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/how-change-org-is-monetising-your-passions-and-why-you-should-care

[vii] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11229136/Is-Change.org-just-a-weapon-of-censorship.html

cover image source: venturebeat.com

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