Change.org: The World’s Platform for Change

Haifa Maryam

19/UELA/029

The year 2020 has been awfully long and dreadful. Adding fuel to the pandemic fire (along with other kinds of fires, floods and environmental disasters) was the ugly unveiling of humankind’s great shortfalls. From worldwide mass protests against racial discrimination, police brutality, environmental hazards to our migrant labour crises, mental health woes, to passing of many unlawful laws & amendments, a lot of things have happened this year.

With all that’s going around, we feel restless and helpless. With great privilege comes great responsibility. And I feel the pinnacle of privilege these days, is idly scrolling through miles of posts related to this cause or that. Every once in a while, we come across stories and posts urging us to sign up for a petition or two. And because most of us have this hero complex intrinsically embedded within us, we feel compelled by these posts. We feel the need to do something. Get involved. Take action. Be the change we wish to see in the world. In this age of social media activism, how legitimately does all of it function?

Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet and social media, whose use has grown rapidly over the last decade. Today, we consume information from the internet, mostly via social media & networking websites and are increasingly turning to these platforms to get our daily news and information. Political and social activism has taken a new dimension, thanks to the digital era. The Internet has emerged as a key venue for political action as much as discussion.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of internet-powered activism is online petitions. Online petitions (aka Internet petitions, or e-petitions) have spread out rapidly over the world wide web in the last few years. An online petition works on a principle of pressure group politics, and when key decision-makers are addressed and notified of these petitions, they look into it and take appropriate actions.

These petitions have various and varied interests and there are petitions for nearly every issue in the world. For instance, one of the most popular online petition websites is Change.org, a site I’m sure most of us would have encountered at least once and may have even signed a petition on. Change.org seems to have petitions for every cause imaginable, from saving rainforests, redressals for consumer grievances to petitions for bringing about amendments to laws to petitions against capitalist industries seeking redemptions for climate change to petitions seeking renewal of popular Netflix series to petitions to add dabbing as an emoji! In fact, there is a petition on Change.org seeking to “Shut down Change.org” and the cause stated is "I'm tired of hearing about people starting a change.org petition for every damn little thing." Ah, sweet irony!

Change.org was founded by Stanford classmates Ben Rattray and Mark Dimas in 2007. The original goal of the website was to “connect users with the activist causes they care about the most” and encourage them to donate to non-profit organizations focusing on those issues using a social networking platform. In over a decade, Change.org has grown to be the world’s largest petition site with over 390 million users globally. Even in India, there was a multi-fold increase in petitions in the last year. Change.org even boasts on its official website that “Nearly every hour, a petition on Change.org achieves victory.” Change.org broke all international records for the most successful online petition for a petition started by a 15-year-old, seeking justice for George Floyd. The petition has had over 19.6 million signatures.

Change.org is popular for several reasons. It is easy, convenient and simple to start and sign a petition, no matter what you stand for. That’s one of the major pros of internet activism, it helps minorities and individuals vocalize their opinions, get involved and advocate for justice. One can easily consolidate like-minded people and make each person’s presence felt online. Quite often this virtual presence gets translated into real-life recognition of the various issues. The issue creates an impact on the conscience of people, who get inspired to take action. Thus, policies are made, existing ones are amended, and all grievances addressed and sentiments accommodated. This can be a strong weapon as proved by the huge number of victory stories published on Change.org itself.

But don’t get fooled by Change.org, because despite common assumptions, it is a for-profit company that simply addresses social and environmental problems. Since it is a dot-org website that appeals to people’s desire to do some real good, there is a high chance for users like us to get hoodwinked by its altruistic charms. Change.org calls itself a B-Corp that runs on “100% user-generated revenue”. Whenever signers contribute on Change.org, the donations go toward promoting a specific petition, payment of Change.org’s overhead, and perhaps, eventual profits.

This is one of the reasons why Change.org has received so much flak recently. Another reason is that Change.org is politically very agnostic. The very platform that is calling on people to seek justice for George Floyd, has also got petitions seeking more police force at Black Lives Matter protests and even ones urging President Trump to build the Mexican border wall he has promised. Change.org has also faced criticism for selling personal and private data and even been dubbed “the Google of Modern Politics” by wired.com.

All in all, power today lies with the use of technologies to mobilize large numbers of people. Internet & social media eventually provides a digital platform in which voices excluded from elitist media can finally take things into their own hands. If signing an online petition is what gives agency to a minority group, then so be it. Change.org, as an online petition website, has contributed significantly to the forum of digital activism. It has helped raise massive awareness on major issues at a speed that was unimaginable just a few decades ago. Of course, there are plenty of shortcomings. Yet the link between activism, Internet, and real action seems to have intensified in recent years. There’s a fine line between internet activism and slacktivism, so it depends on each of us to research the issue, study the cause we are signing for and the organization through which we initiate action to ensure nothing is morally wrong, at least to our own conscience. Don’t get confused, just show some real concern!