Who doesn't know this: an email flutters into a friend's inbox with a call for a petition against or for an issue that affects you personally and/or affects you emotionally. And since the whole thing only takes a very short time and we all want to save the world a little bit every day, we click on the link and give our consent. Afterwards, that pleasant feeling arises that you have done a good deed that day. Yay!
How practical when portals like change.org , OpenPetition or AVAAZ.org give us the opportunity to simply make ourselves feel completely comfortable with a quick click. We at Mimikama asked ourselves whether these portals actually only pursue social motives with their “world-improving” platforms or whether there are profits behind them. We have therefore taken a closer look at the change.org .
What is the online petition portal change.org?
On the homepage of change.org it says in large letters “The world's largest petition platform for social change, 493,601,780 people in action. Many successes every day.” And underneath there is a big red button with: “Start petition”. It is a low-threshold offer for all people who seem to want to do good. Who just want to save the world. Anyone who wants to can start petitions, regardless of the topic. In 2013, we at Mimikama attempted to start a rather hopeless public petition on an online portal. You can find out more about our chocolate petition here: ( Look under the microscope! avaaz petition “FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONAL COURT: Abolition of the GEZ – No compulsory financing of media companies” )
The founding
change.org was founded in 2007 by Ben Rattray and, according to the owner, is financed purely from donations and sponsorship contributions. The faz wrote in 2014 that co-financiers were found very quickly, because Bill Gates, Arianna Huffington, the founders of Yahoo, Twitter, Ebay and LinkedIn, Jerry Yang, Evan Williams, Pierre Omidyar and Reid Hoffman were all right with $25 million quickly got on board change.org. For humanitarian, world-improving reasons? Probably not! The reason is believed to be that by joining change.org, “unwelcome petitions” from the big tech companies could quickly be stopped. (See source: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/grosse-Investments-in-das-petitions-portal-change-org-13314099.html )
The story becomes really problematic when you delve deeper into the user conditions and realize that at change.org the focus is not on saving the world and democracy, but rather on data trading.
What happens to our data at change.org?
From our personal data, which we provide on the portal through e.g. For example, if we leave our approval for certain petitions, we create analyzes: about our political opinions, our social positioning and our social and financial situation in which we find ourselves. This data is then sold to third parties. change.org is not an appreciative non-profit organization that fights for a better world and democracy, as it appears at first glance, but a commercial company. You only realize this when you take a deeper look at the company's user conditions.
What's the use of your and my data?
Profiles can be created through a meticulous analysis of our online data, the evaluation of our likes and dislikes, the websites visited, the terms we googled, the things we bought and didn't buy on the internet, the advertising we click on or don't click on . These profiles know exactly who we are and what makes us tick. They probably know who we are better than we do ourselves. Using these profiles, companies can advertise in a very specific and targeted manner and thus influence opinion-forming processes. There is a great danger to democracy here. We believe that we can vote democratically and form our own opinions, but these can be manipulated through our profile analyses.
change.org was also awarded the BigBrotherAward 2016 (see source: https://bigbrotherawards.de/2016/wirtschaft-changeorg ).
What is the BigBrotherAward?
Since 2000, the BigBrotherAwards been awarded in Germany to companies, organizations and/or people who, among other things, have a lasting impact on people's privacy, e.g. B. sell their personal data. The award honors dangerous machinations and threats to democracy, with the aim of a future society without surveillance. (See source https://bigbrotherawards.de/ueber-uns )
And in 2016, this award for the economy category went to the campaign platform change.org ! According to the jury, the petition platform generates prize categories of US$250,000 to US$500,000 just by using the many email addresses. (See source: ( https://bigbrotherawards.de/2016/wirtschaft-changeorg )
As we can see, your and my data brings in a lot of money. And the matter of financing purely from donations and grants is probably more of a fairy tale. This is exactly why change.org no longer allowed to issue donation receipts in Germany.
Do these petitions at least bring positive political and social changes?
We at Mimikama have already investigated this question using a current petition on change.org against the traffic light government. (See: Petitions on the Internet: What are the chances of success?)
In short, the answer is: no. Petitions that are actually intended to have an impact on a political level must be submitted via government petition platforms either in writing or electronically. Although change.org makes a lot of money from our data, it does not forward our concerns to the appropriate authorities. This means that our clicks “fizzle out” and we “signatories” have the feeling that by clicking on the private petition portals we have already done enough good to save the world a little.
However, the platforms are credited with attracting media attention. Concerns are spread and this is suitable as a small component of campaigns. However, at a very high price, namely the impairment of our privacy.
So where do you turn if you really want to make a difference?
Depending on whether your concern concerns the municipality, the state parliament, the Bundestag or the EU Parliament, you should contact the respective petitions committee there. You don't even have to leave the house to do this. It only takes a few clicks and registration to create a serious petition. Of course, it is still not certain whether your concern will actually be implemented politically. But at least you did everything possible to give it a real chance of a real change. 😉
The fact that change.org is an ambivalent company is nothing new. But we at Mimikama feel that bringing such information to the society to gain more awareness can never be enough. So share our article widely. And you know: think first – then click!
Author: Elke Haberl, mimikama
Article image: Pixabay
Also interesting: According to a Reuters survey, only one in five people believe the news from the social media platform
- more and more users do not trust TikTok news
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )

