change.org

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change.org
logo
founding 2007
founder Ben Rattray
Seat San Francisco
main emphasis Open platform, users determine the content
method Petitions , online campaigns
Action space worldwide, 907,197 active petitions in 196 countries (December 31 , 2018 )
owner Change.org PBC
Employees 140 permanent employees
Website change.org
change.org Association Germany

change.org is a global platform for online activism headquartered in San Francisco . With more than 265 million users, it was the “world's largest campaign platform” in 2018. The platform enables citizens to start petitions easily and directly. She is open to all topics and concerns. Petitions from the areas of democracy, poverty, the environment, housing, inclusion, mobility, migration, network policy, animal welfare, trade relations and human rights are popular. The declared goal of change.org is to give people worldwide the opportunity to stand up for the world in which they want to live. change.org is a public benefit corporation . All profits generated are reinvested in the platform. Change.org Germany is a registered association and only licensee and user of the technical platform of change.org PBC without any further legal connections.

Foundation and development

change.org was founded in 2007 by Ben Rattray and Mark Dimas as a social business . Rattray originally wanted to become an investment banker. When he saw the adverse reactions his brother experienced to his homosexual coming out , he decided to work to ensure that people can change their immediate environment. First tried Rattray and his Stanford - classmate Dimas social fundraising to organize a volunteer network blogger or groups on the Internet, but which they had initially unsuccessful.

Therefore, in 2010 Rattray and Dimas started to rebuild the site and focus on collective actions and citizen participation . With the help of change.org people should start petitions, support one another and thus successfully bring about social change. At the end of 2018, change.org had 140 permanent employees in 18 countries, existed in twelve languages ​​and was used in 196 countries around the world.

In 2012 the US news magazine Time named change.org founder Ben Rattray to the list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Change.org Germany

In September 2016 the German change.org team founded an independent non-profit organization - change.org eV Germany , based in Berlin. The association is a licensee of Change.org PBC ( Public Benefit Corporation ) in the USA and uses its technical platform and global infrastructure. Furthermore, change.org eV is in no way legally affiliated with Change.org PBC . The platform has around 6 million registered users in Germany. The association had more than 5,000 sponsors at the end of 2017 and more than 10,000 at the end of 2018. It is financed 100 percent through donations and sponsorship contributions, which has replaced the old financing model in Germany. The association fulfills the conditions of the Transparent Civil Society initiative and is therefore allowed to use the initiative's logo. The association's annual reports meet the requirements of the Social Reporting Standard (SRS). The German boss of Change.org PBC Gregor Hackmack , who has been in office since 2014 , is now also a board member of the association.

Goals and way of working

Change.org is a free and open campaign platform for everyone. Change.org does not run any campaigns itself, but supports activists. The declared aim is to decentralize campaigning and promote local engagement. The organization wants to encourage individuals to trust themselves to initiate social change at any time. It is fundamentally the need and the ability of every person to eliminate injustice and to overcome the self-perceived powerlessness. For this purpose, users of the Change.org website can primarily create and distribute online petitions on any topic, with Change.org's permanent staff providing technical and strategic support in some cases. The platform's campaign training offers clues as to how campaigns at Change.org work. Some petitions get more support than others. The selection of the petitions that are being worked on needs a strong story and must be interesting for the Change.org community as well as factually verifiable and up to date. As soon as petitions incite violence, hatred or agitation and thus violate the Change.org community guidelines, they will be removed. If there is evidence that a petition may contain incorrect information, it will be deleted. If this information cannot be proven, the petition will be marked accordingly.

financing

Change.org generates income through sustaining memberships and donations, as well as by promoting petitions on the website. Change.org sponsors help fund the technology and campaign team to coach and support the petition starters. Most of the company's revenue comes from promoting petitions. Individuals and organizations who start or sign petitions run advertisements to publicize those petitions to other website visitors. To date, Change.org has raised $ 80 million. Investors from business, technology and the media promoted the growth of the platform. In 2017, a Reid Hoffman-led investment round helped transition to the current business model. The site previously generated revenue from advertising, which was known as sponsored campaigns for advocacy organizations such as Amnesty International and list building services for partner organizations. In May 2013, the website started promoting petitions that allow a signer to support the petition by paying $ 1 to $ 1000 at the final stage of signing the petition.

Well-known cases and largest petitions

Largest Change.org petitions internationally (as of August 2020)

So far, the following petitions have received the most signatures:

  1. Justice for George Floyd: 19.5 million signatures
  2. SaveTheInternet #Uploadfilter: 5.3 million signatures
  3. Electoral College: 4.9 million signatures
  4. Yulin: 4.8 million signatures
  5. #FreedomOnYoutube: 4.3 million signatures
  6. Justice for Audrey: 3.8 million signatures

Other known international cases

Tray from Martin

One of the best known cases on Change.org and one of the most widely supported online petitions is the Trayvon Martin case . In February 2012, the Latino George Zimmerman shot dead the unarmed 17-year-old African American Trayvon Martin. The local authorities initially did not issue an arrest warrant for Zimmerman. The public protests and media reports that eventually led to the investigation were accompanied and reinforced by a petition that Martin's parents posted on Change.org and which eventually garnered over 2.2 million signatures.

Speech duel in the 2012 US presidential election

In the 2012 US presidential campaign , Candy Crowley became the first woman since 1992 to host one of the TV duels between candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney . The only 16-year-old girls Emma Axelrod, Sammi Siegel and Elena Tsemberis, who had requested in a petition to the Debate Committee that a woman should moderate one of the speeches, prevailed.

Government action against "corrective" rape

Lesbian women are u. a. in South Africa partly victims of rape , which the perpetrators allegedly attempt to make the women heterosexual again through the rape and are therefore known under the euphemism of " corrective rape ". These crimes went unpunished for a long time. Only the petition of a South African woman whose girlfriend had been the victim of such a crime and which caused a stir around the world prompted the South African government to take countermeasures.

Known cases in Germany

Citizens' lawsuit against CETA

Marianne Grimmenstein, a flute teacher from Lüdenscheid, followed the negotiations on CETA and TTIP from the very beginning, got information about the news and the information pages of the European Commission. It soon became clear to them: CETA lacks transparency. Ms. Grimmenstein planned early on to sue the Federal Constitutional Court against such a contract. Her engagement on Change.org began in October 2014 and in August 2016 she was able to submit a professional complaint and almost 70,000 powers of attorney to the constitutional court in Karlsruhe. Marianne Grimmenstein gained nationwide notoriety through the largest civil lawsuit she filed against CETA.

Employment and placement of temporary workers with Amazon

The report broadcast by ARD in 2013, Delivered! Temporary workers at Amazon reported up to 5,000 people who were recruited as seasonal workers from many European countries through the employment agencies . According to ARD, the temporary workers in rented holiday homes and hotels were monitored by scary "security people" from HESS . They could have violated the privacy of the segregated workers.

At the beginning of 2013, ver.di started a petition on the online petition platform Change.org to improve the working conditions of temporary workers at Amazon. On February 28, 2013, a list of 37,000 supporters from all over Germany was handed over to the Amazon plant management in the Bad Hersfeld logistics center.

Deutsche Telekom volume restriction tariff

In April 2013, Deutsche Telekom announced that it would put volume limits on its DSL flat rate tariffs in future. However, T-Entertain's own offering should be excluded from this. In addition, Germany boss Niek-Jan van Damme announced that selected providers would be exempted from the restriction against payment. The 18-year-old high school graduate Malte Götz saw a misleading use of the term flat rate and a violation of net neutrality . After just a few weeks, his petition received over 200,000 signatures. Numerous network activists and the digital society also organized protests. There was extensive media coverage of Malte Götz and his petition, he met Telekom boss van Damme and finally achieved a far-reaching partial success: In June, Telekom announced that it would be significantly reducing its throttle plans. Shortly afterwards it became known that the then Minister of Economic Affairs, Philipp Rösler - as requested in the petition - is also planning a statutory guarantee of net neutrality.

Copyright reform of the European Union / SaveTheInternet

The proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on copyright in the digital single market is a controversial draft in an ongoing EU legislative process with the aim of adapting copyright law in the European Union to the requirements of the digital society . The submission of the draft is considered very controversial, even after several revisions. The subject of controversy is in particular efforts to introduce ancillary copyright for press publishers as well as the implementation of an obligation to license copyrighted content and the associated upload filter (Article 13) As part of numerous campaigns against Article 13 , the activists Dominic Kis and Pascal Fouquet initiated a petition at Change.org under the title Stop the Censorship Machine - Save the Internet! - #Uploadfilter # Article13 in German, English, Finnish, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish. The petition is against Articles 11, 12 and 13 in particular, whereby the MEPs are explicitly requested to remove the upload filters from the planned reform. On February 18, 2019, the petition, which had been signed about 4.7 million times by then, was handed over by the initiators to Justice Minister Katarina Barley (SPD). On March 13, 2019, YouTubers from several European countries handed over the petition to EU parliamentarians Brando Benifei and Daniele Viotti with 4.9 million signatures . The 5 million mark was exceeded on March 21, 2019. This petition is the second largest Change.org petition. On March 23, 2019, the petition and the Save the Internet alliance brought between 170,000 and 200,000 people to the streets in sixteen European countries. What was remarkable was the large number of young people, many of whom were taking part in a demonstration for the first time.

criticism

In the summer of 2012, the Huffington Post published revised Change.org advertising guidelines before the organization could do so. The organization made it clear that it was basically open to groups from across the democratic spectrum. This publication brought Change.org from parts of left-wing circles in the US criticism, because these groups perceived Change.org as a left-wing progressive platform. Ben Rattray, also in the Huffington Post , defended the direction of his organization and argued that only as an open platform can Change.org be an instrument for the change that the respective societies are striving for in different countries of the world.

Change.org has also been criticized for allowing it, according to its terms of use, to sell data to partner organizations and even uninvolved third parties. Thilo Weichert , at that time the data protection officer of the state of Schleswig-Holstein , accused the platform in 2015 of violating “in many respects against German data protection law”, among other things because data from millions of German users in the light of the judgment of the European Court of Justice on the Safe Harbor Agreement processed and stored on servers in the USA without a legal basis , the platform uses various tracking techniques to analyze user behavior and the outflow or transfer of data to third parties takes place in an uncontrolled manner. For this, Change.org was given the negative Big Brother Award in 2016 .

Change.org Germany gave up the criticized payment model in 2016 when the Change.org eV association was founded. Since the European General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) came into force, the European Change.org website has had the so-called “double opt-in”: Anyone who has registered their email address in the Change.org mailing list , must confirm the entry by sending a confirmation e-mail to his e-mail address. According to the company, Change.org is the petition platform in Germany that stores the least amount of data.

Most petitions allow discussion or comment on the content of the petition. However, presettings when creating the petition can prevent a discussion or comment on the content of the petition. Obviously false or questionable claims cannot be questioned or commented on. Change.org recommends - so far - to start an opposite petition in its help for this case.

literature

  • Ann-Katrin Müller: Save the world quickly . In: Der Spiegel . No. 3 , 2015 ( online - Jan 10, 2015 , Detailed report on online petitions in general and Change.org in particular).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Annual and impact report 2018. (PDF; 1.8 MB) In: changeverein.org. P. 5 , accessed on May 22, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c Transparency: Our annual and impact report 2018. Information about Change.org eV in accordance with the commitment of the Transparent Civil Society Initiative. change.org eV, February 28, 2019, accessed on July 15, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Business Model. In: change.org. Retrieved September 2, 2019 .
  4. ^ Gregor Peter Schmitz: The power of clicks . In: Der Spiegel . No. 37 , 2012, p. 155 ( online ).
  5. ↑ Molly Katchpole: Ben Rattray. In: time.com. April 18, 2012, accessed August 19, 2019 .
  6. ↑ huffingtonpost.com
  7. ↑ Ulrich Schlenker: "The best tools for passionate people". Change.org in German. kampagne20.de, July 31, 2012, accessed on August 28, 2013 .
  8. ↑ Campaign training at Change.org
  9. ^ Community guidelines from change.org
  10. ↑ Leena Rao: LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman Invests Big Change In Change.org. In: Fortune.com . May 26, 2017, accessed May 30, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Ylan Q. Mui: Change.org emerges as influential advocate on issues from bullying to bank fees . In: Washington Post . January 23, 2012, ISSN  0190-8286 (English, washingtonpost.com [accessed May 30, 2020]).
  12. ^ Courtney E. Martin: "You Are the NOW of Now!" The Future of (Online) Feminism . In: TheNation.com . November 2, 2011, ISSN  0027-8378 (English, thenation.com [accessed on 30 May 2020]).
  13. ↑ Change.org's financing model
  14. ^ Petition Justice for George Floyd
  15. ↑ petition Justice SaveTheInternet
  16. ^ Petition Electoral College
  17. ^ Petition Yulin
  18. ↑ petition #FreedomOnYoutube
  19. ^ Petition Justice for Audrey
  20. ^ Ed Pilkington: Change.org thrust into spotlight in wake of Tray by Martin case. In: guardian.co.uk . April 13, 2012, accessed May 22, 2020.
  21. ↑ Denise Restauri: Teens Too Young To Vote Use Technology To Change The Presidential Debates. In: focus.com. August 28, 2012, accessed June 5, 2019 .
  22. ^ Dana Hughes: South Africa Task Force to Fight 'Corrective Rape' of Lesbians. In: abcnews.go.com. May 11, 2011, accessed May 19, 2019 .
  23. ↑ Annual and impact report 2017, Change.org eV Germany, p. 15
  24. ↑ Hans von der Hagen: Largest civil lawsuit in Germany - On behalf of a flute teacher against Ceta. In: sueddeutsche.de. May 7, 2016, accessed November 26, 2019 .
  25. ↑ ARD: Delivered! Amazon agency workers on YouTube , June 13, 2013, accessed November 6, 2018.
  26. ↑ Nicolai Kwasniewski: ARD Documentation: How Amazon barracks temporary workers . In: Der Spiegel from February 13, 2013
  27. ↑ Amazon 'used neo-Nazi guards to keep immigrant workforce under control' in Germany - Internet giant investigates abuse claims by foreign workers in its German warehouses. February 14, 2013, accessed February 17, 2013 .
  28. ↑ Frank Lübberding: Early criticism: contract workers at Amazon Made in China . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of February 14, 2013
  29. ↑ #Amazon Germany: Improve the working conditions of your temporary workers. February 15, 2013, accessed February 18, 2013 .
  30. ↑ 37,000 signatures for better working conditions handed over to Amazon. February 28, 2013, accessed March 3, 2013 .
  31. ↑ Telekom lets frequent users finance the internet expansion. May 2, 2013, accessed August 7, 2013 .
  32. ^ Change.org petition against Telekom's throttle plans. May 3, 2013, accessed August 7, 2013 .
  33. ↑ Malte Goetz: Handover of the petition - Telekom: Nobody needs net neutrality! In: blog.maltegoetz.de. May 3, 2013, archived from the original on June 15, 2013 ; accessed on July 21, 2018 .
  34. ↑ Telekom brakes less sharply. June 12, 2013, archived from the original on June 15, 2013 ; Retrieved August 7, 2013 .
  35. ↑ Rösler wants to force Telekom to be network neutral. June 16, 2013. Retrieved August 7, 2013 .
  36. ↑ EU copyright reform: EU justice committee approves controversial compromise. In: zeit.de. February 26, 2019, accessed March 23, 2019 .
  37. ↑ Pascal Fouquet and Dominic Kis: Stop the censorship machine - Save the Internet! - #Uploadfilter # Article13. In: Petition at change.org. Retrieved March 22, 2019 .
  38. ↑ Friedhelm Greis: Upload filter - Almost 5 million signatures against copyright reform. In: golem.de. February 18, 2019, accessed April 18, 2020 .
  39. ↑ Protest against upload filters - “Net movement makes politics sit up and take notice”. In: zdf.de . March 26, 2019, accessed June 5, 2020.
  40. ↑ huffingtonpost.com
  41. ↑ Ben Rattray: The Case for Change. In: huffingtonpost.com . October 25, 2012, accessed June 1, 2020.
  42. ↑ Frank Schirrmacher: We don't want to . In: FASZ . August 25, 2013, p. 37 .
  43. ^ Thilo Weichert: Data protection assessment of the Internet participation portal Change.org. (PDF; 350 kB) In: netzwerk-datenschmerungxpertise.de. November 15, 2015, p. 18 , accessed on June 3, 2020 : "Nevertheless, the information available is sufficient to establish that the telemedia service violates German data protection law in many respects: [...]"
  44. ^ Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti: Criticism of the data protection of the petition platform Change.org. In: heise online . Heise Medien GmbH & Co. KG , Hanover, November 18, 2015, accessed on December 2, 2015 .
  45. ↑ Economy: Change.org - BigBrotherAwards. In: bigbrotherawards.de. October 6, 2015, accessed April 23, 2016 .
  46. ↑ Wolfgang Noelke: BigBrother Award given: Bitter Lemons for the data octopuses. In: deutschlandfunk.de. Deutschlandradio, April 23, 2016, accessed on October 23, 2017 .
  47. ↑ Data protection is and will remain important to us. In: changeverein.org. December 6, 2018, accessed June 11, 2020 .