So, if a person is on social Media he must be familiar with the website of Change.Org as any thing that happens in the society a message must be received either on your mail on any kind of social media platform there must be messages saying “Can you help me out by signing this petition”? As we are living in democracy so each individual has been granted with the right to speech and expression under Article 19 1(a) of the constitution and there has been many cases where these petitions played role as the purpose of these petition is to get a change in the society. The concept of these petitions was to let people connect with such causes and encourage them to connect with each other and different NGOs to help through social networking platform.during the initial stages the platform focuses on certain issues i.e. social changes,human rights and global warming initially. The concept of change.org was founded in 2007 by Ben Rattray and Mark Dimas basically it allows the user to create,sign and promote petitions. Its website claims to have 405,105,076 people taking action basically there are 2,077,462(approx) actions that has been taken in a single country as per the website so far, but is that all ? is everything that simple? So the answer to these question is No, as the things are not that easy that by signing these surveys there can be an instant change in the society basically the change that the website is claiming is not considered to be honest basically these are survey’s as they collecting people opinion on certain issues that are there in India the change they are trying to get through these petitions are not easy. There are activists in India and around the world who has been working for these issues and trying to get the change in the society these petitions hardly play any role it’s just get your opinion on the ongoing issues. There has been certain cases around the world where these platform claims have achieved ‘success’ on various issues through its petitions and some of them are :
l Justice for Trayvon Martin:
l Teen magazines stop photo-shopping models:
l Pavithra Shetty made school schools safer in Karnataka:
l Ban on Gay Boy Scouts ended:
l Making Uber rides more responsible in India:
Legality of these online Petitions:
As people who sign these petitions there is a need to provide information to them that these petitions are not legally they are just a public survey and these type of petitions are under the radar of the government since the beginning. It,is true that these petitions are working in good faith but there has been problem that has been lying with these petitions.Some negative points have been pointed out from time to time:
1. The first and the foremost problem is that the information that has been provided on these websites were stolen by the dark net users i.e. hackers. As to use the website individual needs to provide information by signing through their Google accounts or any other social media account basically through this the information that will be received by these website will be misused there has been many cases where privacy has been breached and most of the time there has been spammers that are operating these websites with fake names.So, this website is an independent website not organized by any government around the world so there are chances of the privacy breach through these websites.
2. According to wired magazines”if you sign one animal right petition the company says you’re 2.29 times more likely to sign a criminal justice petition. As if you sign a criminal justice petition,you’re 6.3 times , more likely to sign an economic justice petition and 4.4 time more likely to sign an immigrant rights petition,and four time more likely to sign an education petition”[1]. So, thing that has been said by this magazine is that there has been no proper originality no proper source has been there due to which some time there can be matters relating to cyber privacy.
3. As due to the name .org name there has been perception in people’s mind that it is a non profit organization but it is not like that it is a profit oriented company .org charges groups for the privilege of sponsoring petitions that are matched to users with similar interest.
4. Online petitions are just creating database of names emails and phone number if we look at other way these illegal by nature because these petitions do not have watch on them
Conclusion
One of the biggest issues to be aware of when you sign a petition or submit a survey is that the primary goal of its conductor is likely to build a contact list. Signing means giving up your details not only to the organization that started the survey or petition, but potentially to whomever they choose to sell it to. Many consulting companies teach nonprofits how to grow their email list through petitions, including using paid advertising to promote their petitions and drive people to sign. (The cost of such promotion is somewhere around $1.75 per email address acquired, according to Upleaf[2] So, these petitions are not illegal but the problem is that they do not have any agency to keep a watch on them and due to which they cause problem with the privacy of the individual which the normal public doesn’t know basically they receive mail regarding the petition on the ongoing issue in India or anywhere in the world and being thinking as a good cause they enter their details on that website this might create problems for them and on legal basis these are just for social media purposes or to get a survey for getting opinion of the people but in reality these petition does not create a larger impact but nowadays there has been cases of privacy breach that has been created through these websites. If an individual is really cared about any problem in the society he/she can work with the NGOs to get rid of this problem these online portals are nothing but a way to privacy breach,so be aware while entering your personal information on this websites.
