(To read formal lettre scroll down)

Dear change.org
As international animalrights-activists, we are gratefull with a public petition platform like change.org.

As claimed in your "terms and conditions" there sadly is no 'management' on the petitions being created on your website.
This results in lots of petitions which are very old (not even updated for years). And even many fake petitions..
The chance that these petitions will ever be delivered is extremely low, while they keep being circulated and signed.
This bothers and frustrates us a lot, as it is a waste of time and energy from dedicated animal lovers.
A lot your of members just sign and share every petition on your website, because they highly trust on you.

The costly time and energy wasted on old and fake petitions could have been put in real cases..
Even a lot of real urgent cases have not been seen by the public, because of the fog this old and fake petitions are creating..

We are aware that your actual "terms and conditions" do not cover our request.
The previous respons was, that change.org does not feel its 'their role' to check on petitions being created on their platform

To give you a more specific idea, we have listed a tiny fraction of the amount of old- and fake petitions which still active on your website:
(Added some new)
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-michelle-obama-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-jeb-bush-international-animal-rescue-walmart-council-of-the-european-union-people-for-the-ethical-treatment-of-animals-peta-micha-bring-hitler-back-and-allow-him-to-live-just-like-the-rest-of-u

https://www.change.org/p/netflix-people-for-the-ethical-treatment-of-animals-peta-create-a-new-season-of-dinosaurs

https://www.change.org/p/every-body-stop-animal-cruelty

https://www.change.org/p/letter-to-china-dear-china

https://www.change.org/p/destroy-this-old-apartment-complex-pay-me-back-all-the-rent-money-that-you-owe-me-and-for-my-suffering-pain-and-hardships-for-having-to-go-through-this-pay-me-back-the-money-for-my-children-s-mold-allergy-s-that-s-5-600-you-owe-me-for-medical-bills

https://www.change.org/p/everyone-bitching-about-donkey-basketball-shut-the-fuck-up

https://www.change.org/p/rubber-ducky-ride-the-duck

https://www.change.org/p/rsave-animal-lives-stop-animal-cruelty

https://www.change.org/p/boicot-de-corea-del-sur-hasta-que-dejen-de-comer-los-animales-de-compañ%C3%ADa

https://www.change.org/p/government-of-india-stop-killing-dogs

https://www.change.org/p/boycott-2012-ri-world-congress-in-incheon-korea-end-monstrous-cruelty-to-millions-of-dogs-and-cats

https://www.change.org/p/walmart-stop-walmart-from-torturing-innocent-pigs

https://www.change.org/p/group-stop-yulin-2016

https://www.change.org/p/the-prime-minister-stop-testing-products-on-animals

https://www.change.org/p/person-free-shaun-kent

https://www.change.org/p/commonwealth-of-australia-replace-the-emu-on-the-australian-coat-of-arms-with-a-cassowary

https://www.change.org/p/target-australia-remove-mario-kart-8-from-all-australian-stores

https://www.change.org/p/stop-rabies-stop-rage

https://www.change.org/p/the-president-of-the-united-states-support-research-funding-for-the-energy-of-the-future-the-lftr

https://www.change.org/p/everyone-stop-cruelty-to-animals-worldwide

https://www.change.org/p/the-people-of-norway-a-day-in-norway-where-we-can-work-together-to-clean-up-our-beautiful-country

https://www.change.org/p/the-world-do-you-have-five-minutes-to-view-this-very-compassionate-kind-video-please-view-and-share-the-video

https://www.change.org/p/no-chain-porter-county

https://www.change.org/p/love-animals-stop-all-animals-from-torture

https://www.change.org/p/ccwd-discontinue-fluoridating-the-drinking-water-in-contra-costa-county-ca

https://www.change.org/p/for-all-the-animal-cruelty-seen-on-media-and-in-real-time-end-all-entertainment-zoo-s

https://www.change.org/p/stop-rabies-stop-rage

https://www.change.org/p/stop-killing-animals-in-your-laboratory

https://www.change.org/p/pedimos-investigacion-y-cierre-del-zoo-lujan-cierrezoolujan

https://www.change.org/p/china-please-stop-animal-abuse

https://www.change.org/p/make-farm-animal-cruelty-a-felony-in-all-50-states

https://www.change.org/p/u-k-parliament-outlaw-animal-crush-video-by-enacting-legislation-with-severe-penalties

https://www.change.org/p/arts-council-of-ireland-stop-funding-animal-circuses

https://www.change.org/p/australian-federal-government-enforce-an-animal-cruelty-database

https://www.change.org/p/hm-qe-ii-pm-cameron-he-gov-haywood-mr-biles-president-kirchner-organize-a-winter-olympics-in-the-falklands

https://www.change.org/p/the-canadian-government-stop-the-legal-slaughter-of-polar-bears-by-trophy-hunters

https://www.change.org/p/the-president-of-the-united-states-support-research-funding-for-the-energy-of-the-future-the-lftr

https://www.change.org/p/ccwd-discontinue-fluoridating-the-drinking-water-in-contra-costa-county-ca

https://www.change.org/p/love-animals-stop-all-animals-from-torture

https://www.change.org/p/indigenous-green-n-a-acts

https://www.change.org/p/petition-please-sign-share-for-spay-neuter-license-tag-to-save-lives

https://www.change.org/p/jane-goodall-institute

https://www.change.org/p/saturday-night-live-make-a-toonces-the-driving-cat-movie

https://www.change.org/p/everyone-who-rounds-up-helpless-animals-just-for-being-there-save-the-wild-animals

https://www.change.org/p/the-prime-minister-stop-testing-products-on-animals

https://www.change.org/p/the-world-do-you-have-five-minutes-to-view-this-very-compassionate-kind-video-please-view-and-share-the-video

https://www.change.org/p/animal-lovers-please-sign-take-down-new-cat-punching-page-on-facebook-again

https://www.change.org/p/government-of-british-columbia-stop-the-sale-of-rabbits-in-bc-pet-stores

https://www.change.org/p/skelanimals-llc-help-bring-lolita-s-plight-to-light

Formal lettre: (thanks to my friend Rhonda Lynn)

Dear change.org,

We are animal rights activists who passionately believe in our cause, a movement to put an end to the pain, suffering and cruelty inflicted upon those who are helpless and unable to protect themselves. As such, thousands of us sign and share every petition that comes our way via your website because we have faith in change.org’s good reputation. We believe that since these petitions are being presented on your website that each one must meet some qualifications and therefore they must be legitimate. So we sign and share, trusting the petitions will reach their intended destinations, that our voices are being heard, making change possible. Surely that is the epitome of “democracy in action.”

Change.org is one of the largest petition sites on the web and as animal rights activists we participate because we have faith that the website is a safe source of legitimate petitions. Naturally we assume that whoever runs the website is doing their part to keep the personal information which any petition requires safe and out of the hands of criminals. Surely part of that responsibility is to make an effort to prevent and eliminate petitions which are, intentionally or unintentionally, illegitimate or fake. This is the premise for our trust, as well as the foundation upon which the entire website stands.

We want to bring your attention to matters we find troubling and of great importance and urgency. There is an unacceptably high volume of petitions circulating which are useless, serve no purpose, and clog up the site. These are petitions which are incomplete, they lack the necessary information required for them to reach their intended recipients, and a vast number of petitions are out of date (several years out of date). A lot of petitions are dead ends because the authors do not know what information is required for a petition to amount to anything. There’s also a flood of fake petitions which serve as "red herrings.” Intended to overwhelm, confuse, and mislead the public, these distribute masses of misinformation and hog a lot of time. Of gravest concern are the fake petitions created for the sole purpose of "data-collecting." A potential threat to everyones identities, these are particularly disturbing All of this adds up to a lot of worthless petitions popping up, being signed and wasting too much of everyone’s time and energy. Meanwhile, countless worthwhile petitions never get noticed because they are lost in a sea of fakes.

Your “terms and conditions” state that there is no ‘management’ of petitions on your part. But the website is so saturated with “junk petitions” now that something needs to be done about it. The lack of helpful guidelines allows petitions to be circulated without the information required for it to make sense or to reach its intended goal.

We would like to suggest some ideas for possible ways to address these problems:

*Setting a time limit for petition authors to adequately complete this preliminary process;
*Only allowing petitions which have successfully met the necessary criteria to be made public and circulate on the website;
*Create a position from which qualified volunteers and/or a computer program can filter out and remove the expired, incomplete, and useless petitions from circulation;
*Set up an automated system for notifying the creators of lame petitions that if they do not meet the requirements within a certain amount of time their petition(s) will be removed from circulation and deleted.
*Listing a set of guidelines spelling out how to create a legitimate petition;
*Explaining what is required for a petition to have a chance of succeeding;

Surely the kind of adjustments we are requesting would make change.org safer, more user-friendly, and possibly even reduce or eliminate any potential liability on your part. As authors and signatories -individuals with a burning desire to help humans, animals and the environment- we are people who believe in the power of the properly executed petition process to bring about positive change in the world. It is our opinion that, without such improvements, the public's ability to utilize petitions as a means of crying out in a unified voice will remain unnecessarily limited. You can help us increase our ability to make ourselves heard, above the din of the senseless chatter of petitions that should not be circulating. That way people have more opportunity to at least hear about the real issues and decide for themselves if they want to sign or not. If the website is too clogged up with junk petitions people don’t have a fair chance to make their opinions known.

We sincerely hope you will consider our suggestions and make some helpful adjustments. On behalf of all creatures great and small, through cooperation and better communication, we all can more effectively follow Mahatma Gandhi’s wise words of advice: to “BE the change we wish to see in the world.”

We the signatories of this petition extend our gratitude and appreciation for your time, consideration and assistance in this matter.

P.S. Please find the list of examples, a mere fraction of the long list of outdated, incomplete, baseless, and/or fraudulent petitions currently circulating all across the change.org website. Thank you.