Introduction About Change.org Change.org is the world’s largest petition platform — growing by more than two million new users a month, and empowering millions of people to start, join, and win campaigns for social change in their community, city and country. In the UK we have hit 6 million users, 1 in 10 of the population have used Change.org to campaign for change and on average 7 petitions are winning a week. The issues users campaign about vary from the local (200 people signing a petition to save the local lollypop lady1 ), to the international (over 1 million signing a petition for world leaders to bring back 200 girls kidnapped in Nigeria2 ). Some of the most high profile campaign victories over the last 2 years include: getting women on banknotes, putting FGM on the Department for Education’s agenda, insurance company Friends Life paying out to the widow of a cancer sufferer and securing legal aid for the family of Cherry Groce. About the Decision Makers Tool Decision Makers is a new feature we have developed to make Change.org to facilitate a two­way dialogue between decision makers and the public ­ be they, elected representatives and constituents, or companies and customers. It also allows decision makers to monitor petitions directed towards them as they are started and as they grow. The feature allows anyone being petitioned to respond, with that response emailed directly to all signers of that petition. 1
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West Berkshire Council: Cancel the 2014 Proposed Redundancy of local Lollipop Lady World leaders: Bring back our girls 1 Unlike a press release, Facebook post, a tweet or a post on an official blog, the response feature ensures that your messaging ends up in the inbox of everyone who has said they care about this issue, rather than broadcasting the message in the hope that people will see it. Engagement How effective has the Government’s e­petitions system been in enabling the public to engage with parliamentarians and the democratic process? Digital tools have revolutionised the way people are engaging in politics. Across the UK people are building movements large and small to challenge previously out of reach institutions. Using the incredible power of tools like Twitter and Change.org individuals who have never considered themselves campaigners or identified as 'political' are challenging the institutions that govern their communities, cities regions and countries. They are a simple but effective tool that take a citizen one step further into civic engagement, from signing their first petition they may go on to sharing that petition with their community, meeting with their MP, and eventually perhaps starting their own petition. This first step is crucial and important that they have a good experience in order to build their trust in engagement. Although the Govt's e­petition site is a recognition of the fact that the public are using online tools to call for change, there are various elements of the Government’s e­petitions system that provides a barrier of what is often a person’s first step into public participation: ● Almost half of petition requests submitted to the site by the public are rejected before they reach publication stage3 ●
The gateway to an official response is an ambitious target of 100,000 signatures. This is unrealistic to achieve and instantly puts a person off from starting a petition. ●
Petition starters regularly tell us that they “need 100,000 signatures”. This target has created a damaging effect on civic participation. We see petitions on Change.org 3
BBC report: E­petitions get 6.4 million signatures in a year 2 regularly receive a response from politicians and acheive change when they have far less than 100,000 signatures. ●
The language on the site is unclear; there is a misconception that 100,000 signatures will lead to a debate in Parliament. Many petitions exceed the threshold of 100,000 and lead to no debate. ●
The site also implies that the only way of getting a debate in Parliament on the issue you care about is through the Government’s e­petition tool. We have seen petitions on Change.org spark their own debate without the use of the Government site, for example the petition started by Jack Monroe about the rise in food banks which led to its own debate and vote in Parliament4 . ●
It perpetuates the idea that civic participation has to have a Government target. Instead, the Government can act as an ally or advocate ­­ creating a positive experience of Parliament, we see this regularly on Change.org. The campaign for Paddy Power to pull their advert on the Oscar Pistorius trial5 because of the offense caused to domestic abuse survivors was started by a survivor called Jean Hatchet. One of her biggest advocates was MP Tom Watson who helped drive support for Jean’s campaign 4
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Parliament: Debate UK hunger and rise in food banks Paddy Power: Remove your offensive betting on the outcome of Oscar Pistorius trial 3 which led to a victory. Stella Creasy MP was an advocate for the campaign calling on Twitter to install a “report abuse” button6 . These campaigns have leveraged the skills and expertise that MPs have as “professional campaigners” and given politicians an opportunity to empower the public as campaigners. ●
The Government’s e­petition tool doesn’t allow for a dialogue with signers which is not conducive to running a campaign. When thousands of people put their name to a cause, this data becomes the sole property of the government – whose very actions they are challenging. The petition starter has no way to inform those who signed it if the campaign has had progress or for them to take further actions, thus often stalling the campaign. What are the downsides of technology for MPs and how can they be overcome? These might include the additional overheads of using digital and traditional working methods side by side, online abuse, etc. The Internet has created the biggest citizen megaphones ever, but not the headphones to help MPs to actually listen and engage effectively. Petition sites and email platforms haven't made it very easy for decision makers to engage ­ with more “noise” sometimes being generated than signal. MPs complain about their inboxes being bombarded every day by petitions in the form of emails and phone calls that are most often unverifiable and unorganised. There's virtually no way to effectively "listen" to all of them and respond. This can be overcome by creating a two way dialogue with the public rather than a one way conversation that makes the public feel isolated and powerless. Change.org for Decision Makers does exactly that and we see the impact that conversation is having in building trust between the public and MPs. By aggregating all petitions to decision makers in one place, and making the whole thing public, we bring transparency to both sides of the coin, and we make it easy for MPs' responses to get directly to every signer of the petition. Five years ago it would have been unthinkable for the Prime Minister to release a public statement on Twitter and today it’s a regular occurrence. Digital is now the only way some people are able to engage in democracy, and it’s moving fast. Online platforms like Change.org have provided a way for Decision Makers to engage directly on issues. The tools are there for a dialogue, MPs need to adopt them. 6
Twitter: Add a ‘report abuse’ button 4 Facilitating dialogue amongst citizens: Should Parliament (or Government) have a role in facilitating dialogue amongst citizens? Parliament should have a role in enabling the dialogue rather than facilitating it. By facilitating the discussion they are creating an “invited space”; setting their own terms and then inviting the public to join in. By doing this you cut people out of the most important step of the process ­ setting the terms of engagement. You are also not reaching the communities in which participation is traditionally lower. There are spaces where this kind of dialogue is already happening amongst citizens. Parliament/ Government needs to step out of Westminster and into the spaces that the public already are and actively listen. Other ways of enabling the facilitation are funding projects that empower individuals to speak up about the things they care about and making Government information more readily available so that the public can have informed discussions. Is it important for citizens to have an online platform or other medium for discussing political issues and the work of Government and Parliament? If so, who should be responsible for providing it – Government, Parliament, or the private sector? Yes ­ this is essential if the public are to feel engaged in democracy. Online platforms are more accessible than traditional ways of engaging in political issues and ensure that groups that have traditionally been less likely to engage are doing so, such as young people, people from BME backgrounds, people with disabilities. If the Government or Parliament hosts this platform it needs to be created with the public, on their terms, in the way they want to engage, rather than presenting a platform that doesn’t work for them. There are already platforms currently available that are engaging the public in democracy, enabling them to be heard on the issues they care about and giving them the opportunity to have a dialogue with decision makers. Parliament needs to engage in those platforms and empower politicians to engage on them by training them up with digital skills. Currently only the more digital savvy MPs are engaging with the public online, which is a missed opportunity for both politicians and the public. 5 Will future tools make it easier to facilitate dialogue, and if so how? Yes ­ and current tools are already doing this. It’s important that the Government and Parliament adopt a more digital savvy approach to civic engagement. It has never been easier to facilitate a dialogue amongst citizens. Access to digital tools has created more channels of communication, 24 hr news and therefore higher expectations of politicians. Digital isn’t going away ­­ schools are beginning to teach coding, there will only be an increase in how much it’s used and how fast it develops. With regards to future tools, Change.org’s Decision Maker feature is only in its first phase. We envisage its development as strengthening the dialogue amongst citizens and between citizens and politicians. 6