change-org-blog

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Berkman Center and Internet Monitor Unveil New Change.org Dashboard Widget

At any given moment, people from all over the world are using the tools on Change.org to create change, both big and small, and to build support around a variety of issues.

Today, we are excited to announce a partnership with Internet Monitor, a project based at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Through this partnership, Change.org will add real-time data visualizations of social change to the Internet Monitor dashboard, a tool that aims to improve information in order to shape the future of the Internet by identifying trends in Internet health and activity through data analysis and visualization.

Here at Change.org, our product and data science teams monitor activity on the platform around the clock to identify when, where, and how people are taking action to create change. More than 125 million users worldwide are using the Change.org platform to start roughly 1,000 petitions each week on a wide range of issues.

Some other interesting insights:

More than 47,000,000 Change.org users have participated in a victory on our site

Change.org users have won over 15,000 campaigns on our site

Petitions on Change.org are signed on average over 1 million times daily

The new Change.org widget in the Internet Monitor dashboard displays a live feed of petition signatures from our impact map, showing in real time where users are taking action to create social change.

This impact map widget is part of a growing collection of data visualization widgets from a broad range of partners, including Akamai, Global Voices, the International Telecommunication Union, Kaspersky Labs, among others that show information about Internet access and infrastructure, online content controls, and digital activity. Users can explore, create, customize, and share collections of these visualizations on the Internet Monitor dashboard.

Having debuted this past September at the World Economic Forum's Future of the Internet Initiative, the Internet Monitor dashboard aims to foster an open, interoperable, and affordable Internet that serves the global public interest.

Read more about the Internet Monitor dashboard project in this article from Beta Boston.

About Internet Monitor

Internet Monitor is a research project based at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Internet Monitor's aim is to evaluate, describe, and summarize the means, mechanisms, and extent of Internet content controls and Internet activity around the world. The project helps researchers, advocates, policymakers, and user communities understand trends in Internet health and activity through research, analysis, and data visualization. More information can be found at https://thenetmonitor.org.

Want to join the 125 million people creating change on Change.org? Start your own petition.

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CHANGE.ORG PETITION: Help Atlantic City families recover post-Sandy -- with an ask to donate in the opening credits of Boardwalk Empire

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Today we've changed our profile picture as part of the Internet-wide protest against "Internet censorship" bills being debated in the U.S. Congress. Under the guise of protecting intellectual property, PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House threaten the innovation and creativity expressed every day via the Internet.

Just as Internet users and businesses have blacked out their sites and profiles in protest, so have they used Change.org to pressure supporters of this harmful legislation. We've featured 10 petitions of the dozens opposing SOPA and PIPA. Please visit this link to make your voice heard, then share this message to make sure the Internet stays free.

http://www.change.org/petitions#featured

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Macy's is one of the last retailers to not sign the "Golden Rules" for clean, ethical gold mining. Nilton Deza, a peruvian man who has seen the terrible impact of gold mining firsthand, is asking Macy's to drop the "dirty gold" this Christmas.

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Feminist Ryan Gosling has something to say about Apple's use of conflict minerals. 

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Delly is asking Apple to "Think Conflict-Free" and make an ethical iPhone:

I am originally from North Kivu in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where conflict has been raging for over fifteen years. I want an iPhone for the holidays this year - and I do like the iPhone4S - but having monitored mining sites in eastern Congo for several years documenting human rights abuses, I have seen firsthand the rape, violence, and devastation being fueled by the trade in minerals found in Apple’s products. I cannot in good conscience purchase an iPhone because the gold, tin, tungsten, and tantalum that power it on are destroying my home. Apple, give my family and my people a chance for a better future by cleaning up your supply chain so that you are purchasing minerals from my country that benefit rather than destroy communities. Join me in asking Apple to create a conflict-free product that includes conflict-free minerals from eastern Congo that help Congolese communities by the 2013 holiday season. They can pave the way for all companies and consumers to make conflict-free phones and computers that help people in eastern Congo.

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#SiriFail. Siri, why won't you help me find family planning services?

If Siri is providing information for users who require medical attention-like an erection lasting more than 4 hours, chest pain, or active labor, then she should provide accurate information about family planning services including contraception and abortion care.

Additionally, she should point users to the right place when they report they have been sexually assaulted. If Siri can provide information about how to dispose of a dead body, where to purchase illegal drugs, or where to get an escort, she should certainly provide accurate family planning location information to her users.

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4000 have joined a campaign asking Apple to fix their #SiriFail and provide access to information about reproductive health issues through the Siri personal assistant.

Apple claims you can ask Siri, the new voice-activated PDA system for iPhone 4S, anything you’d ask a human concierge. “Where can I get good burgers around here?” gets you a list of burger joints within driving distance. “I need to pick up flowers” sends you to the hottest florist in town. You can even ask Siri where to buy sex and where to hide a dead body and you’ll get prompt results.

But ask Siri where to obtain abortion services and it suddenly can’t deliver. In some places, a search for abortion services sends the asker to a distant crisis pregnancy center -- a fake clinic where activists opposed to abortion lie to pregnant women in order to dissuade them from choosing abortion -- but fails to offer up the clinic that provides abortion that is much closer. Siri also seems baffled when it comes to birth control - in many cases it can’t point you to the proper place to get a prescription. Siri also runs into snags when asked where to access rape crisis centers and domestic violence services.

Apple has a history of responding to its customers, so you have an opportunity to ask them to change. Even if this was an oversight on Apple's part, it's one that's harmful to and dismissive of women's health. And Apple must fix this. Sign this petition to ask Apple to make Siri a responsible source of women’s health information.

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The recent illustrations of Siri, the iPhone 4S voice-recognition based assistant, failing to provide information to users about abortion, birth control, help after rape and help with domestic violence has gotten a lot of notice. Yesterday’s post with screenshots from a Twitter conversation I was...

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Over 100,000 have signed UC Davis student David Buscho's petition calling for the resignation of Chancellor Katehi in the wake of the infamous pepper-spray incident. Today, students, faculty and supporters are participating in a general strike and carrying these "KATEHI RESIGN" posters. 

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The UC Davis English Department calls for the resignation of Chancellor Katehi on their front page.

The faculty of the UC Davis English Department supports the Board of the Davis Faculty Association in calling for Chancellor Katehi’s immediate resignation and for “a policy that will end the practice of forcibly removing non-violent student, faculty, staff, and community protesters by police on the UC Davis campus.” Further, given the demonstrable threat posed by the University of California Police Department and other law enforcement agencies to the safety of students, faculty, staff, and community members on our campus and others in the UC system, we propose that such a policy include the disbanding of the UCPD and the institution of an ordinance against the presence of police forces on the UC Davis campus, unless their presence is specifically requested by a member of the campus community. This will initiate a genuinely collective effort to determine how best to ensure the health and safety of the campus community at UC Davis.

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Amazon sells the same pepper-spray police used to douse peaceful student protestors at #UCDavis, "Defense Technology 56895 MK-9 Stream, 1.3% Red Band/1.3% Blue Band Pepper Spray."

This product doesn't have any reviews yet. Anyone out there know how it performs?

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Target’s decided they must (ie they want more money) open at midnight on Black Friday, and that all employees are working it (as BFs usually go). This means that anyone who works at Target is going to be forced to choose their job over celebrating Thanksgiving with their families and, in this economy, no one can afford to quit because they don’t like it, so their only option is to sleep through Thanksgiving to be able to work through Black Friday, or force themselves to stay awake for both. This petition might not change a damn thing, but it’ll at least let Target know how unhappy their employees are about this new change. I’m posting this because my best friend, who is very family oriented, works at a Target and is going to have to work Black Friday, just like the rest of their employees, all of whom probably have families they’d rather be with. I know this isn’t the biggest cause there is out there, but it takes two seconds to sign, and on the off chance it could make a difference, I’m sure a lot of Target employees and their families would be grateful.  

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SIGN THE PETITION! AND GET THE WORD OUT!

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Welp.

I, for one, find Tumblr one of the more reliable sources of information and one of the most up to date. We knew about the content of Obama’s impromptu surprise announcement before he announced it himself, just to name an example. The same difference applies to Youtube, so when I see things...

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Stop the internet control bill NOW. 

"The IP Act (S.968 - PROTECT IP Act of 2011) establishes a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department determines to be "dedicated to infringing activities." The DoJ or the copyright owner would be able to commence a legal action against the alleged infringer and the DoJ would be allowed to demand that search engines, social networking sites and domain name services block access to the targeted site. In some cases, action could be taken to block sites without first allowing the alleged infringer to defend themselves in court. The PROTECT IP Act would allow copyright owners – movie studios and other content providers – simply to accuse a website of infringement, which could lead to that site being shut down by court order and entire links to the site being wiped clean from the Internet. The bill is so poorly written that it would allow any copyright owner to shut down a legitimate retail website, such as Amazon or Best Buy, by alleging that one product being sold on the site could “enable or facilitate” an infringement. It could even allow any content owner to block access to the Patent Office website if it receives and posts a patent application for a product that is believed to use content without permission. The PROTECT IP Act will hurt American innovation. This bill will give one side the power to put the other side out of business and this is dangerous beyond words."