Change.org is a website which allows users to create and sign petitions in an attempt[3] to advance various social causes by raising awareness and influencing decision-makers.

[13] In 2012, Arizona State University decided to block access to Change.org in response to a petition created by student Eric Haywood protesting against "rising tuition costs at the school."

University officials claimed that "Change.org is a spam site" and that the blocking was conducted "to protect the use of our limited and valuable network resources for legitimate academic, research, and administrative uses."

[15] On May 13, 2012, The Guardian, BBC News, and other sources reported that Change.org would launch a UK-specific platform for petitions, placing Change.org in competition with 38 Degrees,[16][17] a British not-for-profit political-activism organization.

[20] On March 15, 2021, Supreme Federal Court Minister Alexandre de Moraes's impeachment request received more than 4,770,000 signatures.

The petition collected over 57,000 signatures, and on January 26, 2012, the studio updated the website "with the environmental message the kids had dictated.

"[13] On the morning of February 2, 2012, Stef Gray, a 23-year-old graduate in New York, held a news conference at the Washington offices of Sallie Mae, the "nation's largest private student-loan provider", presenting the results of her Change.org petition, which had received about 77,000 signatures.

In September 2014, Karol Wilcox of Hayti, Missouri, started a petition against the planned execution of Beau, a two-and-a-half-year-old dog in Dyersburg, Tennessee, for allegedly killing a duck on his owner's property.

[30] On December 5, 2015, the U.S. Congress reauthorized the Zadroga Act, which provides funds to first responders "suffering debilitating illnesses and injuries due to their service."

When Congress stalled on reauthorizing the bill, John Feal, an advocate for first responders to the September 11 attacks, started a petition in its favor that nearly 187,000 people signed.

[31] The New York Daily News reported: Lifetime health benefits for sickened 9/11 first responders won overwhelming approval Friday from Congress after a long and contentious battle.

It stalled the production of the sixth and final season of the television series in which Spacey starred on the network House of Cards.

("stay alive" in Morse code) created a petition entitled "Delete Logan Paul's YouTube Channel", receiving more than 720,000 signatures.

[51] On March 25, 2015, the BBC released an official statement confirming that, due to the actions which led to his suspension, they would not be renewing his contract with the show.

[52] In June 2014, Ghoncheh Ghavami, a law student at the University of London and a British-Iranian dual citizen, was arrested for attempting to attend a volleyball match as a protest, while in Iran teaching literacy to street children for charity as well as to visit family.

[54] He then began a petition on Change.org titled #GetMenOnMakeupCampaigns, calling on major beauty brands like Superdrug and Boots to start including men in their make-up campaigns.

A petition was started in 2020, to get Dominic Cummings sacked after it emerged, he travelled from London to his parents' home in Durham with coronavirus symptoms during the COVID-19 lockdown.

[63] In August 2014, Erica Perry of Vancouver, British Columbia, started a petition asking Centerplate, an extensive food and beverage corporation serving entertainment venues in North America and the UK, to fire its then-CEO Desmond "Des" Hague after the public release of security camera footage allegedly showing Hague abusing a young Doberman Pinscher in an elevator.

By the end of the campaign, the petition had 40,484 supporters and met with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Minister Liz Sandals, which led to consent's integration into Canada's sex-ed program.

[70] In 2018, an anonymous creator of a Facebook community against bike riders started a Change.org anti-cycling petition that shortly reached over 100,000 signatures.

[71] In 2019, a petition was created to remove Senator Fraser Anning from the Australian Federal Parliament after his comments on the terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand.

[79] After two earthquakes hit Central Mexico on September 7 and September 19, 2017, there were different petitions to force the "Instituto Nacional Electoral" (National Electoral Institute), the Mexican Senate, and President Enrique Peña Nieto to donate most or all of the money destined for the upcoming 2018 general elections be redirected to victims of the natural disaster in Mexico City and neighbor states of Morelos, Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Puebla.

"[86] Change.org members contribute monthly to sustain the technology and the small teams of campaigners who coach and support petition starters.

In 2017 an investment round driven by Reid Hoffman helped drive the shift to the current business model.

In 2018, Anne Savage, the CEO of Bicycle Queensland, claimed that a prominent Australian anti-cycling petition on Change.org was full of false names.

A spokesperson for Change.org denied that the signatures were fake, saying that the organization's engineering team had double-checked the petition and confirmed there was no unusual activity.

The site has been accused of fooling its users and hiding that it is "a for-profit entity with an economic incentive to get people to sign petitions."

I'd suspect that the average Change.org user does not know that Change.org is a for-profit corporation, and that the corporation plans on using the contact information being provided to them to earn revenue.Change.org spokesperson Charlotte Hill countered this criticism in a September 2013 article in Wired, saying, "We are a mission-driven social enterprise, and while we bring in revenue, we reinvest 100% of that revenue back into our mission of empowering ordinary people.

"[98] The further debate over the content of petitions came in November 2014 when Martin Daubney called some of them "bizarre" and stated that the site was being used to promote censorship.

[99] In response, the Change.org communication director John Coventry defended the wide range of petitions, saying that "people make an informed choice in what they want to support.