Page 7 - Contact Your Lawmakers Research

Contacting Your Member of Congress - Fact or Fiction? Research Project

There is no way to automatically sort, analyze, and then count Facebook posts as to whether or not the user
is for or against a specific policy. So that information has no real analytical value. And unfortunately we
were not able to find a single documented instance of social media posts resulting in a lawmaker reversing

his or her policy decision

Does signing a Petition influence Congress?

Petitions typically have no credibility with Congress and this is why. I just signed a Change.org political
petition as Elvis Presley and used my sons email address. So there’s no way for Change.org to know if I am

a registered voter, if I am a U.S. Citizen, which Congressional District I am in, and if I am of legal age to sign
anything and all that is critical when dealing with Congress on major public policies. Also, if I wanted to

harvest email addresses Change.org would be a good way to do that. See the article below.

Why You Should Think Twice Before Signing a Change.org Petition
Change.org, the online petition platform, is everyone's favorite form of online activism. As with most things these days, do-gooders
and protesters alike take to the internet to start movements, and Change.org has quickly become the go-to tool for the lazy in
the digital age. Dubbed the "Google of modern politics", it's amassed 150 million users around the world, and increases by
another million every month. With just a few clicks anyone can sign, or even start, a petition. While it's true that it sometimes
open doors to fight social injustice, it's also profiting off its users big time.

How much is your email address worth?
According to Italian magazine L'Espresso, Change.org is all
but non-profit and sells user's information to the highest
bidder. In an investigation published in 2016 the publication
released Change.org's client price list ranging from $1.72
per email if a client buys less than 10,000, up to $.97 cents
per email if the number goes above 500,000," for emails
used to sign sponsored petitions.

No such thing as online privacy in Change .org
John Coventry, Change.org's head of communications,
specified that if a user signs the petition with the “Keep me
updated on this campaign” box checked, your email address
is given to the sponsoring organization and Change.org gets
paid. And, as it so happens, that box is checked by default. How unethical. Once you’ve "unknowingly" subscribed to an
organization’s emailing list, you’re no longer covered by Change.org’s privacy policy, meaning that organization can sell your
contact details and information to other organizations. https://www.konbini.com/en/lifestyle/change-org-data-mining/

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