Beware Of Wolves In Progressives Clothing !!!

[WillyT]

Change.org Helping Group Pushing Grand Bargain, Social Insurance Cuts
By: David Dayen - FDL
Monday November 12, 2012 12:17 pm

<snip>

The fiscal madness in Washington has now intersected with a recent development, the sellout of certain progressive organizations. Change.org recently announced they would rebrand themselves as less a progressive social movement site, but a one-stop shop for anyone of any ideology that wants to use petitions to leverage a particular policy.

Change.org allows users to launch and sign petitions, and the company has had some high-profile successes. Change.org currently operates under a values-based client policy, only accepting advertisements from progressive organizations that share its values. The new policy will be closer to “a Google-like open advertising policy in which determinations about which advertisements we’ll accept are based on the content of the ad, not the group doing the advertising,” according to a company FAQ sent to staff <...>

Change.org did not plan to reach out to its base of progressive users about the change. “We have no plans to proactively tell users about the new design or our new mission, vision, or advertising guidelines,” reads one document.

This policy has been instituted quickly. In fact, Change.org, while still the location of petitions to keep Erskine Bowles out of the Treasury Secretary job, also welcomes corporate CEOs – whose spokesperson is the one and the same Bowles – on the site to promote cuts to social insurance programs.

The so-called “Campaign To Fix The Debt” is using Change.org tools to get members and build its e-mail list. Recall that the Campaign To Fix The Debt is a group run by corporate CEOs and bankers that is trying to cut Social Security and lower corporate tax rates.

The group is running a petition on Change’s site calling on Congress to endorse the Bowles-Simpson plan to cut Social Security and corporate taxes. In the three months the petition has been up, it has gained 255,846 supporters.

If you go to the Campaign To Fix The Debt’s website, you’ll see that it brags of having over 300,000 signatories to its petition:

Put two and two together and you’ll see that it appears that almost the entire membership list of the Campaign To Fix The Debt comes from Change.org’s petition tool.

Change.org can do whatever it wants, I guess. Having leveraged progressive voices to build their brand, if they want to cash in and let anyone use their architecture and have access to their users, I suppose nobody can stop them. I wonder why any progressive organization would have anything to do with Change.org at this point, however.

<snip>

Link: http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/11/12/change-org-helping-group-pushing-grand-bargain-social-insurance-cuts/

[nc4bo]

1. Not Rec'ing because I'm sure there's something nefarious going on here BUT because someone took time

out of their day to give us all a heads up about something that could be important.

I appreciate that!

[WillyT]

3. Thank You For That !!!

[HiPointDem]

2. kr

[glinda]

4. Not recommending because of demonization of wolves.

Isn't there another word instead of wolves? Am pretty touch on this lately.

[flamingdem]

5. Isn't that Move On? n/t

[WillyT]

6. Nope... MoveOn.org Is Here:

Link: http://front.moveon.org/

Change.org is here: http://www.change.org/

[flamingdem]

8. Yes it's not the same but recently

I signed at a site just like that and it had the moveon logo, they must have a similar idea and maybe word needs to go out to use their site, if I can find it I'll post.

[WillyT]

10. I'm Wondering Why They Get To Keep The Non-Profit .org Label...

When they have clearly decided to use the petition tool for profit.

[bvar22]

11. MoveOn sold out in 2009.

They agreed to drop their Anti-WAR stance for favors and access from the White House.
Rahm made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-scahill/rahm-emanuels-think-tanke_b_185203.html



[font color=firebrick size=3][center]"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone[/font][/center]
[center][/font]
[font size=1]photo by bvar22
Shortly before Sen Wellstone was killed[/center][/font]

[WillyT]

12. Good Info... I Did Not Know That... Thank You !!!

[OneGrassRoot]

7. That's disappointing to say the least. :(

I just used them -- and they were VERY helpful -- to get FEMA Reservists health benefits. Only took 10 days. I knew the federal firefighters used them and also had success, so I immediately went there to create the petition.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021789277

It doesn't bother me that a site with specific tools, like petitions, would keep it open to all sorts of causes and issues.

What's disturbing is the revenue model. I just recently discovered that that's basically the model for all those sites, including care2.com, another progressive site.

It's primarily nonprofits who pay to use the petition tool and build a membership list.

I know they have to monetize the site somehow; trust me, I'm facing the same dilemma with Wishadoo. But there is something about that model that deeply disturbs me. It's not transparent enough. It feels that the mission and core values of the business could easily be compromised.

I lean toward trying to find a few key sponsors/partners who I feel have integrity rather than use these other models which smack entirely too much of old-school capitalism (even when the nonprofit world is involved) where everything is about the bottom line, including people. It's a slippery slope.

Thanks for sharing this.

[WillyT]

9. You Are Quite Welcome !!!