Did Michelle Rhee win Change.org debate after all? Site will now take right wing petitions.

[madfloridian]

Interesting article at HuffPost. I guess they paid a monetary price and more when they said they would drop the petitions of Michelle Rhee's anti-teacher, anti-union group, Students First.

They are still carrying the petitions, though they said they would not. I think that is called a lie. There are 34 petitions there for the group which claims over 2 million supporters. However many of those listed where fooled into signing a petition because of tricky wording, and nothing gets them off her list.

Now they will accept anti-abortion, anti-union petitions, and corporate ads. They had no plans to reach out to their progressive users, no plans to tell them what was happening.

Change.org Changing: Site To Work With Corporate, Anti-Abortion, GOP Campaigns, Say Internal Documents

WASHINGTON -- Change.org, the online social movement company founded on progressive values, has decided to change its advertising policy to allow for corporate advertising, Republican Party solicitations, astroturf campaigns, anti-abortion or anti-union ads and other controversial sponsorships, according to internal company documents.

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. The document was leaked to Jeff Bryant, an associate fellow at the Campaign for America's Future, a liberal organization, who subsequently provided it and others to The Huffington Post.

..."Change.org built its reputation on arming Davids to take on the Goliaths of the world," Bryant told HuffPost. "Now it seems that the company thinks David and Goliath should be on the same team."

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.

Looks like the Goliaths won, doesn't it?

I can't trust a company that caves like that.

[madfloridian]

1. They did not plan to tell the press either.

"We are not planning proactive press outreach on the rebrand but are queuing up positive press profiles to launch around Oct. 22," reads the FAQ in the document, urging staff to keep things confidential and referring to the initial launch date, which has since been postponed."

The change was to occur tomorrow, and they hoped no one noticed. Sneaky and underhanded.

[Enthusiast]

2. "Sneaky and underhanded."

Just like the rest of the right wing assholes.

[No Elephants]

3. They should at least have left and right web pages so lefties don't

sign something thinking it is a leftie cause.

I stopped signing online petitions directed at government because I don't think anyone even looks at them.

[Leopolds Ghost]

4. Um, didn't Huffington Post do the exact same thing? Just curious...

[madfloridian]

5. I think Huff Post was pretty much always that way.

And Salon also. I know Arianna made some changes, but I never really thought of her site as a place for liberals.