"Slacktivism (sometimes slactivism or slackervism) is a term formed out of the words slacker and activism. The word is usually considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction. The acts tend to require minimal personal effort from the slacktivist. The underlying assumption being promoted by the term is that these low cost efforts substitute for more substantive actions rather than supplementing them, although this assumption has not been borne out by research. Slacktivist activities include signing Internet petitions..."
Slacktivism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The age-old process of collecting signatures on paper petitions is being replaced by the cyber-petition, a device that allows notices addressing social injustices to be read and signed by netizens all over the world in a matter of days. Unfortunately, these petitions often contain misinformation or remain in circulation long after they are outdated, and the mere collection of e-signatures is of dubious value."
snopes.com: Inboxer Rebellion (Petitions)
"One of the largest online petition websites does not list the names of any of the people running it, has no information about the organization or organizations associated with it, if any, and gives no evidence that the petitions they sponsor have been presented to politicians.. Yet hundreds of thousands of people have given this website their personal information including addresses, business information, and email addresses. If the website was not committed to the petition campaigns, why would it exist? The answer is: MAILING LISTS. Those hundreds of thousands of names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses are a gold mine for marketers who use the lists to send various kinds of solicitations and they can make a fortune renting or selling the names to other businesses. The online petition sites have been a sensational source of not only new names for mailing lists but names of people who can be identified as having particular interests such as supporting conservative or liberal causes, environmental issues, animals rights, etc."
Focus on Internet petitions
