What's the point in online petitions?
I'm aware that in even posing this question I'm setting myself up to be lynched as the kind of cynic who believes - in a non-committal, couldn't-really-care-less kind of way - that there's barely any point in doing anything, that expending any effort over and above the bare minimum is a terrible waste of precious energy that could be better allocated to lounging around and complaining bitterly about stuff. But actually, I've got nothing at all against petitions. It's often the only way that we're able to make our feelings heard about certain issues; I certainly remember signing some, and thinking yeah, I hope that a few kilos of A4 with my name buried somewhere in the middle will actually make someone take notice of this problem. What I'm not entirely sure of the value of petitions whose signatures are accumulated on the internet.
The one that made me scratch my head this week was this anti-BNP petition that has been widely linked to since Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons were elected to the European Parliament. The plan is to hand in the signatures to the European Parliament on the day that they take their seats, to give the resounding message that several thousand of us do not, in fact, support the BNP's policies. Now, there's obviously nothing wrong with taking a stand against racism, and I find Griffin, Brons and the BNP as loathsome as the next man (and my next door neighbour is from the United Arab Emirates) but the 75,000 signatures currently on the petition is somewhat dwarfed by the 14.5 million British people who have already expressed their distaste for the BNP by placing an X next to alternative candidates in the European elections, not to mention the 30 million who were sufficiently unmoved by the BNP's manifesto - or, indeed, anyone else's - to bother turning up to the polling station in the first place. That's 44.5 million who could conceivably say "not in my name" about the BNP, but the way democracy works is that you have to turn up and vote, and most people didn't bother. The petition isn't going to change the result, and the European Parliament aren't going to care less about a petition signed by a few thousand Brits about two confused racist MEPs when they've had over fifty MEPs in their ranks for the past five years whose politics are markedly to the right of mainstream conservatism.
"But why didn't these people use online media to mobilise their friends to get out and vote?" you might ask. Well, some did try. But the kind of people who monitor social media and have friends who are interested in politics weren't the ones who needed motivating. As one wag said the morning after the election results: "I don't understand how the BNP got two MEPs elected, after people on Twitter told people who weren't going to vote BNP not to vote BNP." And that's the point. Social media has connected us very firmly with people who think similarly to us. With the help of friends, we can persuade hundreds if not thousands of people to express their agreement with all manner of stuff (including the statement that the BNP do not represent Britain) which is why constructing an online petition is so tempting. It looks superficially impressive, as if you've mobilised a huge army of passionate recruits. But you haven't. Creating and signing online petitions requires so little effort that it barely requires anyone to think about the issues. Petitions such as this one, railing against Government plans to introduce limits to sound levels in live music venues, collected over 80,000 signatures. But there were no such plans; the whole petition was borne out of confusion and Chinese whispers. Perhaps the most famous petition on the Downing Street website concerned road pricing; we'll never know what percentage of the 1.8m signatories immediately put their names down as a reaction to being told "you will have to pay for something that was previously free", but you can bet it's pretty high, and few will have bothered reading the cases for and against.
The vast majority of online petitions are as insubstantial, fleeting and ephemeral as most other web content, and you get the feeling that those who receive petitions - not least those in Downing Street - are well aware of this. You can't blame those who feel strongly about issues for collecting signatures online, but if they really wanted to impress the lawmakers, they might be better off doing it the old fashioned way, and accosting people on street corners with a pen and a ream of A4 paper.
The one that made me scratch my head this week was this anti-BNP petition that has been widely linked to since Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons were elected to the European Parliament. The plan is to hand in the signatures to the European Parliament on the day that they take their seats, to give the resounding message that several thousand of us do not, in fact, support the BNP's policies. Now, there's obviously nothing wrong with taking a stand against racism, and I find Griffin, Brons and the BNP as loathsome as the next man (and my next door neighbour is from the United Arab Emirates) but the 75,000 signatures currently on the petition is somewhat dwarfed by the 14.5 million British people who have already expressed their distaste for the BNP by placing an X next to alternative candidates in the European elections, not to mention the 30 million who were sufficiently unmoved by the BNP's manifesto - or, indeed, anyone else's - to bother turning up to the polling station in the first place. That's 44.5 million who could conceivably say "not in my name" about the BNP, but the way democracy works is that you have to turn up and vote, and most people didn't bother. The petition isn't going to change the result, and the European Parliament aren't going to care less about a petition signed by a few thousand Brits about two confused racist MEPs when they've had over fifty MEPs in their ranks for the past five years whose politics are markedly to the right of mainstream conservatism.
"But why didn't these people use online media to mobilise their friends to get out and vote?" you might ask. Well, some did try. But the kind of people who monitor social media and have friends who are interested in politics weren't the ones who needed motivating. As one wag said the morning after the election results: "I don't understand how the BNP got two MEPs elected, after people on Twitter told people who weren't going to vote BNP not to vote BNP." And that's the point. Social media has connected us very firmly with people who think similarly to us. With the help of friends, we can persuade hundreds if not thousands of people to express their agreement with all manner of stuff (including the statement that the BNP do not represent Britain) which is why constructing an online petition is so tempting. It looks superficially impressive, as if you've mobilised a huge army of passionate recruits. But you haven't. Creating and signing online petitions requires so little effort that it barely requires anyone to think about the issues. Petitions such as this one, railing against Government plans to introduce limits to sound levels in live music venues, collected over 80,000 signatures. But there were no such plans; the whole petition was borne out of confusion and Chinese whispers. Perhaps the most famous petition on the Downing Street website concerned road pricing; we'll never know what percentage of the 1.8m signatories immediately put their names down as a reaction to being told "you will have to pay for something that was previously free", but you can bet it's pretty high, and few will have bothered reading the cases for and against.
The vast majority of online petitions are as insubstantial, fleeting and ephemeral as most other web content, and you get the feeling that those who receive petitions - not least those in Downing Street - are well aware of this. You can't blame those who feel strongly about issues for collecting signatures online, but if they really wanted to impress the lawmakers, they might be better off doing it the old fashioned way, and accosting people on street corners with a pen and a ream of A4 paper.