This is excellent news! After discussions with the progressive community and pressure brought to bear through petitions, blog posts, and social media, Change.org has decided to drop StudentsFirst and Stand For Children as clients. Here's the backstory if you missed it.

Via Huffington Post:

In a surprising reversal, Change.org, the progressive online powerhouse that channels grassroots energy into petition-based activism, has dropped two anti-union clients, including Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst, according to multiple sources familiar with the decision.

The move comes after intense pressure from the labor movement and other progressive allies, who accused the for-profit company of betraying its liberal roots by partnering with Rhee, the former head of Washington, D.C., public schools, and the similarly aligned group Stand for Children headed by education advocate Jonah Edelman. The ouster of Stand for Children was confirmed by a Change.org spokesman, who declined to comment on Rhee.

Leaders of Rhee's group were outraged. "We're surprised at their decision," Nancy Zuckerbroad, spokeswoman for StudentsFirst, told HuffPost. "When we spoke to them this afternoon, they couldn't point to a single one of our petitions on their site that violated either the terms of use or spirit of their organization. Not a single one. In fact, they said they agreed that much of the work of our members were in line with the progressive values of the organization. And it's clear that the Change.org community does as well, as tens of thousands of them signed our petitions fighting for the civil rights of all children to receive a high-quality education. For instance, more than 47,000 people signed our petition in support of the Dream Act, compared to fewer than 4,000 who signed the heavily organized protest petition on a different site against Stand for Children."

Oh, Zuckerbroad and StudentsFirst, I don't know. Perhaps it was your union-busting "let teachers have 401k plans" petition, or the one calling to support teachers by eliminating their tenure. Or maybe it was seeing your Dear Leader partnered up with corporate wingers like the DeVos family, or that union-hating Governor Scott Walker. Maybe Change.org saw the corporatism through your thin plastic progressive coating.

I had to laugh at Zuckerbroad's framing:

"Instead of making this decision based on values and principles, they pointed to a number of business and operational factors with their high-value partners who were pressuring them to take this step," Zuckerbroad said. "We believe this is an unfortunate decision on their part, and we imagine a disconcerting one for progressives -- whether they agree with the work we are doing or not -- that instead of standing by their principles, Change.org is standing by their pocketbook.

Uh, yeah. That's why they just dropped two clients funded by billionaires. Sure thing.

At any rate, props to Change.org for making the right choice, and special props to everyone who spoke up on behalf of teachers and embattled union members everywhere. A job well done.

I am a self-professed mama lion. I will protect my own - be it this blog, my work or my family. But I have a special kind of ferocity when it comes to my children. There is nothing I won't do to protect them or to try to give them a better life than I've had. I don't think this is a unique quality among parents.

Before my kids were even a twinkle in their daddy's eye, we considered school districts in deciding which cities and neighborhoods to look for a home. I figured it was cheaper in the long run to look for a home in the right school district than it was to pay for private schooling later on. Sadly, not every parent has that luxury.

Kelley Williams-Bolar didn't. And now she's paying an unbelievable price for her mama lion instincts to protect her children and give them a better life. From Change.org

"An Ohio mother of two was sentenced to 10 days in jail and placed on three years probation after sending her kids to a school district in which they did not live. Kelley Williams-Bolar was sentenced by Judge Patricia Cosgrove on Tuesday and will begin serving her sentence immediately. The jury deliberated for seven hours and the courtroom was packed as the sentence was handed down. She was convicted on two counts of tampering with court records after registering her two girls as living with Williams Bolar's father when they actually lived with her. The family lived in the housing projects in Akron, Ohio, and the father’s address was in nearby Copley Township. Additionally, Williams-Bolar’s father, Edward L. Williams, was charged with a fourth-degree felony of grand theft, in which he and his daughter are charged with defrauding the school system for two years of educational services for their girls. The court determined that sending their children to the wrong school was worth $30,500 in tuition. - Dr. Boyce Watkins

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This news was too wild not to share.

Chinese hackers have temporarily brought down Change.org, the social action platform where I now direct immigrant rights organizing. This, after more than 90,000 people in 175 countries signed a petition calling for the release of internationally acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

According to Mashable:

As an artist, Ai is best known for his role in the construction of the Bejing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics and his Sunflower Seeds exhibit at the Tate Modern in 2010. He has also played a role in uncovering government corruption over the past few years, including, most notably, a scandal involving the construction of Sichuan schools that collapsed during the 2008 earthquake.

Ai was taken into custody by police at an airport in Bejing earlier this month.

The petition has attracted more than 90,000 signatures, including many from leading museums such as the Guggenheim, MoMA and Tate Modern, since it was posted last week.

A Change.org spokesperson says that the site has suffered intense DDoS attacks since Monday, sending it offline for periods of time. At the time of writing, Change.org was still offline.

“There’s no evidence that this has come from the Chinese government, but clearly the circumstantial evidence is pretty powerful,” the spokesperson says, noting that the for-profit organization has called on the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of East Asian Pacific Affairs for assistance.

Change.org CEO Ben Rattray has even asked the State Department to intervene, as reported by Tech President earlier today:

“We've notified the U.S. State Department of the situation and asked for their immediate assistance,” Rattray added. “Our engineers have been able to keep up the site during parts of the attack, but we've had some down time and without government assistance there are limits to what we can do.”

Change.org, a platform which allows anyone, anywhere to launch online social action campaigns, has been blocked in China at various points over the last few years.

While my teammates at Change.org continue to fend off these severe cyberattacks, more and more activists continue to sign the online petition in support of artist and political prisoner Ai Weiwei.

The silver lining, of course, is that these hackers' attacks will only end up drawing more attention to Ai Weiwei's unjust imprisonment.

What is happening to Change.org and other organizations should worry all of us. With venture capitalists buzzing around these organizations waiting to put money and effort into buying the grassroots, Change.org appears to have decided it's too much trouble to make a decision about whether or not sponsored campaigns should be accepted from organizations doing evil to progressive causes, like Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst did earlier this year.

Jeff Bryant wrote a post for the Campaign for America's Future aptly entitled "Change.Org, Enabler Of Davids, Decides To Side With Goliaths Instead", exposing the decisions Change.org launched on Monday. They had not planned to actually tell their progressive clients they were moving in this direction, preferring to roll things out and then deal one on one with any complaints. However, someone leaked the internal documents to Jeff, who then published them along with his post.

Jeff:

According to the new policies, the social action platform will now be open to companies and corporations of any size, political parties, "front groups," and "astroturf" organizations. Only advertisers strictly identified as "hate groups" are to be barred.

According to a Change.org document "Rebrand-Internal FAQs," the more than 20 million users of the platform will not notice dramatic changes to the site. They will see "a new visual look" and "updated language on the About Us" and other boilerplate pages. And users will be able to submit petitions as they have done in the past.

But wait, there's even more.

What will change is that Change.org will no longer "filter potential advertisers" based on the advertisers' "values." Nor will Change.org filter potential advertisers based on any "gut feelings about the content of the ad itself."A different document, "Change.org Advertising Guidelines," provides more detail about the new policies, including that ads can't "promote hate, violence or discrimination… promote bullying, harassment, or intimidation… use or promote hate speech… discriminate against an organization, person, or protected group." Also, "Ads cannot contain inaccurate or deceitful content."

According to the Huffington Post, these new policies came about after the furor over Rhee's StudentsFirst organization putting up misleading petitions in order to harvest email addresses.

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