‘We the People’ petition site taken down by White House
WASHINGTON — The White House has taken down a popular online tool created by the Obama administration that allowed citizens to create online petitions, some of which required an official response.
All of the petitions, including one that called on President Donald Trump to release his tax returns - the most popular, with more than a million signatures - disappeared from Petitions. WhiteHouse.Gov as part of what a statement posted on the site said was part of a maintenance effort to improve its performance.
The statement said that the site as well as all of its existing petitions would be restored by the end of January.
“All existing petitions and associated signatures have been preserved and will be available when the site is relaunched,” the note said. “Following the site’s relaunch, petitions that have reached the required number of signatures will begin receiving responses.”
The site was launched by the Obama White House in 2011 as part of an effort to give citizens a resource to lobbying the government for legislation and other changes, however limited.
It has been a subject of fascination for years, due to the varied and colorful nature of the many pleas on the site as well as the requirement that the White House respond when petitions receive more than 100,000 digital signatures.
During the Obama years, respondents quickly learned the difference between a response and a reaction. A study done by the Pew Research Center last year of 4,800 petitions on the site showed that many of those that received the most attention revolved around pop culture, including petitions to deport Justin Bieber, after a spate of bad behavior on behalf of singer, build a Death Star from the movie Star Wars, and for President Barack Obama to appear on Bill Maher’s HBO show.
“We’re glad you care about immigration issues,” the White House responded after the Bieber petition received more than 270,000 signatures. “Because our current system is broken. Too many employers game the system by hiring undocumented workers, and 11 million people are living in the shadows.”
Officials did not deport Bieber, of course.
Still, a small handful of the pleas did lead to tangible results, including those that resulted in a new law that ensured cellphone users could transfer their phones to another network, a White House call to end gay conversion therapy for minors and a Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded to former baseball player Yogi Berra.