A battle between a class of fourth graders and a major movie studio would seem an unequal fight. But new Internet tools are allowing very ordinary people to defeat powerful corporate and political interests— by threatening the titans with online petitions that sometimes gather hundred of thousands of signatures.
In the case of the fourth-grade class, they used the popular activism website Change.org to start a petition that demanded change— and got it.
Many success stories have come out of Change.org, including campaigns that won the cancellation of fees from Bank of America and Verizon.
(READ the column by Nicholas Kristof in the NY Times; VIEW more successes at Change.org/Victories)