Censorship reversed - Avaaz community members support restoration of Building 7 petition

In a surprising reversal the managers of the petition website Avaaz.org have restored a petition asking NIST, Congress and President Obama to acknowledge what the free fall descent of WTC Building 7 means. This was due to a poll of randomly selected Avaaz members, the majority saying they wanted the petition to be restored.

In late April I started a petition asking NIST to come clean about the implications of free fall in Building 7. Avaaz removed it after 89 people had signed it and sent me a message claiming that my petition had violated their community petitions agreement / terms of use. It did not. Despite multiple efforts to reach Avaaz via their website, phone and even a paper letter they never replied.

On May 7 I rewrote the petition and gave it a new title: "Revise the U.S. government final report on the collapse of Building 7".

http://avaaz.org/en/petition/Revise_the_US_government_final_report_on_the_collapse_of_Building_7/

844 people signed the petition by the evening of May 22. (One friend told me he had seen 883.) Avaaz did not help AT ALL with this petition. They never featured it or made it available on their website. Every one of those 844 individuals who signed it found out about it through a friend. Hundreds of people shared it via facebook, twitter or email.

Unfortunately that night at 6:30 Avaaz removed my petition. Once again they sent me a message claiming that my petition violated their community petitions agreement / terms of use. Once again this was a false claim. Once again they refused to respond to my messages and phone calls.

I will leave out some details here. Suffice it to say that I wrote to the Avaaz Executive Director, Ricken Patel, and to as many members as I could find. These were from messages that Avaaz had sent to me in the name of a particular person, like Joe.Smith@avaaz.org. I told them that they had broken the expectation that their website had created - that a person could create a petition, others could sign it, and that it would be treated fairly and according to their own rules. They had diminished their own credibility and violated the trust that 844 people had placed in them.

I continued to write to them even though I felt it was a lost cause. Michelle Shackleton from Avaaz in Australia sent me an email with generic information a few days ago and included her Skype name and phone number. I tried to add her as a friend on Skype but she didn't accept. This morning Alex from Avaaz in the UK called me. He apologized for the huge delay in responding to me. He said they got some complaints about the petition and took it down. They did a poll of some randomly selected Avaaz community members to get their opinion on whether to leave my petition up. The poll was inconclusive: 1/3 each said yes, no and maybe. Then they did another poll and this time the majority (he did not tell me the percentage) said yes this petition should be allowed. So they restored it.

I mentioned that my petition complied with their community petitions agreement and terms of use. This was the reason they gave for removing it, that it allegedly violated those terms of use. He did not even address that. Their decision to restore it was based on the results of their poll.

He had to go to dinner before I could ask him my other questions. I did ask what they would do if there are more complaints about the petition and he said "Now we are going to stick with the community view. The majority of our community thinks that the petition should stay and we're going to stick with it."

That was very encouraging.

Alex said that Avaaz is redesigning their website and right now not many members see the new "beta" version.

I asked Alex about the possibility of Avaaz featuring my Building 7 petition on their home page. He said, "The wisdom of the crowd decides what goes on the home page. It's sort of a popularity contest."

I still plan to create my own website called www.Building7Petition.org and host my petition there.

It may not be possible to regain the momentum that my petition had prior to when Avaaz took it down on May 22. It was growing by over a hundred per day and the growth was exponential. But we can try to regain that momentum by sharing the petition via facebook, twitter, email and whatever else you can think of.

At least now I have a name and number of Alex from Avaaz in the UK. He committed that Avaaz would leave the petition up despite future complaints, which I fully expect.

Avaaz has 14 million members worldwide. Some of their petitions receive a million signatures. Avaaz claims that these have helped to bring about change by governments, policy change.

Many thanks for your help on this. It took way too long but ultimately Avaaz has lived up to their own principles of community and upheld the expectation that their website creates - that individuals can spread a message and bring about policy change by acting together.

In the context of 9/11 censorship this is a breakthrough. Avaaz petitions often have to do with saving the bees, the rhinos, the rainforest, and ending murder and various kinds of injustice. 9/11 is the issue of the millenium and has led to the so called "global war on terror", an endless war, costing hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, over $1.3 trillion so far, and drastic changes in American society in terms of our freedom which, ironically, the GWOT is intended to protect.

Although there will always be those who cannot handle 9/11 Truth and claim that they are offended by references to explosive controlled demolition and free fall acceleration (among the hundreds of other facts) those people are uninformed or badly misinformed by 10 years of mass media propaganda. If they knew better they might do better. They must not be allowed to censor the fact based message and our calls in the 9/11 Truth movement for the government to acknowledge the meaning of the fact that they have already admitted - that Building 7 fell at free fall acceleration for 2.25 seconds.

How can I check that I've signed?

Hey Mark,

I'm pretty darn certain I signed this one - either the first or the second time; and I'll re-share it on my facebook, of course. But before I sign it and possible provide dupe content that could invalidate it on some minor term of use, I'd like to know if this is the one I already signed.

Is there a way to check signatories?

-Greg

Share this petition!

From the Avaaz site:
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Now help reach 1000 signers -- spread the word with Email, Facebook and Twitter.

Congratulations for holding on victoriously, Mark!

It is a surprising move but gratifying to see the petition restored. I signed it the first time early on -- and I encourage all truth-seekers to sign it.

Well done.

great to see this back up again

back up on my Blog and Facebook

Well Done

Congratulations on this unexpected success. If you feel like another challenge, Mr. Graham, lots of us would appreciate seeing the words "conspiracy theories" removed from the Wikipedia WTC7 page.

its up to 930..lets get it to

its up to 930..lets get it to 1000 by Monday

We are at 999

One more to break through the 1000 mark.

Send this link to all your contacts. This will grow exponentially.

http://avaaz.org/en/petition/Revise_the_US_government_final_report_on_the_collapse_of_Building_7/

1,052 signers. New goal

1,052 signers. New goal 1,500.

1,136 signers (Monday morning here)

I've sent the link out again to many, requesting that they sign the petition.

1403--Keep Up The Momentum

Multiply. Advertize. Share widely.