I’ve concluded quite some time ago that those online petitions are a way for politicians to diffuse people’s indignance or anger whilst not actually having to adress their problems (they might, if it doesn’t affect their priviledges or the benefits of the elites, but there is zero real pressure for them to do so).

People sign the petition and get a feeling that they did something about that thing that was making them angry, thus spending their impulse for action without actually having done anything trully effective, and politicians now don’t have to deal with real pushes for them to fix things or even threaths to their position since people aren’t getting together and going on demonstrations or even activelly campaigning to stop them from being re-elected.

I wouldn’t at all be surprised if those things are propaganda ops devised for some mainstream party or other by some smart marketing types which then spread because they were so useful at keeping most people from actually acting in effective ways when they felt their elected representatives weren’t representing their interests.