I've been seeing an insane amount of petitions circulating young, mostly liberal spaces online. Some of them being obviously useless and embarrassing, like sign to end the war in Yemen or to free Hong Kong.
What's the general consensus on petitions? I feel like they often stand in for action that is much more likely to work like in-person protests, boycotts, etc. Like I see people who said they sign petitions online for large swaths of time every day, which seems to me to be a huge waste time, compared to any other way of supporting a cause.
But is there something to be said for them "raising awareness" for issues? Or do they just let people feel like they've done their part and demobilize them? Are there specific issues that petitions can help with? As opposed to generic petitions with no feasible way to achieve their stated goals.
Raising awareness does little in the process of recruiting toward concrete goals. It's mostly just a substitute for sustained actions against any actual violence and systems to instead virtue signal. It's a liberal fantasy of creating change via no effort of their own.
For instance, one local education reform group I'm part of had a petition with ten years worth of alumni signing it, but only five individuals have actually put forth efforts in email campaigns, showing up for protests and public comments.