Under Attack by Chinese Hackers, Change.org Asks Supporters of Ai Weiwei to Tweet Sec. Clinton for Help | the Change.org blog

posted by Benjamin Joffe-Walt April 20th, 2011 Share52    

Despite a highly sophisticated Chinese cyber attack on Change.org, the world’s fastest-growing social action platform, the U.S. State Department has yet to condemn the attack.

Chinese hackers temporarily brought down Change.org earlier this week after more than 90,000 people in 175 countries endorsed an online call for the release of internationally acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, an increasingly outspoken critic of the Chinese government.

The ongoing cyber attack is targeting Change.org, the world’s fastest-growing social action platform. It follows the viral success of a Change.org petition calling for Ai Weiwei’s release by leading global art museums, including the Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Tate Modern, London, as well as the Association of Art Museum Directors.

Change.org issued a formal request for urgent assistance to both the FBI and U.S. State Department’s Bureau of East Asian Pacific Affairs within hours of the attack. But the U.S. State Department, has yet to issue a public condemnation of the attack, despite worldwide coverage of the attacks, including in The Guardian, Reuters, Mashable, El Mundo, Bloomberg, AFP, Yahoo News and Al-Jazeera.

We need your help! Please join us in calling on the U.S. State Department to publicly condemn the attacks by tweeting this:

.@statedept, condemn Chinese hacker attack on @guggenheim’s @change campaign to free Ai Weiwei @aiww: http://chn.ge/fnOU4H #freeaiww

This aim of this online attack originating in China is to prevent the lawful, democratic organizing of American citizens.

“Change.org is about empowering anyone, anywhere to start, join, and win campaigns about the issues they care about, and we do not intend to stop this campaign or the hundreds of other Change.org campaigns because of this attack,” said Ben Rattray, the founder of Change.org. “We need your support. Please ask the U.S. State Department to condemn the attacks on Change.org by Chinese hackers.”

The U.S. government’s reaction to previous Chinese attacks on U.S. companies like Google is to investigate and condemn them.

“Change.org is experiencing an ongoing, highly sophisticated denial of service attack originating in China which is clearly in response to the viral success of a campaign by leading global art museums to free China’s most famous artist,” Rattray said. “In the past, the U.S. State Department has aggressively gone to bat for U.S. companies attacked from hackers in China.”

Change.org is the world’s fastest-growing platform for social change — growing by more than 400,000 new members a month, empowering millions of people to start, join, and win campaigns for social change in their community, city and country.

For exclusive quotes, media can contact Benjamin Joffe-Walt at press@change.org.

Photo: Marc Nozell

via blog.change.org