&sq=&lang=&file=File:We_the_People_logo.png){kind=logo} Website logo in 2011 | |
Screenshot &sq=&lang=&file=File:We_the_People_screenshot.jpg) Screenshot of website homepage (2017) | |
Type of site | Government site |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Dissolved | January 20, 2021 |
| Owner | United States government |
| Created by | Obama administration |
| URL | https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/about |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Required |
| Launched | September 22, 2011 |
Content license | U.S. government content: Public domain User submissions: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0[1] |
| Written in | Drupal 7 |
We the People, launched by the Obama administration on September 22, 2011,[3] is a defunct section of the whitehouse.gov website used for petitioning the administration's policy experts. Petitions that reached a certain threshold of signatures were reviewed by Administration officials who in most instances would subsequently provide an official response.[3] Legal proceedings in the United States were not subject to petitions, rather, the site served as a public relations mechanism for the presidential administration to provide a venue for citizens to express themselves. On August 23, 2012, the White House Director of Digital Strategy Macon Phillips released the source code for the platform.[4] The source code is available on GitHub, and lists both public domain status as a work of the United States federal government and licensing under the GPL v2.[2]
On December 19, 2017, the Trump administration announced its intention to temporarily shut down the website and replace it with a "new platform [that] would save taxpayers more than $1m a year", though ultimately it was retained in its initial form.[5] On January 20, 2021, the day of the inauguration of Joe Biden, the website's address started redirecting to the main whitehouse.gov domain, marking the discontinuance of the feature by the incoming administration. It has not been relaunched since.[6][7]
- ^ "Copyright Policy". The White House. Archived from the original on June 1, 2020. Retrieved August 15, 2024.
- ^ a b "We the People GitHub repository". GitHub. Archived from the original on November 2, 2020. Retrieved February 11, 2013.
- ^ a b "White House blog press release regarding the new "We the People" petitioning platform". September 22, 2011. Archived from the original on January 20, 2017. Retrieved March 2, 2021.
- ^ Phillips, Macon (August 23, 2012). "We the Coders: Open-Sourcing We the People, the White House's Online Petitions System". whitehouse.gov. Archived from the original on January 23, 2017. Retrieved August 28, 2012 – via National Archives.
- ^ "White House to 'temporarily' shut petition website". BBC News. December 19, 2017. Archived from the original on July 16, 2018. Retrieved December 19, 2017.
- ^ "Fact check: Did the Biden administration remove the White House petitioning system?". Newsweek. February 17, 2021. Archived from the original on March 22, 2021. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
- ^ "Archived Pages". Wayback Machine. Archived from the original on February 23, 2017. Retrieved February 22, 2017.