Avaaz

Avaaz logo

Avaaz is "the globe's largest and most powerful online activist network," according to The Guardian. It was co-founded by Moveon.org.

According to an article posted May 9, 2007 at ABC News, Avaaz is "a global advocacy group funded by philanthropist and financier George Soros, MoveOn.org and the labor group SEIU."

Fadi Quran serves as Campaign Director for Avaaz.

Leadership

Avaaz.org was co-founded by Res Publica, a global civic advocacy group, and Moveon.org, an online community that has pioneered internet advocacy in the United States. Our co-founding team was also composed of a group of leading global social entrepreneurs from six countries, including our founding President and Executive Director Ricken Patel, Tom Perriello, Tom Pravda, Eli Pariser, Andrea Woodhouse, Jeremy Heimans, and David Madden. Will Davies and Julie Deruy are listed as "Media Campaigners". In May 2013, Emma Ruby-Sachs was named as "a senior manager for Avaaz in Chicago."

Global Organizing

Avaaz—meaning "voice" in several European, Middle Eastern and Asian languages—launched in 2007 with a simple democratic mission: organize citizens of all nations to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want.

Avaaz empowers millions of people from all walks of life to take action on pressing global, regional and national issues, from corruption and poverty to conflict and climate change. Our model of internet organising allows thousands of individual efforts, however small, to be rapidly combined into a powerful collective force. (Read about results on the Highlights page.)

The Avaaz community campaigns in 15 languages, served by a core team on 6 continents and thousands of volunteers. We take action -- signing petitions, funding media campaigns and direct actions, emailing, calling and lobbying governments, and organizing "offline" protests and events -- to ensure that the views and values of the world's people inform the decisions that affect us all.

Open Letter to the Biden-Harris Administration: Treating Disinformation as an Intersectional Threat

Avaaz signed a letter spearheaded by Accountable Tech headlined Open Letter to the Biden-Harris Administration: Treating Disinformation as an Intersectional Threat urging Joe Biden to "treat disinformation as a fundamental and intersectional threat" and proposes a range of supposed remedies to suppress speech on social media platforms, create and bolster federal government agencies to deal with "disinformation" and further to actively indoctrinate Americans, particularly in public schools.

Deplatforming Advocate

Citing a report from Avaaz, Kathy Castor "is calling on YouTube to stop including climate change misinformation in its recommendation algorithm and to demonetize videos that deny climate change."

Role in the Arab Spring

On Fri 2 Mar 2012 The Guardian reported:

"In 2007, it began as just a handful of online organisers armed with nothing but a few computers, a global ambition and a clever campaign slogan 'to close the gap between the world we have and the world most people everywhere want'.

"Since then its internet membership has soared, doubling every year to 13.5 million. Its fundraising ability has followed suit: it has raised $3m through small donations to fund activities across the Arab spring. Its political reach, too, has grown exponentially, with the world's top diplomats from Hillary Clinton down making a bee-line to Avaaz's door."

[...]

"Initially, it was better known for its online petitions against such targets as Rupert Murdoch and climate change polluters. As time has passed it has taken more and more risks, expanding both the scale and scope of what it does – from 'break the blackout' campaigns in Myanmar and Tibet, to engagement with the Arab spring uprisings in Tunisia and Libya."