If anything they’re the opposite. The petitions themselves are not binding, and if they’re not directly to institutions then they’re probably not even noticed.

…but they do convince signers that they’ve ‘done something’, the catharsis of which makes them less likely to do something that actually matters.

Either it doesn’t get engaged with, or the people who engage with it have the reading comprehension of a carrot.

I noticed you didn’t explicitly say in your post that you don’t kick puppies, so let me assume that you believe that is acceptable and then vividly describe what a horrible person you are. Also,

Time to start over

…now that I’ve pulled a tiny portion of comment out of context to make it easier to attack, how dare you.