A petition on change.org called for the White Cliffs of Dover to be renamed the Black Lives Matter Cliffs of Dover.
This was a real petition, which has been taken down from the site for breaching its community standards. It doesn’t seem to be connected to the official Black Lives Matter group in the UK.
An image that’s been shared thousands of times on Facebook claims to show a real petition on the change.org campaigning site, calling for the White Cliffs of Dover to be renamed “The Black Lives Matter Cliffs of Dover”. The petition also received coverage in Kent Online.
Change.org confirmed to us that this was a real petition, started by one of their users, which has since been taken down from the site. They explained that: “We received multiple user complaints about it and when we assessed it we found it to be in breach of our Community Guidelines and so it was removed.”
We’ve seen no evidence that the petition was connected to the official Black Lives Matter group in the UK, but we’ve asked them to confirm. Their Twitter account has never mentioned it, and it is not one of the petitions it has asked followers to sign.
The petition also sparked several counter-petitions in response, which are still online.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as true because the image is of a real petition started on change.org, however it has since been removed and does not seem to be connected to the official Black Lives Matter group in the UK.
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