It’s got no legal standing, but as many things in life, when you want to advocate for something and you want to say that something is important to people, the arguments are a lot easier to make when you have “evidence.” A bunch of signatures can serve this purpose. This petition could even be just a first step, to be followed by others methods or actions.

Another function it could serve is getting people engaged and aware of the issue, spreading further awareness.

Another function is getting the contact information of people willing to do something about this issue. They could later leverage that to ask for other actions that are more meaningful.