While it is annoying, the petition could have been removed in accordance with the terms of service:
[
www.petitiononline.co.uk]
Unfortunately, I don't remember the exact text of the petition, but I guess that it might be considered to fall under (1).E. of the Terms of Service, which is phrased in a way that's very broad.
(1). User/Member Agreement: In consideration of being allowed to use the website facilities provided by Activism.com, Users/Members agrees that Users/Members will not:
E. Post material that could be construed by a reasonable person as threatening, obscene, defamatory, unreasonable, hurtful, harassing, or hateful to another User/Member or any other person or entity;
@Alexander
It is not public domain, but published on a website belonging to Activism.com. Activism.com, in turn, is a brand of NextOne media (http://www.nextonemedia.com/brands.html).