An online petition to gather one million signatures to stop the amnesty bill has drawn more than 545,000 supporters in less than two weeks.
The Anti-Corruption Organisation of Thailand (ACT) started the campaign at the change.org platform on Oct 30, after the House committee voted to broaden the scope of the amnesty bill.
The website is an open platform for anyone to launch a petition on a wide range of social, political or personal issues. It was started in 2007 by Stanford graduate Ben Rattray and now serves as the world's biggest petition platform with more than 20 million users in 196 countries. The Thai version of the site was launched last year.
Tul Pinkaew, director of Change Thailand, said the anti-amnesty campaign is run by staff from the ACT.
His staff usually help run campaigns for those who are not well-versed in technology, he said.
Mr Tul, a former Bangkok Post journalist, said the anti-amnesty campaign has risen to the top of all change.org's campaigns in Asia, overtaking the previous top-scorer from Malaysia.
According to the ACT, the signature drive attracted more than 8,000 names during the first 10 hours of going online.
In four days, it received more than 100,000 signatures. After that, it has attracted an average of almost 100,000 names a day. "The petition could be among the world's top-rated campaigns if it reaches one million supporters as planned," Mr Tul said.
Among the six latest campaigns at change.org, the stop-the-amnesty-bill drive has received the most responses from over 545,545 people as of yesterday afternoon. The second most popular campaign is the one to stop the Mae Wong dam with more than 120,000 signatures. A push for the government to buy disabled-friendly buses is ranked third with more than 22,000 signatures.
The campaigns have led indirectly to some notable achievements including a ban on violent and sexually explicit movies shown on buses, and cyclists who have managed to get the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority to fix steel pothole gratings.