Petitioners will now have to work a little harder for President Obama's attention.

In a blog post Tuesday, the White House announced that petitions on We the People, an official government website for submitting petitions to the president, must receive 100,000 signatures in 30 days to receive "an official response" from Obama's administration.

The threshold was previously set at 25,000 signatures, and prior to that, the minimum number was 5,000, according to the post.

"We're making another adjustment to ensure we're able to continue to give the most popular ideas the time they deserve," said Macon Phillips, the White House's director of digital strategy.

The new limit only applies to petitions created after the announcement, and won't be retroactively applied to those that already exist, Phillips added.

Use of the site has skyrocketed recently, with 2.4 million new users joining the system, 73,000 petitions created and 4.9 million signatures registered — all in the last two months. Within that time, it took an average of just nine days for petitions to cross the 25,000 threshold (and most achieved that in five days). Compare that to the first 10 months of 2012, during which it took an average of 18 days for a new petition to meet the minimum requirement.

We the People saw a boost in publicity after a popular petition encouraging the government to build a Death Star went viral online. Ultimately, the White House responded with a rejection — albeit one that's chock full of Star Wars references.

What do you think of this new threshold? Fair or unfair? Discuss in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Flickr, MCS@flickr