A feature on the White House's website designed to encourage citizens to interact with the administration has become what every very public forum on the Internet eventually becomes: a target for trolls.

The "We the People" petition feature of whitehouse.gov, launched in September, is intended as a way for citizens to petition the Obama administration for action on specific topics of concern. Citizens can register an account on the site, and create petitions or sign those of others. When a site user creates a petition, a unique URL is generated for the petition that can be spread via social media or e-mail; the petition becomes visible on the White House website once it hits 150 signatures within 30 days. If a petition gets over 25,000 e-signatures in 30 days, it will be reviewed by White House staff for an official response, according to the latest version of the tool's "terms of participation."

That threshold was originally set at launch at 5,000 signatures. But the administration has been forced to tune its thresholds to deal with the popularity of the petition tool and the flood of petitions that reached the 5,000 signature threshold, such as petitions to acknowledge that aliens are among us and to "stop lying."

The tone of the White House's response to many of the petitions has spawned the latest rapidly-rising request for a White House response, so far signed by over 3,000 registered site users. A less sarcastic, but equally critical petition criticizing the White House's treatment of the petitions has reached 13,000 signatures.