There’s always just people that mess up on the form. But they also monitor the sign rate and saw some periods of higher than normal signing in the middle of the night in the EU - indicating someone might have ran a bot to sign with invalid information. The EU only validates the signatures once the petition is closed, so they need a safe margin where even with a significant amount of invalid signatures, they still make it. Afaik 1.2 mil is about what they would expect for a normal vote of this size to be safe, and 1.4 mil is basically more than enough to compensate for any bad actors.

Ross explained it in his last video - there are reasons to be skeptical and unsure if it’s truly there until at least 1.4 mil signatures. And more votes is never bad. So both need more attention. If it reaches people in the EU it will also reach those in the UK.

Lets be real - This isn’t going to change on it’s own. The only way for it to change is if everyone collectively took a stand against it. Which simply just won’t happen. The most reasonable thing to do is to focus your energy on collectives that actively reject such practices. Oh hey, you’re already in one: Lemmy, good job. As long as we work together to create a small corner of the internet that remains true to what the internet should be, we can grow it and create a better internet in the long term.