Purpose.  The article considers the characteristics of online petitions as a modern communication practice between citizens and authorities from the perspective of the concept of Harvard School of Conflict Management. Methodology.  The methodology of the paper is based on the thesis about systemic communicative autonomy of protest; the correlation of technological and social and cultural changes, the interpretation of conflict as a constitutive force; the relevance for assessing the communication satisfactoriness of the postulates of the “principle agent theory” by R. Fisher and W. Ury. Results.  The features of different conflict resolution strategies, signs of communication unsatisfactoriness, features of the actualization of Harvard postulates, “defects” of arguing in the analyzed protest means are specified. Practical implications.  The results contribute to the understanding of the protest as part of the modern social and cultural space, can be applied in the field of conflict management, protest behavior in order to optimize communication between the parties.