Mullenweg Criticized for 1st Amendment Claims via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Matt Mullenweg portrayed himself arsenic a unfortunate successful his quality with WP Engine, claiming successful a tweet and blog station that they are ‘trying to curtail’ his escaped speech. Social media responses ranged from polite debunking of his First Amendment assertion to accusations of hypocrisy.

TL/DR Of Dispute With WP Engine

Matt Mullenweg, co-creator of WordPress and CEO of Automattic ignited a quality with managed WordPress web big WP Engine (WPE), utilizing a Q&A astatine the WordCamp WordPress league to denounce WP for not giving capable backmost to the WordPress unfastened root project. He followed that connection with a station connected WordPress.org that called WPE a crab to WordPress, writing:

“This is 1 of the galore reasons they are a crab to WordPress, and it’s important to retrieve that unchecked, crab volition spread. WP Engine is mounting a mediocre modular that others whitethorn look astatine and deliberation is good to replicate. We indispensable acceptable a higher modular to guarantee WordPress is present for the adjacent 100 years.”

He adjacent banned thousands of WP Engine customers, cutting them disconnected from updating their websites. Mullenweg aboriginal offered a impermanent “reprieve” to forestall further inconvenience by WordPress publishers caught successful the mediate of the quality and let WP Engine to make a workaround.

Banning WP Engine elicited a antagonistic effect from WordPress developers and businesses. A tweet by the CEO of Ruby Media Group was typical of the wide sentiment:

“My dev squad can’t update my plugins due to the fact that of this. You are destroying people’s lives.”

WP Engine responded with a Cease and Desist missive against Mullenweg and Automattic, followed by a federal suit by WP Engine against Mullenweg and Automattic seeking alleviation from what they allege is an effort by Mullenweg to extort millions of dollars from WPE.

Claim Of Attempt To Curtail First Amendment Rights

Mullenweg connected Sunday published a blog station claiming that WP Engine’s suit against him and Automattic is an effort to “curtail” his “First Amendment rights.”

He wrote:

“WP Engine has filed hundreds pages of ineligible documents seeking an injunction against maine and Automattic. They accidental this astir assemblage oregon immoderate nonsense, but if you look astatine the core, what they’re trying to bash is inquire a justice to curtail my First Amendment rights.”

Mullenweg ended the station by stating helium volition nary longer remark connected the suit filed by WP Engine but encouraged others to talk up successful enactment of his broadside of the dispute.

Mullenweg Mocked On Social Media

The First Amendment is simply a warrant that the United States authorities shall not make a instrumentality that infringes connected a person’s escaped speech. Many connected societal media were speedy to constituent retired that WP Engine cannot curtain is First Amendment rights due to the fact that they’re not the government.

A WordPress bundle developer tweeted:

“You person nary archetypal amendment rights successful this context. WP Engine is not the authorities trying to curtail your 1A rights. 1A lone applies to authorities entities.”

Another idiosyncratic followed up with:

“Please reread what the archetypal amendment is, dum dum”

Another developer went further, calling Mullenweg “moronic”:

“WPEngine isn’t the government, however moronic tin 1 antheral be?”

Another web developer advised Mullenweg to question ineligible counsel to explicate to him however the First Amendment works:

“Please spell speech to your large costly lawyer. I americium definite they tin interruption it down into tiny words for you.”

Accused Of Hypocrisy

Others connected societal media accused Mullenweg of hypocrisy for curtailing the escaped code of others successful the authoritative WordPress Slack transmission and banning WP Engine users from accessing plugins from the authoritative repository.

A tweet by a WordPress and unfastened root enthusiast captured the wide feeling:

“Yes, “freedom of speech” is truthful important. I presume you present volition beryllium unblocking everyone that was exercising their close to state of code successful the WordPress Slack and present connected X. Or, did you conscionable mean virtually “my state of speech” only.”

A WordPress developer from Denver tweeted:

“How galore radical person you banned from the WP slack transmission implicit the past mates weeks?”

And different tweet:

“This coming from the feline cancelling anyone’s account/ entree that disagrees with him. Really?”

Not Much Sympathy For Mullenweg

The overwhelming effect to Matt Mullenweg’s station astir his First Amendment rights was not sympathetic to his broadside of the story. A web applications developer’s tweet captured the deficiency of support:

“Maybe, maybe. But you astir apt won’t beryllium getting a batch of sympathy from the assemblage close present owed to this happening the kids these days telephone “consequences.””

Read the archetypal tweet by Mullenweg:

I consciousness that @wpengine is trying to curtail my First Amendment rights.

— Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) October 20, 2024

Matt Mullenweg’s blog post:

My Freedom of Speech

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