Automattic Asks WordCamp Organizers to Hand over Their Social Media Credentials

• In a recent letter, an Automattic employee asked WordCamp organizers to share their social media passwords since new organization teams often lose access to the account.
• Although it seems like a simple request to maintain steady access for everyone, the timing of the request tells a different story.
• WordCamp Sydney, who is organizing the upcoming event, is a supporter of WP Engine and Automattic recently had an ugly spat with WP Engine.

WordCamps organizers have been asked to take down some social media posts and share their social media credentials. For those who don't know, WordCamp is a conference organized by community members for all WordPress users.

But recently, an Automattic (owner of WordPress) employee ordered the organizers to take down some social media posts and share their login credentials citing recurrent issues with new organizing teams losing access to the event's social media accounts." as the reason.

So far so good - however, the problem with this request is the timing.

A while back, Automattic and WP Engine (a rival managed WordPress hosting service) got into an ugly fight in which Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg accused the service of mooching off WordPress's name and not contributing enough to maintaining the code for the platform.

In addition to that, he also wanted them to pay a recurring licensing fee for using trademarks like the word WordPress".

WP Engine did not give in to his demands, saying that using the word WordPress" falls under fair use. This further angered Mullenweg and he went on a spree badmouthing the service, calling it a cheap knock-off of WordPress" and cancer to WordPress".

Things got so bad that WP Engine had to send a cease-and-desist letter to Mullenweg to make him stop.

So What's The Problem Now?

The problem now is that WordCamp Sydney was a huge supporter of WP Engine.

Recently, it posted a tweet on X countering the allegation that WP Engine doesn't do enough for the WordPress community by saying the service is sponsoring the upcoming WordCamp event and It's not just about contributing dev back to the core."

Automattic employees obviously didn't like that so in the letter it sent to the organizers, it also asked them to take down that post as it does not align with the Community Team's views.

The Community team consists of Automattic employees as well who help the organizers with the event. One employee said that when you are posting from the official event account, you are representing the company's views as well.

Immediate Consequence & Long-Term Impact of the Letter

The immediate consequence was that the team complied with the requests as some volunteers saw it as a personal threat, fearing that they would be asked to leave the team if they didn't comply.

A person close to the organizers said that the letter and its demands felt more like a hostile takeover rather than an attempt to genuinely improve accessibility.

Many WordCamp organizers have used the same social media account for years before and Automattic never seemed to have a problem with that until this incident with WordCamp Sydney.

As for the long-term impact, ticket sales took a hit and the organizers are frustrated that all their efforts are going in vain because of this situation created by someone else.

Apparently, this isn't the first time Mullenweg has done something like this. Kellie Peterson, former head of domains at Automattic, shared the letter sent to the organizers on X and said that Mullenweg has a history of taking actions like these.

He just wants to control everything that's said about him and WordPress online. The rules of the event, the content on WordCamp's account, the naming of WordCamps, and everything else has to happen according to him. And if an organizer refuses to comply, they'll simply be let go.

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