An Automattic Crisis of Confidence
I’ve made some behind the scenes changes to this blog. I’ve removed all WordPress.com integrations via the Jetpack plugin. This means anyone with a WordPress.com account can no longer reply to messages, though a simple e-mail address will suffice. More importantly, anyone subscribed to our new blog posts notifications via e-mail will no longer receive these notifications. You’ll have to sign up on the website via a new form. It’s on the right side bar for those of you on desktop, and below posts for mobile users. You can also sign up for these notifications when replying to a comment. The upshot is that you don’t have to make an account on WordPress.com. Alternatively, you can continue subscribe to us via RSS. I still believe this is one of the best ways to follow us for new posts.
In case you’re wondering why I’m making these changes, it’s thanks to the alarming news surrounding Automattic (the parent company of WordPress.com and Tumblr). It was recently revealed that they were in talks to sell the content of their users’ blogs to MidJourney and Open AI. In fact, data gathered from 2013 to 2024 is already included in the deal. Users will only be able to opt-out going forward. Note, this data sharing agreement only affects WordPress.com users, and anyone running a self-hosted WordPress instillation is unaffected. (Yes, this blog has always been self-hosted.) However, through the Jetpack plugin a lot of data has been sold to other third party companies.
After the way Automattic handled this situation, I don’t feel comfortable using Jetpack as a plugin, even if this sharing has an opt-out feature. Honestly, I feel like this should have been opt-in, and only notifying users of the change after data was gathered can only be described as “scummy.”
If you’re a fellow blogger running a WordPress.com site, I suggest opting out of their sharing features and then considering finding cheap self-hosting. If you’re already on self-hosting, I suggest turning off features that enable Jetpack to share data with third party services or remove Jetpack entirely. Yes, Jetpack wasn’t used in the AI deal, but they were okay selling user data for other purposes and changing terms of services as they see fit without advanced warning. The data may have already been shared, but there’s no reason to put up with these greedy practices going forward.
About The Author
Angela
Executive Editor | Angela has had an addiction to video games and cartoons since she was young and impressionable. She enjoys writing long articles about these subjects and whatever else catches her eye. Mastodon
