Muslim Database: WordPress.com Parent Company Automattic Pledges Against Registry While Facebook Keeps Us Guessing

This news just came in- WordPress.com parent company Automattic signed a pledge. This pledge is that they will not build a Muslim database or registry. Auttomatic is the owner of WordPress.com and a couple of other publishing tools and websites.

Matt Mullenweg, the CEO and founder of Automattic, signed this pledge on behalf of his company. The pledge is called neveragain.tech and has been hosted on popular tech site, GitHub. The aim of the pledge is to discourage tech giants and influential companies from participating in creating a Muslim database that could be used by the newly elected President Donald Trump. His administration may use this Muslim registry / database to target Muslims.

Till now, the pledge has been signed by more than 1300 people. Needless to say, Automattic joining the list has populated the list and made it noticeable. Before Automattic became a part of it, the list was only signed by individual tech names in the industry.

"I'm personally signing, and also speaking on behalf of the entire Automattic company, which makes WordPress.com, Jetpack, Simplenote, and WooCommerce," Mullenweg wrote on GitHub. This move can hopefully encourage other executives to speak on behalf of their own companies on the issue of the Muslim database. The pledge was first published on December 13. Its public mission statement reads:

We, the undersigned, are employees of tech organizations and companies based in the United States. We are engineers, designers, business executives, and others whose jobs include managing or processing data about people. We are choosing to stand in solidarity with Muslim Americans, immigrants, and all people whose lives and livelihoods are threatened by the incoming administration's proposed data collection policies. We refuse to build a database of people based on their Constitutionally-protected religious beliefs. We refuse to facilitate mass deportations of people the government believes to be undesirable.

Automattic's public statement on the prospect of a Muslim Database came only days later after journalist forced Facebook to respond to this sensitive topic. The social media giant remained silent, not commenting on this requests for clarification. After a lot of hue and cry, Facebook issued a public statement through its spokesperson.

"No one has asked us to build a Muslim registry, and of course we would not do so," read the statement.