News
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Transparency Report Update: July – December 2025
The 25th edition of our biannual transparency report, covering the period from July through December 2025 is now available. The work of Automattic’s Trust & Safety team is grounded in key principles meant to prioritize an open, safe internet, and protect free expression while ensuring users can exercise their rights under frameworks such as the…
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Updating the Language We Use in Tumblr’s Self-Harm Policy
Content warning: mentions of suicide Today, we updated Tumblr’s self-harm policy in the User Guidelines, specifically to revise the language used around suicide. In a sentence in our self-harm policy, we replaced the term “commit” with “attempt,” which follows the guidance from mental health experts and organizations regarding how we talk about suicide. While this…
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Transparency Report Update: January – June 2025
The Automattic Trust and Safety team’s vision is to maintain safety while democratizing publishing. Earlier this year, we established five pillars that underpin our intent: user rights, safety by design, sustainability, empowerment, and transparency. An open web must be an accountable web! In our transparency report, we look through the lens of two pillars in…
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Transparency Report Update: July–December 2024
Automattic’s 23rd biannual transparency report is now available, covering the period from July through December 2024. This report dives into the intersection of tech and intellectual property, user privacy, government takedowns, content moderation, and much more. The Challenge of Mass Takedown Spam: Balancing Protection & Open Platforms At Automattic, we believe that the internet thrives…
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The Importance of Trust: Automattic at the Trust & Safety UK Summit, 2025
Recently we took part in the second Trust & Safety Summit UK, held just outside of London. The two-day event brought together industry professionals and regulators to discuss and explore some of the key challenges—and opportunities—that are emerging for platforms as regulation increases. We presented on the importance of earning and maintaining user trust through…
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Standing Up for the Open Web: Automattic at RightsCon 2025
As we have for many years, Automattic attended RightsCon—“The world’s leading summit on human rights in the digital age”—in Taipei this past February. At RightsCon we connect with and learn from human rights organizations, industry professionals, and people who use our services to publish online. We believe in a free and open internet and RightsCon…
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Transparency Report Update: January–June 2024
We’re pleased to present Automattic’s 22nd biannual transparency report. In its (virtual) pages, you’ll find many categories you’ve seen in previous editions: government removal and information requests, intellectual property statistics, and privacy reports. However, as part of our compliance with the Digital Services Act, this report—which covers the period of January through June 2024—will also…
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Fighting Back: A Victory for Freedom of Expression in the Turkish Constitutional Court
Today, we are pleased to announce an important victory for freedom of expression online: we beat Turkish President Erdoğan in the Turkish Constitutional Court. For almost a decade now, we have received regular takedown demands from Turkey (officially known as the Republic of Türkiye). Often, the reported sites contain political speech that are critical of…
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Transparency Report Update: July – December 2023
Our latest Transparency Report is out, covering July 1, 2023 – December 31, 2023. As in past reports, you’ll find information about the types and volumes of government requests that we received across Automattic’s services. Since 2013, we have published bi-annual Transparency Reports providing the public with robust insights into the types of complaints, takedown…
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Hall of Shame: Star Trek After Dark
There are certain parts of the internet where Star Trek and adult content overlap harmoniously in expected ways, but Tumblr was recently a platform where that overlap was remarkably unexpected. Our latest entry into Automattic’s Hall of Shame tells the story of a Star Trek starship, an overambitious copyright monitoring company, one off-base DMCA (Digital…
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Transparency Report Update: January – June 2023
The time has come to share the latest transparency report for WordPress.com and Tumblr, covering the period of January 1, 2023 – June 30, 2023. In this, we provide details of the various types of requests that we get from governments, including those that ask for user information, as well as content removal. Additionally, we…
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Transparency Report Update: July – December 2022
The latest update to our bi-annual transparency report, covering the period of July-December 2022, is now available. In it, we are sharing data about government information requests as well as government takedown demands. We’re also including information on data access and removal requests we receive, and notices of copyright and trademark infringement. Privacy Reports User…
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Section 230 Allows Us to Host Speech that Spans (and Celebrates and Criticizes) All Viewpoints. We Urge the Supreme Court Not to Gut It.
Today we filed an amicus (“friend of the Court”) brief in the Gonzalez v. Google case that is in front of the Supreme Court. The Gonzalez case challenges Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and the protections it gives online platforms from being held legally liable for content posted by our users. This is…
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Transparency Report Update: January – June 2022
The latest update to our bi-annual transparency report is now available. In there you will find all of the usual details about the kinds and volume of both information requests and takedown demands that we receive across Automattic’s services. Below we have picked out a number of specific examples, to highlight some of the issues…
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Transparency Report Update: July – December 2021
We’re back again to unveil Automattic’s latest transparency report covering the period between July 1, 2021 – December 31, 2021. Across both WordPress.com and Tumblr, we’re publishing data about government requests for user information, government demands for removal of content, as well as national security requests and notices of copyright and trademark infringement. During the…
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Transparency Report Update: January – June 2021
Today we’re rolling out Automattic’s most recent transparency report which covers January 1, 2021 – June 30, 2021. As in past reports, we’re sharing data about national security requests, government requests for user information, government demands for content removal, as well as notices of copyright and trademark infringement. We’re committed to transparency and we’ve continued…
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The Digital Services Act: Defending the Digital Single Market and the Open Internet
A coalition of technology companies consisting of Automattic, Jodel, Seznam, Twitter and Vimeo have published a joint letter titled “The Digital Services Act: Defending the Digital Single Market and the Open Internet”. The letter highlights their concerns over the potential fragmentation of the EU’s single market for the Internet as a result of national initiatives…
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Transparency Report Update: July – December 2020
It’s time once again for the bi-annual update to Automattic’s transparency report covering the period from July 1, 2020 – December 31, 2020. As ever, we’re providing details about government requests for user information as well as government demands for content removal. We’re also providing information on intellectual property disputes such as DMCA takedown notices…
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Automattic Joins Internet Works
Automattic joined several of our peer companies today to launch Internet Works, a coalition dedicated to working with Congress to promote the benefits of Section 230, a provision of the Communications Decency Act. We look forward to sharing with elected leaders and their staff how Section 230 allows our trust and safety teams to thoughtfully…
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Crossroads for the Open Internet
This week, Automattic joined Mozilla, Twitter, and Vimeo to provide recommendations for how the EU’s Digital Services Act proposals might preserve the open Internet and cultivate a healthy, competitive market for small and emerging companies. We look forward to working with EU leaders as they chart a course for the future of the web. The…
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Transparency Report Update: January – June 2020
Today, we present our update to the Automattic Transparency Report. This most recent data covers the first six months of 2020, from January 1, 2020 – June 30, 2020. Please read through the report here. In addition to our full report, we’re making a CSV file of our data available for the first time. Those…
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We’re Against Bots, Filtering, and the EU’s New Copyright Directive.
The European Union is considering a dangerous new amendment to its Copyright Directive that will restrict speech and expression and potentially change the way many in Europe, and worldwide, experience the internet. Article 13 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market would effectively require Internet platforms – of all sizes – to…
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Automattic at RightsCon 2018
On May 16, 2018, Automattic is teaming up with Global Partners Digital for a panel on content moderation and changes to legal liability for online platforms being considered by governments around the world. During our RightsCon session, Content Regulation in the Digital Age, we will explore the role of publishing platforms and social networks in…
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Transparency Report Update: July – December 2017
Today we invite you to read our bi-annual update to the Automattic transparency report, covering the period from July 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017. Read through to find details on the number of information requests and takedown demands we received from governments, as well as from intellectual property rights holders under the DMCA. Our…
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Tackling Extremist Content on WordPress.com
At Automattic, we build tools that make it easy for anybody to share their voice online. WordPress.com is home to tens of millions of sites, covering a huge variety of topics and issues—from news blogs, to websites for Fortune 500 companies, to thriving ecommerce stores. It also means that we inevitably host content which some…
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Transparency Report Update: January – June 2017
The time has come for the bi-annual update to our transparency report, covering January 1 to June 30, 2017. As usual, we’ve shared updated data about national security requests, government requests for user information, government demands for removal of content, as well as notices of copyright and trademark infringement. We’ve included some of the most…
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Shining Light on National Security Letters
Transparency. We aim for it in most everything we do at Automattic. When it comes to legal demands from the government, being fully transparent can be hard and even impossible in cases where we are prohibited by law from revealing information about a legal request we receive. Nowhere is the lack of transparency more controversial…
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Hall of Shame: Something Stinks in Abbotsford
For our latest Hall of Shame entry, we turn our gaze towards the City of Abbotsford in Canada. For reference, here’s their logo. Commit it to memory, as you’ll want to remember what it looks like for later: City officials took issue with a 2013 post written by a homeless blogger that criticized them for…
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Reforming the DMCA
We at Automattic are firm believers in legitimate copyright protection. We are also vigilant about shielding our users from abuse, particularly in cases in which the abuse aims to censor legitimate criticism or ignores fair use of copyrighted materials. As an online service provider, balancing these diverse interests and rights is important to us and…
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Automattic at RightsCon 2017
Automattic’s mission is to democratize publishing, part of which involves fighting for digital rights online. As a result, we are proud to sponsor RightsCon 2017 — a conference starting today, centred around “how to keep the internet open, free, and secure.” Several members of our legal and policy teams are happily in Brussels to join…
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Transparency Report Update: July–December 2016. Consistency is Key.
Today we launch our seventh bi-annual transparency report, covering the period between July 1 and December 31, 2016. As usual, we detail the number of takedown demands and requests for information received from governments, as well as the intellectual property (IP) takedown notices we have received. Having published these reports for a number of years now,…
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Automattic is an ORG Sponsor
This week we were proud to be unveiled as an official corporate sponsor of the Open Rights Group (‘ORG’), the very same week that the controversial Investigatory Powers Bill is being debated in the British Parliament. ORG has been fighting tirelessly for digital rights in the UK since 2005. Despite their relatively small size, they have…
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Automattic and WordPress.com Stand with Apple to Support Digital Security
At Automattic, we’re very mindful of the trust our users place in us to keep their information private and secure, and we work hard to build systems, software, and legal policies to safeguard that information. We’re also very mindful of threats to user trust and security, and we believe that the recent federal court order, issued…
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Transparency Report Update and a Closer Look at Turkey
Our latest transparency report is hot off the press, complete with data and details about the intellectual property infringement notices, government takedown demands, and government requests for information we received between July 1 and December 31, 2015. You can view our updated report here. Taking a closer look at the numbers, you may notice that…
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Error 451: Unavailable for Legal Reasons
Internet Service Providers and online platforms like WordPress.com are increasingly facing demands to block access to URLs in different countries. These orders can come as the result of court decisions (in the case of the UK and Turkey), or directly from governmental authorities (in the case of Russia or Georgia) and are usually directed at content…
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The Baby Dances On: A Win for Fair Use
Last week saw an important victory in the battle to protect the fair use of copyrighted material online. A Federal Appeals Court held in Lenz v. Universal that the DMCA requires rights holders to consider the important doctrine of ‘fair use’ before issuing a takedown notification. We submitted an amicus brief in this case, and are very pleased…
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Defending Net Neutrality
Net neutrality – the principle that providers of internet service must treat all traffic equally – is a cornerstone of the free, open internet. This once-obscure principle has been in the news, as federal agencies, Congress, and even the President debated the proper scope of net neutrality regulations. Automattic supports net neutrality. We recently joined…
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Leave No Trace!
Earlier this year, we talked about the dangers of relying on third-party bots to chase down potential copyright infringement, and the ironic circumstances that ensue when the rights holder’s own content becomes a target. It’s a frustrating situation for everyone, but this kind of oversight is no surprise when automation is let off the leash.…
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Trouble in Turkey
Earlier this week, nearly all of the more than 77 million websites hosted by WordPress.com were inaccessible to the people of Turkey, due to broad and arbitrary censorship by the Turkish government. We began to hear reports of service outages during the evening of Monday, July 27, Istanbul time. The blocks were apparently removed by midday…
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Transparency Report Update
We’re pleased to release the latest update to our transparency report, covering the period of January 1 – June 30, 2015. We try to make each new transparency report more…transparent, by adding new and more detailed information about the legal demands we receive, our responses to them, and the internal policies that guide our actions.…
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ICANN Considers Relaxing Domain Registration Privacy; Automattic Objects
We’ve said it time and time again: user privacy is important to us. We’re vigilant about protecting it on WordPress.com, and we’re always on the lookout, ready to weigh in on policy proposals that might curtail the privacy that we and our users value so highly. Today, our focus turns to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names…
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More Transparent Content Removal
Every day we receive a significant number of requests to have content removed from sites hosted on WordPress.com. Many of these involve alleged copyright violations making use of the DMCA takedown process, or the publication of sensitive private information. We review every single one by hand to ensure that the processes are not being abused…
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Standing Up for Bitcoin
We strongly believe in the power of open source software, and have seen first hand how it can empower communities to build better software for an endless variety of applications, from the ground up. Bitcoin, and other digital currencies, are great examples of how open, community driven development can spark innovations that would be very…
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When Bots go Bad: Automated DMCA Takedown Problems
In the past, we’ve not been shy about highlighting a number of the issues that exist with the DMCA, and recently fought back against its abuse in court. However, it remains true that tackling repeated instances of copyright infringement online can be repetitive work, and it’s no surprise that some people opt to outsource this…
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Cheers to the FCC for Supporting Title II to Protect the Open Internet
WordPress.com aims to democratize publishing – to build the tools that give writers, bloggers, and creators of all sizes a way to get their voices to the world. Today we see that our voices were heard, and that they had a big impact on the future of the internet. This morning, FCC chairman Tom Wheeler…
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Open Sourcing Our DMCA Process
At Automattic, we are firm believers in the power of open source: the release of code (or other works) into the public domain to be used, modified, and shared freely. One of the challenges faced by online service providers is how to implement an effective policy for dealing with the DMCA takedown process – especially…
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We Proudly Have Your Back: EFF Awards WordPress.com 5 Stars For Protecting User Speech
The Electronic Frontier Foundation yesterday released a new version of their Who Has Your Back? report, focused on protecting user speech from “copyright & trademark bullies.” We’re proud that WordPress.com was awarded all five possible stars in the report — one of only two services to earn that honor. “When a private citizen or corporation wants to silence…
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Hall of Shame: Portakabin Demand the Impossible
Trademarks are important. They allow businesses to build up value in their brands, and give us the ability to distinguish between competitors in crowded marketplaces. In theory, they are necessary to make sure that people are getting the products or services at the standard which they expect. Naturally, this system requires a means of legal…
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Transparency Report Update
We’re pleased to release our second, biannual transparency report and even more excited to announce a few new additions to the report. In addition to updates to the data we provided on user information requests and government takedown demands in our inaugural report, our latest report includes: Data about the intellectual property related complaints we…
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Sorry Ms. Jackson…
Janet Jackson is a fine recording artist, but seems to have employed some overly aggressive lawyers, bent on removing or controlling all references to her name on WordPress.com. Here are a couple of examples of the improper takedown demands we’ve received: Trademark infringement: The mention of Janet Jackson in a post about dinner conversation topic “What would your WWE…
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Kern’s Kitchen’s Mean-Spirited Censorship Pie
Kern’s Kitchen, the company exclusively behind “the one and only Derby-Pie® chocolate nut pie,” asserted its trademark against 32 bloggers on WordPress.com who had the nerve to title their recipes “Derby Pie.” Between the link to trademark information displayed prominently on their site and the many lawsuits they’ve filed, it’s clear that they take this pie business seriously. They’ve rightfully earned their place…
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Bikram: (Not So) Hot Yoga
Over the years, founder of Bikram Yoga, Bikram Choudhury, has been under considerable public scrutiny for alleged sexual harassment. In what we believe was an attempt to censor critical speech, several different individuals (supposedly) submitted five DMCA notices against a single blog post that touched on these accusations. After we rejected the first four DMCA notices because we had good…
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Dorra Slimming’s Slim Pickings
After a less than ideal experience with Dorra Slimming, our user took to her blog to post about it. The company sent us a complaint alleging that her post was infringing on the copyright protected Dorra Slimming logo. After looking at the post, the only instance of the logo we could spot was in this photo that our user took: Because the…
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New York, We Don’t Heart This
The New York State Department of Economic Developments holds a trademark over the iconic “I Love NY,” but we never expected them to go after someone using this logo to promote bicycling in their lovely state: We rejected the claim on the grounds of fair use.
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Welcome to our Transparency Report
Automattic’s mission is to democratize publishing, and a fully informed citizenry is the foundation of any functioning democracy. We’ve always aimed to keep our users and the public fully informed about our policies for responding to government requests – and now, more than ever, candor in this area is vitally important. In keeping with these…
Automattic Transparency Reports 