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Comment by lolinder | Hacker News Reader

If you offer someone a contract, they stall for a few months, and you show up at their house with gasoline and a match and threaten to burn their house down if they don't agree to sign the contract, you're guilty of extortion.

The context you need to share isn't that there exists a document that you wanted to sign and that they knew existed before you made the threats, the context you need to share (Edit: in court, you should really shut up here for your own good) is context that makes those texts not look like threats to drag their name through the mud in a massive smear campaign if they didn't agree to sign.

No one here is disputing that you might have been in the right until September. It's your actions in September that you need to account for.

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That's a weird analogy. It'd be more like your natural gas provider trying to negotiate a deal and then when you don't reach an agreement they turn off the valve to your house.

I'm not talking about him cutting them off from WordPress.org (that's problematic for other reasons), I'm talking about the repeated texts and phone calls threatening to launch a smear campaign against them if they don't sign a deal. That is what looks like extortion.

>” If you offer someone a contract, they stall for a few months, and you show up at their house with gasoline and a match and threaten to burn their house down if they don't agree to sign the contract, you're guilty of extortion.”

This analogy seems tangential, and I don’t think it supports the rest of your post.

Did you read the allegations in the complaint?

Here are some of the texts it says Matt sent:

> I have 14 slides so far, working title for the talk: "How Private Equity can Hollow out and Destroy Open Source Communities, a Story in 4 Parts."

> I've got quotes from current and former employees, some may even stand up and speak as well.

There's the gasoline and matches. And then, while he's on stage:

> I'm literally waiting for them to finish the raffle so my talk can start, I can make it just a Q&A about WordPress very easily

In isolation this sounds very much like "nice community goodwill you have there... would be a shame if anything were to happen to it." In the context of the other texts and phone calls WPE cites it sounds more like an explicit threat with no subtly.

Since when did relaying employee experience constitute an existential threat to a businesses ability to operate? This forum is littered with people who engage in "threats" as a mode of business every single day.

When you demand money in return for not relaying those experiences? That is when it becomes extortion.

Thats a reductive read. I thought this forum was supposed to encourage a higher minded discourse?

Seriously, read the complaint before commenting. What the parent says isn't "a reductive read", it's literally what WP Engine is alleging (with extensive documentation) and Matt is pointedly not denying.

Read the complaint before commenting any further, please.

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