# A Public Contact Invitation Does Not Prove Case-Relevant Use ## Claim Inviting the public to an encrypted, access-controlled contact channel does not by itself establish that any specific person actually reached you through it on a relevant matter. <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ## Scope & conditions - Holds when the invited channel has real access controls — an unlisted number, required pre-approval, or similar friction — so "public invitation" does not mean "open to anyone with the handle." - Breaks down if the account is genuinely reachable by anyone who has the public handle; at that point the invitation is closer to direct evidence someone could have used it. - Does not resolve whether *known contacts* (as opposed to strangers responding to the public post) used the channel — that is a separate, unaddressed question in the underlying dispute. ## Evidence Automattic's opposition to WP Engine's spoliation motion rebuts WP Engine's use of Mullenweg's September 2024 X post — inviting contact via "Signal with disappearing messages" — as circumstantial proof that case-relevant messages existed and were destroyed. Automattic's answer is not a denial that disappearing messages exist, but that the account was structurally unreachable by strangers (unlisted number, pre-approval required), per Mullenweg's testimony: "wouldn't have been able to receive" messages from strangers responding to the post. ## Links - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/A Legal Hold Without Prompt Device Imaging Is Not Preservation]] — because applies-in: both notes come out of the same WP Engine v. Automattic spoliation dispute, this one narrower to the circumstantial-evidence question rather than the preservation mechanism - [[3. Resources/Literature Notes/Automattic Fires Back at WP Engine's Sanctions Motion]] — because evidence-for: source Literature Note for this claim - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Open Source Governance MOC]] — because applies-in: a public figure's own social-media invitations becoming discovery-fodder is a governance-transparency risk worth tracking ## Tests / falsifiers - If WP Engine can show a specific known contact (not a stranger) reached Mullenweg via the invited channel on a case-relevant topic, this claim's protective force in this dispute weakens substantially. - Compare against other public "DM me" invitations from executives under litigation hold — does courts' treatment of "invitation ≠ proof of relevant use" hold consistently, or does it depend on how tightly access is actually controlled? ## Maintenance - Last tended: 2026-08-16 - Next review: 2026-11-16 ## Source - [[3. Resources/Literature Notes/Automattic Fires Back at WP Engine's Sanctions Motion]] — reports Automattic's rebuttal to the September 2024 X post as circumstantial spoliation evidence.