A new court filing on Friday from the legal team of Parler, an alternative social media platform mainly used right-wingers in the US, has revealed that its CEO John Matze and his family are in hiding as they received death threats.
“Matze himself, as the CEO of the company Amazon Web Services (AWS) continues to vilify, has had to leave his home and go into hiding with his family after receiving death threats and invasive personal security breaches,” read the filing.
Parler had earlier launched an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon after the tech giant removed Parler from its services after the last week’s riots on the Capitol.
Amazon filed a response to the lawsuit, claiming the lawsuit has no legal basis, and alleged its workers have been faced with threats and harassment.
The filing from Parler’s lawyers obtained by Fox News observes the disturbing claims made by Amazon but note that the Jeff Bezos-owned company is not the one receiving threats.
“Although AWS’s motion to seal focuses only on its own employees, Parler’s employees have been similarly harassed and threatened… Parler’s CEO, John Matze, Jr., reports in his declaration in support of Parler’s TRO motion that many Parler employees are suffering harassment and hostility, fear for their safety and that of their families, and in some cases have fled their home state to escape persecution,” the filing read.
Earlier this week, Matze said about the various threats he has received and the measures he would take to protect his family.
“There is a group called UGNazi that is targeting me,” Matze said, noting the controversial hacker group has released many of his passwords and personal information on the internet.
“They published my street address, they threatened to come through my front door,” he added.
On January 6, a number of people had stormed the US Capitol to protest against the legislators confirming electoral slates from battleground states they thought were invalid. The protest also turned violent, resulting in the deaths of at least five people, including a police officer.
Amid rising pressure on US President Donald Trump for his role in encouraging the protestors, Parler was banned by Amazon, Apple, and Google.
According to The Verge, these bans come after the allegations that the social media app was fostering calls to violence ahead of, and following, the raid on the US Capitol.
Parler CEO John Matze had then alleged Amazon, Google, and Apple of a coordinated attack to kill competition.
“We were too successful too fast,” Matze wrote. “You can expect the war on competition and free speech to continue, but don’t count us out.”
Matze maintains that no evidence has been provided so far which would prove that Parler was involved in Capitol riots.
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