Parler’s CEO, the conservative social media app, and his family went into hiding because of death threats and harassment, according to a new lawsuit.
The documents, obtained by Fox News, show that John Matze and his family were targets of people who published his address and threatened to enter his door.
Parler, who is a favorite of Trump supporters, was kicked out of Apple and Google platforms after the Capitol riots and Amazon withdrew its cloud hosting service, Amazon Web Services.
In response, Parler filed an antitrust suit against Amazon. Amazon countered by saying that Parler’s lawsuit had no valid legal basis and claiming that Amazon employees were threatened and harassed, Fox News reported.
Parler’s lawyers recognized some of Amazon’s allegations in court documents, but said they are not just Amazon employees under fire.
“While the AWS motion to seal focuses only on its own employees, Parler’s employees were similarly harassed and threatened,” the document said. “Parler’s CEO, John Matze Jr., reports in his statement in support of Parler’s TRO motion that many Parler employees are experiencing harassment and hostility, fearing for their safety and that of their families and, in some cases, have fled his home state to escape persecution.
“Matze himself, as CEO of AWS continues to defame, had to leave his home and hide with his family after receiving death threats and invasive personal security breaches,” the process continued.
Matze described his situation to Fox News last week.
“There is a group called UGNazi that targets me,” said Matze, referring to hackers who released many of their passwords and personal information online. “They posted my address, threatened to come through my door.”
Matze said he was worried enough to hide with his family and is not sure when he will return home. But he said there was a silver lining in his situation.
“It probably leveled me out,” said Matze. “If I were at home now, I think my stress levels would have been three times higher … at least there is that saving grace.”