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Parler CEO John Matze Jr. and his family fled their homes after receiving death threats, says a new lawsuit.
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Parler was recently removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and Amazon Web Services stopped hosting the platform after considering Parler a “public security risk”.
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Trump supporters flocked to the platform after the president was banned from Twitter following the January 6 siege of the Capitol.
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Parler’s CEO, John Matze Jr., fled his home on death threats, a lawyer for Matze said in a lawsuit on Friday.
The lawyer, David Groesbeck, wrote in the document that Matze had to “hide with his family after receiving death threats and invasive breaches of personal security”. The request was part of Parler’s antitrust lawsuit against Amazon Web Services to bring the platform back online.
The current lawsuit aimed to seal parts of the lawsuit filed as a security measure.
Amazon Web Services stopped hosting Parler after saying the platform had violent content related to the January 6 siege on the United States Capitol. In its own lawsuit last week, Amazon claimed that Parler did not want and was unable to remove “content that threatens public security, such as incitement and planning for rape, torture and murder of appointed public officials and private citizens”.
Supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the building and clashed with the police, interrupting the joint session of Congress while lawmakers debated contesting the electoral votes.
Five people died, including a Capitol police officer and a woman who was shot by police while participating in the rebellion.
Trump’s Twitter account was later suspended and conservatives urged his followers to join Parler later. The app jumped to number one on the Apple App Store before the company withdrew it. Google also removed Parler from its store.
AWS said Parler “poses a very real risk to public security” when it stopped hosting it.
In Friday’s filing, Groesbeck did not specify who was threatening Matze, but said his position “as the CEO of AWS continues to defame” has put him in danger.
Bloomberg reported earlier this week that Amazon said Parler users were threatening their employees.
“Both sides of this dispute showed that their employees suffered harassment and real threats – including, on both sides, death threats – due to the accused nature of this dispute,” said Groesbeck in his lawsuit.
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