The CEO of Parler, the conservative social media app, and his family have gone into hiding over death threats and harassment, a new lawsuit said.
The documents, obtained by Fox News, show that John Matze and his family have been targeted by people who published his address and threatened to enter his front door.
A favorite of Trump supporters, Parler was booted from Apple and Google’s platforms after the Capitol riots, and Amazon pulled it from its cloud hosting service, Amazon Web Services.
In response, Parler has filed an antitrust suit against Amazon. Amazon protested, saying Parler’s lawsuit had no valid legal basis, claiming that Amazon employees had been threatened and harassed, Fox News reported.
Parler’s lawyers acknowledged some of Amazon’s claims in the court documents, but said that not only Amazon employees are under fire.
“While AWS’s motion to seal is only aimed at its own employees, Parler’s employees have been similarly harassed and threatened,” the petition read. Parler’s CEO, John Matze, Jr., reports in his statement in support of Parler’s TRO motion that many Parler employees suffer intimidation and hostility, fear for their safety and that of their families, and in some cases have fled their home state to escape persecution.
“Matze himself, as the CEO of the company continues to slander AWS, had to leave his home and go into hiding with his family after receiving death threats and invasive personal security breaches,” the filing continued.
Matze described his situation to Fox News last week.
“There is a group called UGNazi that is out to target me,” said Matze, referring to hackers who have released many of his passwords and personal information online. “They published my street address, they threatened to come in through my front door.”
Matze said he was worried about going into hiding with his family and not sure when he will return home. But he said there was a silver lining to his predicament.
“It probably leveled me,” Matze said. “If I were home now, I think my stress level would have been three times as high … at least there is that saving grace.”