Parler CEO and family in hiding, says court filing after Amazon suspends services

An alternative social media platform favoured by the US conservatives, Parler’s legal team in a court filing on January 15 disclosed that its CEO John Matze and his family are now in hiding after receiving death threats and security breaches. As per news agency ANI report, the filing read that Matze had to leave his home after the platform, popular among the Donald Trump supporters, faced backlash after the US Capitol attack on January 6 (local time). As per reports, the application was widely used among the rotors to share real-time images, videos of the siege while coordinating the entire incident that killed at least five people. 

"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 court filing.

This came after Parler had launched an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon after the tech giant suspended its services in the wake of the US Capitol siege. Amazon had even filed a response to the lawsuit, claiming that it had “no legal basis” and even alleged that its employees have been facing threats and harassment. The filing from the lawyers representing Parler, obtained by US media outlets addressed the claims made by Amazon but noted that the Jeff Bezos-run company is not on the receiving end of the 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.

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Hacker reveals massive data leak on Parler

Amid the legal fury, an ethical hacker from Austria recently took to Twitter to share the “unprocessed raw files” as uploaded to Parler including the metadata that reveals the information such as megapixels, average bitrate, GPS latitude and longitude of suspected insurrectionists who may have been involved in the January 6 Capitol Hill attack that took the nation by shock. The rioters or pro-Trump protesters who stormed the federal building may have unknowingly shared their GPS coordinates while posting videos on social networking platform Parler, which is mostly used by far-right supporters. The data could further be utilised to identify the rioters who may have been involved in breaching of security at the US Congress building. 

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Image: AP