Epic Games offers $1M for proof of ‘smear campaign’ against chat app

Epic Games believes its Houseparty chat application is the victim of a coordinated smear campaign, and will pay $1 million to anyone who can provide proof of that allegation.It’s a remarkable, public pushback from a company that has, since it launched the Epic Games Store at the end of 2018, been accused of harvesting users’ data, or installing spyware on their devices. The unfounded allegations usually insinuate that China-based Tencent, a 40 percent owner in Epic, is behind it all. This time, Houseparty, which Epic acquired in June 2019, is the target of social media rumors that the the app can somehow hack into users’ Netflix, PayPal, and Spotify accounts. Houseparty, in a tweet on Monday, said it was looking into “indications that the recent hacking rumors were spread by a paid commercial smear campaign to harm Houseparty,” and laid down the $1 million reward to the first person with proof of it.