Kanye West agrees to buy social media platform Parler, company says
FILE - Kanye West aka Ye is seen wearing a Balenciaga boxing mouthguard, outside Givenchy, during Paris Fashion Week - Womenswear Spring/Summer 2023 - Day Seven on Oct. 2, 2022, in Paris, France. (Photo by Edward Berthelot/GC Images)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Kanye West is seeking to buy Parler, a social media network known as a conservative version of Twitter, after being kicked off Twitter and Instagram for antisemitic posts.
Parler’s parent company, Parlement Technologies, announced the acquisition on Monday.
"In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves," West said in a statement, who now goes by "Ye."
Parlement Technologies said the proposed acquisition should be completed in the fourth quarter, but details like price were not revealed. It added that the agreement includes the use of private cloud services via Parlement’s private cloud and data center infrastructure.
A little over a week ago, Ye was locked out of Twitter and Instagram over antisemitic posts that the social networks said violated their policies. In one post on Twitter, Ye said he would soon go "death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE," according to internet archive records, making an apparent reference to the U.S. defense readiness condition scale known as DEFCON.
The rapper and fashion designer is no stranger to controversy, once suggesting slavery was a choice and calling the COVID-19 vaccine "the mark of the beast." Earlier this month, he was criticized for wearing a "White Lives Matter" T-shirt to his collection at Paris Fashion Week.
The potential purchase of Parler would give Ye control of a social media platform and a new outlet for his opinions with no gatekeeper.
The acquisition could also breathe new life into Parler, which has struggled amid competition from other conservative-friendly platforms like Truth Social. Parler, which launched in August 2018, didn’t start picking up steam until 2020. But it was kicked offline following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. A month after the attack, Parler announced a relaunch. It returned to Google Play last month.
"This deal will change the world, and change the way the world thinks about free speech," Parlement Technologies CEO George Farmer said in a prepared statement.
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