Kanye West is soon going to have his own social media platform! The rapper has reached an agreement to buy Parler, a right-wing social network, which promotes itself as an ‘uncancelable free speech platform’. The platform announced the move on Monday.
Parler’s parent company, Parlement Technologies and Ye, will be closing the deal by the end of the year. The financial terms of the contract have not been revealed yet. Continue reading to know more about the development.
Kanye West All Set to Buy Parler
Announcing the reason behind the purchase, Kanye said in a statement, “In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves.”
The chief executive of Parlement Technologies, George Farmer, said the deal will change the way the world thinks about free speech, adding, “This deal will change the world, and change the way the world thinks about free speech.”
“Ye is making a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again. Once again, Ye proves that he is one step ahead of the legacy media narrative. Parlement will be honored to help him achieve his goals,” he stated.
George Farmer is the husband of Ye’s friend and right-wing activist Candace Owens, and is the son of former Conservative party leader Michael Farmer. Parlement has announced that the company will continue to provide technical support and private cloud services to Parler.
Parler was Founded in 2018 as a ‘Free Speech’ Social Network
Parler was founded by John Matze and Rebekah Mercer in 2018 as a free speech platform, which has, over the years, propagated conservative opinions and has attracted several fans of Donald Trump.
The platform made headlines after its role in the January 2021 Capitol riots was widely discussed. In the aftermath of the riots, the app was taken down from Google Play and Apple app stores. In May 2021, Farmer replaced Matze as the chief exectuive.
In the same month, the app was ordered to add content moderation to be restored on Apple app store. Google, however, continued the ban till September this year. The platform is reported to have over 250,000 monthly active users on Android and iOS apps.
Kanye has been Restricted on Instagram and Twitter
The development comes at a time when the Donda rapper’s Instagram and Twitter accounts have been restricted owing to his antisemitic and racist statements. Although Ye’s account is still visible on Instagram, he has been banned from posting anything temporarily.
Since the month’s start, Kanye had been ranting on social media against every celebrity who opposed his ‘White Lives Matter’ t-shirt. During one of the rants, he accused rapper Diddy of being controlled by ‘Jewish people’, resulting in his suspension from Instagram.
Ye then took to Twitter to post, “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death [sic] con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE, The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti-Semitic because black people are actually Jew also.” Twitter then deleted the tweet and restricted his account.
With Parler, we can certainly expect some more controversial statements from the rapper. What are your thoughts on Kanye buying the social media platform? Tell us in the comments section.
