Kanye West has announced he is acquiring Parler as the rapper looks to purchase the alternative social media platform championed by many conservatives. Parler’s parent company, Parlement Technologies, announced the new deal Monday morning, saying in a press release that the rapper had made “a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again.”
The acquisition comes after West had his account temporarily locked by Twitter earlier this month over an antisemitic tweet. While Parler didn’t name the exact details of its deal with the Grammy winner, it did reveal that it must still enter into a definitive agreement with West and expects to close in the fourth quarter. Parlement Technologies will remain involved with Parler in charge of technical services and cloud support.
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“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 released by Parler. The rapper, who changed his name legally to Ye, has been stirring up controversy over the past few weeks, adding shirts to his Paris Fashion Week show that read “White Lives Matter” and sporting one of his own publicly.
West has continually defended his use of the phrase, despite the Anti-Defamation League linking it to white supremacy groups, calling it “funny” and “stating the obvious” in an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Following the backlash brought about by the shirts, Adidas announced it would be reviewing its partnership with West, just weeks after the musician announced he would be ending his two-year partnership with Gap.
Parler has also found itself at the center of controversy since it was launched in 2018. After the Jan. 6 riots, the social media app was temporarily removed from both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store after the companies determined the platform did not adequately moderate violent rhetoric surrounding the attacks on the Capitol. Amid the House committee’s investigation into the Capitol riots, it has been revealed that the Secret Service had identified posts on Parler suggesting the possibility of violence on that day, as reported by CNN. Meanwhile, Parler has claimed in a letter to Congress that the attention on the app is meant to “scapegoat” it in regard to the violence on Jan. 6.
