Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, is set to acquire conservative social media app Parler after Instagram and Twitter suspended him over antisemitic posts in recent weeks.
In an announcement on Monday, Parler parent company Parlement Technologies said the proposed acquisition will “assure Parler a future role in creating an uncancelable ecosystem where all voices are welcome.”
No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.
In a statement on Monday, Parlement Technologies CEO George Farmer said that this deal will “change the world” and “change the way the world thinks about free speech.”
“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 added.
This proposed acquisition comes weeks after the rapper found himself in hot water with Twitter and Instagram following antisemitic rhetoric. On Oct. 8, West posted on Twitter that he was going “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” This tweet prompted Twitter to lock his account for a violation of the social media platform’s policies.
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Similarly on Instagram, West played into a long-standing antisemitic conspiracy theory that fellow rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs is being controlled by Jewish people. This led the social media platform to restrict his account and remove some of the content he has posted.
The rap star has used Instagram since his Yeezy show in Paris last month to address several peers, including Denim Tears founder and Supreme creative director Tremaine Emory. Others have included John Legend, Gigi Hadid, Hailey Baldwin, Drake, Joshua Kushner, Karlie Kloss, A$AP Rocky, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault and several others.
West’s posts follow him sending “White Lives Matter” T-shirts down his spring ’23 runway on the final day of Paris Fashion Week, eliciting criticism from Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson. The Yeezy designer made Instagram posts bullying Johnson’s personal style and journalistic credibility, which have since been taken down.
Here, FN highlights three things you should know about West’s newest venture.
Parler Has Received $56 Million in Funding
In September, the social media platform secured $16 million in Series B funding, for a total of $56 million in funding to date. According to Parler at the time, the new capital will fuel its “vision to leapfrog the industry” by building the “world’s premier free speech technology infrastructure and platform.”
Parlement Technologies Is a New Company
Following last month’s round of financing, Parler acquired Irvine, Calif.-based private cloud company Dynascale Inc. After this acquisition, Parler restructured into Parlement Technologies, Inc., with Dynascale Inc. anchoring its infrastructure division and Parler leading its social media division. This move was seen as a way to reduce its dependence on technologies from other firms. “We believe that Parlement Technologies will power the future,” CEO George Farmer said at the time. “And the future is uncancelable.”
Parler Was Allegedly Involved in the Jan. 6 Insurrection
Parler, which initially launched in 2018, was swept up in controversy last year over the role it played in the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol building. The social media platform was allegedly used by right-wing groups to help plan and promote the riot, with several users making posts promoting and coordinating the “Stop the Steal” riots, which quickly devolved to violence. This led a slew of tech companies, including Google and Amazon, to blacklist the service, rendering its app and website inaccessible. In September, however, Google reinstated the app on its Play Store, stating the company changed some of its content moderation policies and enforcement. Apple restored the app on its App Store platform earlier, in April 2021.
