Enlarge this image Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, has agreed to purchase the social media site Parler, the company announced on Monday.Evan Agostini/Evan Agostini/Invision/AP hide caption
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Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, has agreed to purchase the social media site Parler, the company announced on Monday.
Evan Agostini/Evan Agostini/Invision/AP Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, has entered into an agreement to purchase Parler, a social media site popular with Trump loyalists, the company announced on Monday.
The surprise move comes days after Twitter and Instagram locked Ye’s accounts over a series of antisemitic posts that were widely condemned.
Parler, which calls itself the “pioneering uncancelable free speech platform,” characterized the restrictions Twitter and Instagram placed on his accounts as censorship, arguing that Parler’s more hands-off approach to content moderation ensures that all voices can be heard.
“In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial, we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves,” Ye said in a statement.
In practice, though, Parler has been a hotbed of vaccine misinformation, bigotry and right-wing conspiracies — content that usually does not expressly violate Parler’s guidelines.
Parler is the social media site of the Nashville-based parent company Parlement Technologies.It did not disclose how much Ye has agreed to purchase the social media site for, nor were any other terms of the acquisition revealed.Parler officials said the deal is expected to close by the end of the year.
Parler has been installed on phones 11.7 million times, and it has about 40,000 daily active users, according to data from analytics company Apptopia.Twitter, by comparison, has 237 million daily active users, according to its latest quarterly earnings.
On Monday, Ye created an account on Parler, where he has more than 8,000 followers.
From Paris Fashion Week to Tucker Carlson, Ye’s latest controversies Ye, whose musical career and apparel line has made him a billionaire, is a frequent and often erratic user of social media.In recent weeks, Ye has been on something of a controversy bender.
He landed in hot water earlier this month for wearing a t-shirt that read “White Lives Matter” at Paris Fashion Week.The Anti-Defamation League considers the slogan hate speech.
In unaired snippets of a interview he did with Tucker Carlson on Fox News that were recently released by Vice , Ye espoused various antisemitic conspiracy theories.
And he confounded many when he asserted in the footage that “professional actors” had been placed in his house to “sexualize” his children.
Technology After Weeks Of Being Offline, Parler Finds A New Web Host Politically, Ye has been a longtime Trump supporter, and he remains an ardent fan of the former president.An outspoken critic of cancel culture, Ye frequently denounces what he sees as to the over-policing of free speech in society.
That anything-goes ethos is a hallmark of Parler, which has had a turbulent history since its inception in 2018.
Deplatforming, a management shakeup, and a return During the attack on the Capitol on Jan.6, hundreds of videos of the siege were posted to Parler, which in the leadup to the violence had become a gathering place for far-right activists angry over Trump’s election loss.
Untangling Disinformation Why SkySilk Came Out of Nowhere To Save Parler After Capitol Riot Parler’s failure to remove violent and hateful posts following the Capitol riots led to Amazon severing the social media site from its web-hosting services, prompting a protracted legal battle and the abrupt firing of its former CEO John Matze.
Technology Ex-CEO Sues Parler Over ‘Arrogant Theft,’ Claims Site Was ‘Hijacked’
Matze’s messy departure was the result of a standoff between him and Rebekah Mercer, the Republican mega-donor and Parler co-founder, over how the platform should address inflammatory content, sources close to the matter.
