Parlement Technologies, the parent company of the social networking app Parler, announced Monday that it will be acquired by Kanye West. The agreement, whose value was not disclosed, was confirmed by the rapper known as Ye. The artist said in a statement that "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 acquisition deal comes after Ye was blocked on platforms such as Instagram and Twitter following comments described as anti-Semitic. Parler, a popular app among conservative audiences that serves as an alternative to Twitter, advocates plurality of messages without censorship. In this regard, Parlement Technologies CEO George Farmer welcomed Ye by highlighting the rapper's movement in favor of freedom of expression.
Parler CEO George Farmer says, "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." #parler #uncancelable
- Parler (@parler_app) October 17, 2022
Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, the parties intend to close the definitive purchase agreement during the fourth quarter of 2022.
Parler and censorship
The Parler platform was removed from Amazon, Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store in the weeks following the January 6 riots because, according to Big Tech, it did not adequately moderate content deemed violent. Kanye West was also recently blocked from several social networks for comments that violated the platforms' usage policies.
Now, the platform and the artist are joining forces in a move similar to that of other billionaires. This is the case of Elon Musk’s controversial purchase of Twitter or the creation of Truth Social by Donald Trump, also after being blocked from Twitter.
According to the company, at the beginning of the year, Parler had more than 16 million registered users.
