UPDATED: Kanye “Ye” West is no longer acquiring Parler, the right-wing-friendly “free speech social media” platform.
The announcement of the termination of West’s deal to buy Parler, a copycat of Twitter, came shortly after West appeared on Infowars, the show hosted by conspiracy-monger Alex Jones — where, among other things, West expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and made antisemitic jokes about former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. West had already been met with a major backlash in the past few months over his antisemitic statements, including losing his Adidas sneaker deal.
“Parlement Technologies would like to confirm that the company has mutually agreed with Ye to terminate the intent of sale of Parler,” the company said Thursday in a statement posted on Twitter. According to Parlement Technologies, the decision was made “in the interest of both parties” in mid-November.
The company added, “Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community.”
In October, West and Parler had announced their provisional agreement for the music artist and entrepreneur to buy Parler. The parties expected it to close by the end of 2022; financial terms weren’t disclosed. “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 at the time.
Founded in 2018, Parler has boasted that it is an “uncancelable free speech platform.” But the pro-Trump app’s hands-off approach to content moderation resulted in Apple and Google temporarily banning Parler from their app stores in the days after the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with the tech companies citing Parler’s violations of their prohibitions on content that incites violence. Amazon also cut off its AWS hosting deal with Parler.
Apple’s App Store restored Parler in April 2021, after finding the app was better able to remove hate speech and violent content. Google Play Store finally agreed to re-list Parler in September 2022.
Parlement, based in Nashville, Tenn., says it is “a guiding force in the fight against Big Tech, Big Government, censorship and cancel culture.” In September, Parler said it had raised $16 millionin Series B funding, for a total of$56 millionin funding to date. A major investor in Parler is co-founder Rebekah Mercer, a prominent Republican political donor and Trump supporter.
Parler CEO George Farmer, a British conservative who supported the U.K.’s Brexit Party, is married to right-wing commentator Candace Owens. When the deal with West was announced two months ago, Farmer had said, “Ye is making a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again.”
West was motivated to buy Parler after he was temporarily suspended from Twitter and Instagram. Elon Musk, the conservative multibillionaire who bought Twitter for $44 billion a little over a month ago, had welcomed West back to the social platform. “Don’t kill what ye hate,” Musk had tweeted at West on Nov. 20. “Save what ye love.”
On Thursday evening, Musk had had enough of West. Twitter suspended West’s account for “incitement to violence,” after West tweeted an image of a Nazi swastika inside the Star of David.
