Alt-right social media platform Parler will soon have a new owner. Image: Shutterstock
Hip hop superstar Kanye West, who now goes by the name Ye, is looking to buy right-wing social media platform Parler after being dropped from Twitter and Instagram.
Parler was created in 2018 as a so-called ‘free speech’ alternative to major social platforms like Instagram or Twitter, but with supposedly moderate policies designed to cater to an alt-right audience.
In a statement accompanying this week’s announcement, Ye said platforms like Parler were necessary “in a world where conservative opinions are considered controversial.”
Ye’s concept of ‘controversial’ opinions apparently includes the kind of blatant anti-Semitism for which he was recently banned on both Twitter and Instagram.
Responding to criticism for his choice to wear a shirt emblazoned with ‘White Lives Matter’ at Paris Fashion Week last month, Ye took to Instagram to say rapper Diddy was being controlled by Jewish people.
Meta, who owns Instagram, quickly banned Ye, so he turned to Twitter, where Elon Musk, who is still slated to buy Twitter, welcomed him with open arms — at least until Ye said he was “going with death against the JEWS” (his capital) and his account was banned once again.
Meta, who owns Instagram, quickly banned Ye, so he returned to Twitter where Elon Musk, who is still slated to buy Twitter, welcomed him with open arms.
That was at least until Ye said he was “going against the Jewish people” (its capitals) — a reference to the US Armed Forces’ DEFCON alert system.
DEFCON 3 describes an “increase in force readiness above that required for normal readiness.”
You were subsequently banned from Twitter.
A week later, Ye’s face graced a press release from Parler’s parent company Parlament Technologies, saying it had “entered into an agreement in principle to sell Parler”.
Parliament CEO George Farmer, who is the husband of right-wing pundit Candace Owens, said Ye was “making a groundbreaking move in the free speech media space and will never be afraid to take it off social media again “.
In the context of Ye’s brazen hate speech, Parler is quietly welcoming people who share his anti-Semitic sentiment, or at least would like the ability to spread hate speech or misinformation online with relative impunity.
Parler and other right-leaning open platforms like Gab and Rumble began gaining attention during Trump’s presidency, when Twitter and Facebook opposed efforts by the former US president and his supporters to undermine the country’s democratic process.
The app was banned from the Android and Apple app stores in the wake of the January 6 riots at the Capitol, when Trump was banned from the major social platform that led to its creation, called Truth Social.
Alternative social media like Parler and Truth Social rely heavily on the notion that they provide a home to ‘cancel culture’ refugees who have fled or been excluded from mainstream social platforms.
Of course, despite claiming to be a bastion of free speech, Parler still has its own set of moderate rules, which are in some ways stricter than Twitter’s.
For example, Parler does not allow usernames that contain words or phrases that may constitute a description of “adult nudity or sex.”
Parler’s community guidelines also reserve the right to remove “blatantly defamatory statements” about the platform and are particularly restrictive to people who post spam or use bots because “the platform’s influencers and creators … deserve unfettered enjoyment of the effects of their hard work”.
According to a source he spoke to thresholdParliament had been shopping for Parler buyers in recent weeks at a “grossly inflated” price.
This source reportedly said that Parler only has about 50,000 daily active users. By comparison, Twitter has about 229 million daily active users.
