Kanye West is buying the social media hellsite Parler after the rapper was kicked off Instagram and Twitter for an antisemitic post, the platform’s parent company announced Monday.
The troubled rapper appears to be framing the purchase as a means of defending right-wing free speech, with Parler itself having previously been subjected to several bans by Google and Apple over the role it played in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“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 news release announcing the deal. The statement from Parlement Technologies, which described West as “the richest Black man in history,” said he was taking a “bold stance against his recent censorship from Big Tech” and would “further lead the fight to create a truly non-cancelable environment.”
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“This deal will change the world, and change the way the world thinks about free speech,” Parlement Technologies CEO George Farmer added. “Ye is making a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again. Once again, Ye proves that he is one step ahead of the legacy media narrative.”
When Farmer was asked on Monday about West’s antisemitic tweet, the executive told Fox Business that West had called the post a “mistake” during his appearance on the Drink Champs podcast over the weekend. “He’s now in a place where he’s fallen victim to the cancelation narrative,” Farmer said. “Whether or not what he said offended some people, of course, is up for conversation.”
Farmer failed to mention that West also used the same podcast appearance to question George Floyd’s cause of death, and to blame “Jewish Zionists” for recent media stories about his ex-wife Kim Kardashian having sex with Pete Davidson in front of a fireplace. He also failed to mention that Kanye went on another antisemitic rant in an interview with Tucker Carlson but the comments were cut from the broadcast.
Farmer is married to right-wing commentator Candace Owens. She has vehemently denied “working for Ye as an adviser” after TMZ reported last week that sources close to West said she’d been setting up “calls, meetings and appearances” on his behalf.
Parlement Technologies added in its news release that it expected to reach a definitive purchase agreement and close the deal with West during the fourth quarter of 2022. No information was included concerning how much West is set to pay for the platform.
Self-styled as a “a guiding force in the fight against Big Tech, Big Government, censorship, and cancel culture,” the Nashville-based Parler became a safe haven for people banned from more mainstream social media platforms.
In the days leading up to the attack on the Capitol in 2021, Parler was awash with posts making violent political threats. Google suspended the app from its Play Store after the riot due to the “ongoing and urgent public safety threat” and Apple threatened to follow suit after receiving “accusations that the Parler app was used to plan, coordinate, and facilitate the illegal activities” in Washington, D.C., Parler ultimately changed its content moderation policies and is now available on both stores once again.
Donald Trump also shared a link to his Team Trump Parler account just before he was permanently banned from Twitter in the wake of Jan. 6. He founded his own Parler-esque platform, Truth Social, in October 2021.
It appears that West is now taking a leaf from the Trump playbook. The rapper’s Twitter and Instagram accounts were locked earlier this month after posting messages which violated their policies.
In one Twitter post, West said he would soon go “death con 3 on Jewish people.” The message came a day after he shared a screenshot of a text exchange he had with Sean “Diddy” Combs with the caption “Jesus is Jew.” The message appeared to show Ye claiming that Combs was being controlled by Jewish people. He also sparked controversy by wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt alongside Owens at Paris Fashion Week in early October.
West has become increasingly popular on the right as a free speech advocate in recent years. He was even treated to a lengthy sit-down interview with Fox News star Tucker Carlson this month in which West was praised for his “interesting, deep, provocative” takes. It later emerged that his antisemitic comments during the interview had been censored.
