Popular American rapper Kanye West together with Parler has reached an agreement which will make the veteran musician purchase the ‘uncancelable free speech platform.
In a statement by both Kanye West and Parler on Monday, the move is primed to allow individuals express their conservative opinions freely.
The deal which is expected to close in the ongoing quarter, is fashioned in such a way that the social network will be sold to Kanye West totally but it will continue to technical support from Parlement Technologies, and this included access to its private cloud services and its data center infrastructure. The financial terms of the purchase has though not yet been made public.
Kanye West, who has courted controversy in recent weeks after he accused Meta and Twitter of censoring him, in a statementsaid:
“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 ex-husband of reality TV star, Kim Kadashian was locked out of his Instagram and Twitter accounts earlier this month for posting antisemitic messages. Kanye also doubles as a business man who runs apparel and sports businesses, is known to be controversial and so times erratic, especially with his political views.
Parler on its part is a conservative social network attracting fans of former United States President, Donald Trump.
The company in a statement announcing the deal said:
“The proposed acquisition will assure Parler a future role in creating an uncancelable ecosystem where all voices are welcome”.
Founded in 2018 by John Matze and Rebekah Mercer, the Nashville-based company which prided itself as an advocate of free speech has over the years raised about $56 million across private funding rounds. The company has since inception sought to rail against censorship as against the practices of Meta and Twitter, but had recently added a content moderation layer to the platform in 2021 to get restored by Apple’s App Store.
According to market intelligence platform, Sensor Tower, Parlerhas over 250,000 active users on its iOS and Android apps, with the Pew Research platform in its own survey earlier this month reporting that about 38 percent people had heard of the Parlerplatform.
The Chief Executive of Parlement Technologies, George Farmerwhile showing his excitement over the acquisition deal in a statement said:
“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. Once again, Ye proves that he is one step ahead of the legacy media narrative. Parlement will be honored to help him achieve his goals.”
Ayoola Faseyi, an Abuja based Journalist with interest in Technology and Politics. He is a versatile writer with articles in many renowned News Journals.
He is the Co-Founder of media brand, The Vent Republic.
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