Rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, wants to buy the social platform Parler. For this he has agreed an agreement in principle with Parliament Technologies. With the takeover, Ye says he wants to ensure that a platform for ‘free speech’ will remain.
The two parties want in the coming months move to a definitive purchase agreement and expect the deal to close in the last quarter of this year. As part of the agreement, Parliament, now Parler’s parent company, will continue to provide technical support and Parler will continue to leverage Parliament’s storage services and infrastructure. An acquisition amount is not mentioned.
Ye says he wants to take over Parler because “in a world where conservative views are seen as controversial, we need to make sure we continue to have the right to express ourselves freely.” The artist was recently banned from Twitter and Instagram for anti-Semitic posts, writes, among others, Buzzfeed News.
Parler is a social medium that says it wants to build an uncancelable ecosystem where ‘all voices are welcome’. Previously, the platform was in talks with former US President Donald Trump for an agreement under which a Trump company would receive 40 percent of the shares if he put his posts on Parler first. The platform was removed from app stores last year because it didn’t do enough to remove hate speech, for example. The platform can now be downloaded again in Google’s and Apple’s app stores.