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Controversial rapper Kanye West has agreed to purchase Parler, a would-be Twitter competitor whose excessive stance on free speech noticed it banned from Apple and Google’s app shops and Amazon Internet Providers within the wake of final 12 months’s US Capitol riot.
Parler’s mum or dad firm, Parlement Applied sciences, introduced the surprising acquisition on Monday, with out disclosing monetary particulars. The Nashville-based enterprise stated it had struck an “settlement in precept” with West, who has modified his title to Ye, and that the deal was anticipated to shut within the fourth quarter of 2022.
West was briefly suspended from Twitter and Instagram earlier this month after making feedback that had been dominated anti-Semitic. After the offensive posts had been deleted he was allowed to return to the platforms, the place he has tens of tens of millions of followers.
“In a world the place conservative opinions are thought of to be controversial we’ve to ensure we’ve the fitting to freely specific ourselves,” West stated in a press launch issued by Parler. The artist has not posted concerning the deal from his verified account on Twitter.
The Parler profile that Parlement recognized as West’s, which seems to have been arrange as not too long ago as Monday, had fewer than 200 followers at noon in London and had not but posted.
Parlement chief govt George Farmer stated the deal would “change the way in which the world thinks about free speech” and imply West “won’t ever should worry being faraway from social media once more”.
Parler was arrange in 2018 as a substitute for present social media platforms, which some US conservatives and far-right supporters alleged had develop into biased in opposition to them.
Farmer, a former hedge fund companion and candidate for the UK’s Brexit get together, took over as head of Parler in Could final 12 months after his predecessor, John Matze, was fired after disagreements with its key backer, Republican mega-donor Rebekah Mercer.
Parler was allowed again on to Apple’s App Retailer in April 2021 after being kicked off the earlier January for internet hosting rule-breaking content material, together with requires violence within the days main as much as the Capitol protest in January 2021. Nonetheless, it solely returned to Google Play, the app retailer for Android smartphones, final month.
In September, Parlement stated it had raised a $16mn funding spherical, taking its complete funding to $56mn. On the similar time it acquired a cloud infrastructure firm, providing a substitute for suppliers equivalent to Amazon Internet Providers, which had denied Parler internet hosting companies within the wake of the Capitol riots.
When West began posting on Twitter once more earlier this month after an extended hiatus, he was greeted by the social media firm’s putative acquirer Elon Musk: “Welcome again to Twitter, my good friend!”
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