Kanye West to Buy Parler, a Libertarian Social-Media Platform, Company Says
Parler’s parent company, Parlement Technologies, says it agreed to a deal in principle with the entertainer for undisclosed terms
4 min
Parler says Kanye West has agreed to buy the libertarian-leaning social network popular with conservatives, the rapper’s latest foray into the debate around free speech.
Parler’s parent company, Parlement Technologies Inc., said Monday it had entered into an agreement in principle with Mr. West, who now legally goes by Ye, to buy the platform.
Financial terms of the deal, which is expected to be completed later this year, weren’t disclosed.
“In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves,” Mr. West said in the press release disclosed by Parlement Technologies.
Mr. West didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment beyond the press release.
The Parler deal is the latest in a series of moves by right-leaning individuals toward the building of an alternative social media universe for free-speech proponents. Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, has been in a prolonged back-and-forth to potentially buy Twitter Inc., in part so he could loosen its moderation controls. In June he told the company’s employees that people should be allowed to say pretty outrageous things on the platform as long as it’s within the law.
Former President Donald Trump, who was permanently banned from Twitter in the wake of the U.S. Capitol riot, launched his own social network called Truth Social in February. And in May, video platform Rumble said it was expecting an investment from a group of prominent conservative venture capitalists including Peter Thiel and “Hillbilly Elegy” author J.D. Vance.
Launched in 2018, Parler has attracted millions of users by pitching itself as “free speech Twitter alternative.” Several of its users had been banned by other large social networks, including Alex Jones, the far-right talk-show host and conspiracy theorist, and supporters of the Proud Boys.
George Farmer, chief executive at Parlement Technologies, said the deal will “change the way the world thinks about free speech.”
The deal comes as Mr. West has been enmeshed in controversy over his public messaging and social media.
In an interview, Mr. Farmer said discussions with Mr. West about a Parler deal began casually when his wife Candace Owens, an American conservative author and commentator, attended Mr. West’s fashion show in Paris.
Both Mr. West and Ms. Owens wore “White Lives Matter” shirts at the event.
The phrase, an inversion of “Black Lives Matter”—the movement that, among other things, aims to restrict police use of force and transfer police funding to other services—is often used by white supremacist groups, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Ms. Owens had a conversation with Mr. West about the social-media landscape and the notion of Mr. West buying Parler evolved from there, Mr. Farmer said.
Mr. West has also been critical of major Silicon Valley social-media companies. Earlier this month, Twitter Inc. locked his account after the musician and designer posted an anti-Semitic tweet.
Mr. West’s Instagram account has also been locked over a post that violated company policy, according to a spokesperson for Instagram parent Meta Platforms Inc. Both Twitter and Instagram have policies that prohibit the posting of offensive language, among other restrictions.
Buying Parler was “a very attractive solution to his issues of being censored,” Mr. Farmer said.
Mr. West’s corporate sponsorships also have recently been scrutinised. Adidas AG said it decided to place its partnership with Mr. West under review, putting in doubt an arrangement that has produced the popular Yeezy collection of sneakers.
Last month, Gap Inc. said it was winding down its partnership with Mr. West, saying he and the company were “not aligned” in how they work together, according to a memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
For Parler, the platform faced backlash in 2021 for serving as a hub for people alleged to have organised the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and participated in it.
Afterward, Apple Inc. and Google-parent Alphabet Inc. removed Parler from their mobile-app stores, and Amazon.com Inc. stopped providing Parler with web-hosting services, forcing it offline for weeks. The major tech companies said Parler had broken their rules by failing to have an adequate content-moderation system in place.
Parler sued Amazon in Seattle federal court, alleging that Amazon Web Services kicked the company off its cloud servers for political and anticompetitive reasons. The company said Parler was suspended for not removing violent content that violated AWS’s terms of service. The case is ongoing.
Parler resumed operations online by signing up with a different cloud provider. It was reinstated on the App Store in May 2021 after agreeing to add technology to detect violent content or incitements to violence. It returned to Google Play last month after agreeing to modify some of its content-moderation policies and enforcement.
As of Oct. 16, Parler has been downloaded from Apple and Google’s app stores 8.5 million times globally since its launch, with 6.2 million downloads in the U.S., according to analytics firm data.ai.
In the first half of the year, Parler averaged about 983,000 monthly active users globally, down from 6 million in the first half of 2021, the firm’s data show.
A study earlier this month found that fewer than one-in-10 Americans read alternative social-media sites for news, according to Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan D.C.-based think tank. The study included a survey of U.S. adults along with an audit of BitChute, Gab, Gettr, Parler, Rumble, Telegram and Truth Social.
About 6% of Americans get news from at least one of the seven sites mentioned, and no single site is used for news by more than 2% of U.S. adults, the study said. Parler is the best known of the seven sites named in the survey, with 38% of U.S. adults saying they were familiar with it.
While many users cite free speech when turning to sites like Parler, Dr. Shannon McGregor, an assistant professor at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill who studies social media, said Mr. West and other public figures might have different motivations for purchasing these platforms.
“I think all three of these cases—Elon and Twitter, Trump with Truth Social and Kanye with Parler—are fundamentally about driving media attention to themselves and having a vehicle to do so,” she said.
Nashville, Tenn.-based Parlement will continue to provide Parler with web-hosting and other services. The company recently completed a fundraising round for $16 million, bringing the total amount raised to $56 million. Parlement also recently acquired Dynascale Inc., a provider of cloud services with around 50,000 square feet of data centre space in the U.S.
Mr. Farmer said the deal “further advances the goal of Parlement becoming the plumbing of the internet.”
—Ginger Adams Otis contributed to this article.
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Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
4 min
As Paris makes its final preparations for the Olympic games, its residents are busy with their own—packing their suitcases, confirming their reservations, and getting out of town.
Worried about the hordes of crowds and overall chaos the Olympics could bring, Parisians are fleeing the city in droves and inundating resort cities around the country. Hotels and holiday rentals in some of France’s most popular vacation destinations—from the French Riviera in the south to the beaches of Normandy in the north—say they are expecting massive crowds this year in advance of the Olympics. The games will run from July 26-Aug. 1.
“It’s already a major holiday season for us, and beyond that, we have the Olympics,” says Stéphane Personeni, general manager of the Lily of the Valley hotel in Saint Tropez. “People began booking early this year.”
Personeni’s hotel typically has no issues filling its rooms each summer—by May of each year, the luxury hotel typically finds itself completely booked out for the months of July and August. But this year, the 53-room hotel began filling up for summer reservations in February.
“We told our regular guests that everything—hotels, apartments, villas—are going to be hard to find this summer,” Personeni says. His neighbours around Saint Tropez say they’re similarly booked up.
As of March, the online marketplace Gens de Confiance (“Trusted People”), saw a 50% increase in reservations from Parisians seeking vacation rentals outside the capital during the Olympics.
Already, August is a popular vacation time for the French. With a minimum of five weeks of vacation mandated by law, many decide to take the entire month off, renting out villas in beachside destinations for longer periods.
But beyond the typical August travel, the Olympics are having a real impact, says Bertille Marchal, a spokesperson for Gens de Confiance.
“We’ve seen nearly three times more reservations for the dates of the Olympics than the following two weeks,” Marchal says. “The increase is definitely linked to the Olympic Games.”
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According to the site, the most sought-out vacation destinations are Morbihan and Loire-Atlantique, a seaside region in the northwest; le Var, a coastal area within the southeast of France along the Côte d’Azur; and the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean.
Meanwhile, the Olympics haven’t necessarily been a boon to foreign tourism in the country. Many tourists who might have otherwise come to France are avoiding it this year in favour of other European capitals. In Paris, demand for stays at high-end hotels has collapsed, with bookings down 50% in July compared to last year, according to UMIH Prestige, which represents hotels charging at least €800 ($865) a night for rooms.
Earlier this year, high-end restaurants and concierges said the Olympics might even be an opportunity to score a hard-get-seat at the city’s fine dining.
In the Occitanie region in southwest France, the overall number of reservations this summer hasn’t changed much from last year, says Vincent Gare, president of the regional tourism committee there.
“But looking further at the numbers, we do see an increase in the clientele coming from the Paris region,” Gare told Le Figaro, noting that the increase in reservations has fallen directly on the dates of the Olympic games.
Michel Barré, a retiree living in Paris’s Le Marais neighbourhood, is one of those opting for the beach rather than the opening ceremony. In January, he booked a stay in Normandy for two weeks.
“Even though it’s a major European capital, Paris is still a small city—it’s a massive effort to host all of these events,” Barré says. “The Olympics are going to be a mess.”
More than anything, he just wants some calm after an event-filled summer in Paris, which just before the Olympics experienced the drama of a snap election called by Macron.
“It’s been a hectic summer here,” he says.
AFP via Getty Images
Parisians—Barré included—feel that the city, by over-catering to its tourists, is driving out many residents.
Parts of the Seine—usually one of the most popular summertime hangout spots —have been closed off for weeks as the city installs bleachers and Olympics signage. In certain neighbourhoods, residents will need to scan a QR code with police to access their own apartments. And from the Olympics to Sept. 8, Paris is nearly doubling the price of transit tickets from €2.15 to €4 per ride.
The city’s clear willingness to capitalise on its tourists has motivated some residents to do the same. In March, the number of active Airbnb listings in Paris reached an all-time high as hosts rushed to list their apartments. Listings grew 40% from the same time last year, according to the company.
With their regular clients taking off, Parisian restaurants and merchants are complaining that business is down.
“Are there any Parisians left in Paris?” Alaine Fontaine, president of the restaurant industry association, told the radio station Franceinfo on Sunday. “For the last three weeks, there haven’t been any here.”
Still, for all the talk of those leaving, there are plenty who have decided to stick around.
Jay Swanson, an American expat and YouTuber, can’t imagine leaving during the Olympics—he secured his tickets to see ping pong and volleyball last year. He’s also less concerned about the crowds and road closures than others, having just put together a series of videos explaining how to navigate Paris during the games.
“It’s been 100 years since the Games came to Paris; when else will we get a chance to host the world like this?” Swanson says. “So many Parisians are leaving and tourism is down, so not only will it be quiet but the only people left will be here for a party.”
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
