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Because Kanye West wants to buy Parler

Because Kanye West wants to buy Parler

After Elon Musk with Twitter, rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, also intends to acquire Parler: the social media app favored by American conservatives

After Elon Musk with Twitter, another US billionaire wants to buy a social media.

American rapper Kanye West, who now goes by the name Ye, has agreed in principle to buy Parler, the social media platform popular with US conservatives.

This was announced Monday by the parent company of the social company Parlement Technologies. In a statement, Ye said he is buying the platform to ensure that people with conservative views "have the right to express themselves freely" online.

Parler is one of several social media platforms, including Gettr, Gab and Truth Social, which position themselves as alternatives to Twitter and praise free speech. The news of the agreement came after Kanye himself was blocked by Twitter and Instagram for posting anti-Semitic statements on his profile. After the abusive posts were removed, the rapper returned to platforms, where he has tens of millions of followers.

"The proposed acquisition will ensure Parler a future role in creating a non-erasable ecosystem where all voices are welcome," the company said in a statement, which expects the deal to close by the end of 2022.

All the details.

THE OPERATION

Under the terms of the agreement, Parler has agreed to fully sell to Ye, but Parler will continue to receive technical support from Parlement Technologies, including access to its private cloud services and data center infrastructure. The parties did not disclose the value of the transaction.

WHAT IS PARLER

Launched in 2018, Parler is a Twitter-like social network. In fact, you can publish posts up to a thousand characters, insert “like” and share other posts with your followers. Self-proclaimed the social media of freedom of speech and expression, the company stated that Parler is based on impartial algorithms and does not sell or share user data. Parler's less strict moderation policies were part of its appeal to many users.

By practicing more flexible content moderation, Parler allowed posts that include conspiracy theories, threats, and hate speech, among other things, to stay on the platform.

THE SOCIAL-SIMIL TWITTER THAT THE RIGHT LIKES

For this reason, Parler has proved particularly popular with supporters of the president of the United States and the conservative right. Conservatives have often accused Twitter and Facebook of unfairly censoring their views.

BUGGING WITH GOOGLE AND APPLE

The app was removed from the Google and Apple app stores in January 2021, following the siege of the Capitol. It was restored by Apple in April last year and only returned to the Google app store last month, Axios recalls.

HOW IS THE SOCIAL PLATFORM

In September, Parlement said it raised a $ 16 million funding round, bringing the total funding to $ 56 million. At the same time it acquired a cloud infrastructure company, offering an alternative to providers like Amazon Web Services, which had denied hosting services to Parler in the wake of the Capitol riots. The founding investor of the app is Rebekah Mercer, a Trump supporter and a major Republican donor.

In an interview with Reuters , Parlement Technologies CEO George Farmer says Parler has 16.5 million registered users. Research firm Apptopia estimates the platform has been installed 11.7 million times since launch, with an estimated 40,000 daily active users.

THE LATEST "PASSIONS" OF YE

Recently rapper Ye, who is also a fashion designer and suffers from bipolar disorder, has often supported far-right causes.

On October 3 in Paris, Ye wore a T-shirt with the phrase: “White Lives Matter”. Four days later, he posted Instagram posts that several Jewish groups have called anti-Semitic. Meta Platforms, which owns Instagram and Facebook, has blocked Ye for posts.

Forbes estimates that Ye has a net worth of $ 2 billion. So why not buy a social media in which you are "sure you have the right to express ourselves freely"? But will it be a bargain for Parler? CEO Farmer said in an interview with Reuters that he is not worried about Parler's advertising prospects under Ye. Ye ended its partnership with clothing retailer Gap in September, while German sporting goods manufacturer Adidas said on 6 October that it is reviewing its business partnership with the rapper.


This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/perche-kanye-west-vuole-comprare-parler/ on Tue, 18 Oct 2022 05:06:11 +0000.