Kanye West acquiring conservative social media platform Parler

Kanye West plans to acquire Parler, a social media app popular among conservatives, the network’s parent company announced Monday.

The move by the rapper, legally known as Ye, to grab up the app comes after he was banned from Twitter and Instagram for antisemitic posts on those platforms.

“In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves,” Ye said in a statement announcing the agreement.

Parler has pitched itself as an alternative to Twitter, describing itself as a “premier free speech app” with limited content moderation, geared toward conservatives. The controversial app has been making its way back into major app stores after it was pulled last year in the wake of the rioting at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The platform said on Monday that the agreement helps “assure Parler a future role in creating an uncancelable ecosystem.”

A definitive purchase agreement is set to close by the end of the year, according to parent company Parlement Technologies. The platform would continue to receive ongoing technical support from Parlement after the buy.

The deal follows Elon Musk’s finalized agreement to buy Twitter and builds out the landscape of conservative-focused social media, such as former President Trump’s Truth Social and the YouTube alternative Rumble, which conservatives like billionaire tech tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel and Republican Ohio Senate nominee J.D. Vance back.