Parler And Kayne West Terminate Acquisition Deal

Controversial American rapper Kanye West and the owner of the right wing Parler app, have agreed to terminate the sale of the app.

It was back in October when Parlement Technologies announced that it had entered into an agreement in principle to sell Parler to Kanye West (who legally changed his name to Ye in 2021).

Kanye West is a controversial figure in the United States. He has divorced the reality star Kim Kardashian, and for a time he was banned from Twitter.

Acquisition terminated

Elon Musk then reinstated his account (along with Donald Trump), but Twitter on Friday once again suspended Kayne West’s account after he violated Twitter’s policy on incitement to violence.

Now Reuters has reported that on Thursday Parlement Technologies said in a statement that it and American rapper Kanye West have agreed to terminate the intent of the sale of Parler.

“This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November,” the company reportedly said in the statement. “Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community.”

The acquisition of Parler by Kayne West had been expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2022.

Beside his recent divorce from Kim Kardashian, the personal fortune of Kayne West has been suffered a series of blows, after business deals were halted following West making controversial statements, including anti-Semitic remarks.

According to Reuters, in September Ye terminated his partnership with clothing retailer Gap.

And in October German sporting goods giant Adidas also terminated its partnership with Ye.

Parler shutdown

Parler was founded in 2018 and billed itself as a “free speech-driven” social media platform, but it quickly became a haven for many on the far right in the US who objected to the rules governing misinformation and falsehood on Facebook and Twitter.

Indeed, Parler achieved fame for being mostly used by supporters of former US President Donald Trump and the right wing in America. The platform was also reportedly awash with QAnon conspiracy content.

QAnon is a far-right conspiracy that alleged there was a “deep state” campaign against Donald Trump and his supporters. Essentially QAnon touts there is a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophiles who rule the world, and who control politicians, the media, and Hollywood.

Parler touts itself as an “uncancelable free speech platform”, but it has previously been taken offline.

After the storming of the US Capitol building on Wednesday 6 January 2021 by supporters of Donald Trump, that resulted in the deaths of five people, including one police officer who was beaten to death, Google and Apple removed Parler from their respective App Stores after it emerged that many rioters used the app.

Soon after on 10 January 2021 Parler disappeared online, when Amazon Web Services (AWS) stopped hosting it.

At that time Parler launched a lawsuit against AWS in response, and the platform did make a brief return online with the help of a Russian-owned technology company. But behind the scenes Parler founder and CEO John Matze was fired by the app’s board of directors.

Parler eventually returned online in mid February 2021 by using CloudRoute LLC as its new host and replacing Amazon with open-source software platform Ceph.

Despite its billing as a “free speech” social network, the site was forced to add content moderation in order for it to be restored to the Apple App Store in May 2021.

It only returned to the Google Play Store in September 2022.