Kanye West to Buy Parler, Joining Crowd of Right-Wing Social Media - The New York Times

Kanye West, the rapper, manner decorator and firebrand progressively known for his antagonistic taste and governmental commentary, is acceptable to bargain Parler, a societal media work that bills itself arsenic a level for uncancelable escaped speech.

The service’s genitor company, Parlement Technologies, said connected Monday that Mr. West, who present goes by Ye, would assistance Parler “continue the combat against censorship, cancel civilization and authoritarianism.” The announcement, a small implicit a week after Twitter and Instagram restricted Ye’s accounts successful effect to antisemitic remarks that helium posted, did not disclose fiscal details.

“In a satellite wherever blimpish opinions are considered to beryllium controversial, we person to marque definite we person the close to freely explicit ourselves,” Ye said successful a connection released by Parlement.

Ye’s engagement adds different changeable of sanction designation to the crowded clump of alternate societal media sites that person emerged successful caller years arsenic right-wing surrogates for Twitter and Facebook. Former President Donald J. Trump started the Truth Social level this year, and his erstwhile spokesman, Jason Miller, began moving Gettr past year. The sites connection refuges for users chafing against the much mainstream platforms’ moderation policies, though they person besides progressively go breeding grounds for conspiracy theories and misinformation.

Parler, which was started successful 2018 and is based successful Nashville, follows a exemplary akin to that of galore of its competitors connected the periphery of the societal media space. It has fashioned its absorption to stringent contented rules into a selling constituent and has appealed to galore of Mr. Trump’s fans.

Early past year, Apple, Amazon and Google concisely kicked Parler disconnected their platforms aft the app hosted calls for unit astir the clip of the Jan. 6 riot connected Capitol Hill.

Parler, whose investors see the right-wing activistic and heiress Rebekah Mercer, said past period that it had raised $16 million, bringing its full backing to $56 million. But similar galore alternate societal platforms, it has a constricted audience.

Data.ai, which monitors app store activity, estimated that Parler downloads crossed Apple’s iOS level and Google Play dropped to 21,000 successful the 3rd 4th of the twelvemonth from 58,000 successful the archetypal quarter. Twitter, by comparison, had 4.5 cardinal downloads successful the 3rd quarter, down from 5.2 million. Data.ai estimated that Parler had 706,000 monthly mean users successful the mediate of the year, compared to an estimated 2.8 cardinal iPhone users connected Truth Social.

Parler presently ranks 108th for quality apps successful the U.S. iOS app store, according to Data.ai. At its peak, it was No. 1, arsenic millions of Trump supporters, captious of what they deemed censorship connected Facebook and Twitter, signed up.

Dan Wang, a strategy prof astatine Columbia Business School, said that Parler was an “incredibly niche” player.

“That’s truly a driblet successful the bucket,” said Dr. Wang, whose probe focuses connected however societal networks thrust societal and economical transformation. “Kanye West is simply a affluent idiosyncratic and has a batch of resources, but not connected the standard of being capable to bargain really influential societal media platforms.”

Only 6 percent of adults regularly question retired quality from astatine slightest 1 of 7 large alternate societal media sites, according to a report this period from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center; successful summation to Parler, they are BitChute, Gab, Gettr, Rumble, Telegram and Truth Social. Of the 10,188 radical surveyed, 38 percent had heard of Parler, Pew found.

Parlement and Ye expect to finalize the merchantability during the 4th fourth of this year, the institution said.

“Ye is making a groundbreaking determination into the escaped code media abstraction and volition ne'er person to fearfulness being removed from societal media again,” George Farmer, the main enforcement of Parlement and the lad of a subordinate of the British Parliament, said successful a connection connected Monday. “Once again, Ye proves that helium is 1 measurement up of the bequest media narrative.”

Ye was astatine the halfway of respective taste firestorms successful caller weeks, which led to accusations of racism and antisemitism, and prompted the restrictions against his societal media accounts.

Over the weekend, “Drink Champs,” the rap YouTube series, released an occurrence that featured Ye repeating respective antisemitic conspiracy theories and questioning the origin of the decease of George Floyd, the Black antheral who was murdered successful 2020 by a constabulary serviceman successful Minneapolis. (On Sunday, a lawyer representing Mr. Floyd’s household said they were considering filing a lawsuit against Ye for his statements astir Mr. Floyd’s death.)

Earlier this month, Ye disrupted his YZY amusement astatine Paris Fashion Week by wearing a T-shirt featuring the words “White Lives Matter,” a operation that the Anti-Defamation League has called hatred speech. He was photographed astatine the amusement alongside Candace Owens, a blimpish commentator who was wearing a akin garment and is joined to Mr. Farmer.

Ms. Owens, whose Twitter relationship was temporarily suspended successful 2020 implicit pandemic-related posts and whose Facebook posts person sometimes been flagged with fact-checking labels, has publically voiced enactment for Ye. She tweeted this period that “Ye is my friend.” In April, she tweeted that she loved the mode helium thinks.

Last week, Ye posed for reddish carpet photos with Ms. Owens astatine the Nashville premiere of her movie, “Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of B.L.M.” The movie claims that aft Mr. Floyd died successful constabulary custody, mounting disconnected worldwide protests, the Black Lives Matter question utilized the unrest to rise millions of dollars. Ms. Owens has railed against the question and described Mr. Floyd arsenic a “horrible quality being.”

After Ye wore the “White Lives Matter” T-shirt, Adidas said it was reviewing its concern with him. Last month, Ye notified Gap via a missive that helium was terminating their concern involving the Yeezy Gap apparel line. Citing breach of contract, Ye said helium was moving up with plans to unfastened his ain stores. The Gap marque president, Mark Breitbard, wrote successful a enactment to employees that Gap and Ye had not been “aligned” connected however to enactment unneurotic to present their shared vision.

Ye wrote connected Instagram aft the manner amusement that “my 1 T-shirt took allllll the attention,” but overmuch of the absorption was negative. Sean Combs, the rapper known arsenic Diddy, posted a video connected the level criticizing the situation, saying “it’s not a joke” and urging his assemblage not to deterioration oregon bargain the shirt.

In aboriginal October, Ye suggested connected Instagram that Jewish radical were controlling Mr. Combs. Instagram removed the posts and restricted his account; Meta, which owns Instagram, said it places restrictions connected accounts that repeatedly interruption its rules.

Days later, aft returning to Twitter pursuing a astir two-year absence, Ye said successful a bid of posts that helium would spell “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” an evident notation to the United States’ defence readiness condition, known arsenic DEFCON. He besides wrote that “you guys person toyed with maine and tried to blackball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”

Elon Musk, who is successful the process of buying Twitter, replied to 1 of Ye’s tweets that complained astir the Instagram restriction: “Welcome backmost to Twitter, my friend!”

After Ye’s bid of tweets, the institution locked his relationship for violating its policies. The moves by the societal media companies forestall Ye from posting for an undisclosed period.

Ye created an relationship connected Parler connected Monday. He has much than 5,000 followers truthful far.

Stuart A. Thompson and Alex Marshall contributed reporting.