After getting locked out of Twitter and Instagram for his antisemitic posts, rapper Kanye West is now making an offer to buy right-wing friendly social network, Parler.
If acquired, West will have full control over the social media platform and a new outlet for his opinions with no gatekeeper. This being said, Parler’s user base is tiny, and with competition only increasing for the relatively small swath of mostly older people who want to discuss politics online, there is no clear roadmap to growing it beyond a niche platform chasing crumbs left by mainstream social media.
Source: (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo)
Parler had an average of 725,000 monthly active users in the U.S. for the first half of this year, according to Data.ai, which tracks mobile app usage. That’s down from 5.2 million in the first half of 2021. Overall, including people outside the U.S., Parler still failed to reach the 1 million mark in the first half of this year.
Parlement Technologies, which owns Parler, and West said Monday the acquisition should be completed in the fourth quarter, but the price and other details were not disclosed. Parlement Technologies said the agreement includes the use of private cloud services via Parlement’s private cloud and data center infrastructure. A Parlement spokesperson said the deal with West was not yet in the works when the company was restructured and the two transactions are separate.
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