Kanye West, Recently Suspended by Twitter and Instagram Over Unhinged Antisemitic Posts, to Acquire Parler

Brian Fung, CNN Business:

Parler’s parent company announced the deal on Monday morning, saying West had made “a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again.” The acquisition comes after West, who has legally changed his name to Ye, had his account temporarily locked by Twitter this month over an antisemitic tweet.

Exact terms of the Parler deal weren’t disclosed, though Parler said it must still enter into a definitive agreement with West and expects to close in the fourth quarter. Parler’s parent, Parlement Technologies, would remain involved by providing technical services and cloud support.

We need online betting markets to let us gamble on whether these “so-and-so is buying a social network” acquisitions actually go through. (For background, here’s a piece from Vox on Kanye West’s recent descent into angry, ugly, hateful antisemitic conspiracy delusions. “Theories” is too cohesive a word to describe beliefs with no more cohesion than a puff of smoke.)

★ Monday, 17 October 2022