Over the course of the last several years, there have been serious and righteous concerns about the future of free speech in the United States.
This is almost exclusively due to the consolidation of bandwidth in social media, where Twitter and Facebook reign supreme. While there is some comfort in knowing that there are enormous, stable places for the world to converse, the issue is that the CEO’s of these companies have taken free speech into their own hands, molding their companies’ content to fit their own personal agenda.
Hip Hop superstar Kanye West, who was recently booted from both Instagram and Twitter, is now seeking to shore up free speech online by purchasing Parler.
“In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves,” said West, who now goes by Ye, in a statement released by Parler.
Financial terms of the deal weren’t announced. The company previously said it had raised $56 million in funding from outside investors.
The move comes after Ye was locked out of his Twitter.
West, who is no stranger to controversy, made several scandalous remarks online.
and Instagram accounts for making antisemitic remarks. In one post, Ye played into a long-standing antisemitic conspiracy theory that fellow rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs is being controlled by Jewish people. On Twitter, meanwhile, Ye’s account was restricted after he said he would go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”
Parler was previously owned by the husband of conservative icon Candace Owens, with whom West has developed a rather strong professional relationship.
