On Monday, Parlement Technologies, parent company of social media platform Parler, said that it had reached an agreement with American rapper Kanye West - aka Ye - to sell the platform.
"Parlement Technologies is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement in principle for Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, to acquire the Parler platform. The acquisition ensures Parler a future role in creating an un ecosystem which is impossible to cancel and where all voices are welcome," the company said in a statement.
The rapper, whose Twitter account just got blocked over allegedly anti-Semitic posts, has also issued a statement regarding the conservative platform's acquisition:
"In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial, we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves," West said.
Parler chief executive, George Farmer, stressed that the deal with West would "change the way the world thinks about free speech",
"Ye is making a ground-breaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again," Farmer added.
Parler was on verge of disappearance last year, when tech giants such as Apple, Google and Amazon refused to cooperate with the service. In their opinion, Parler users were spreading calls for violence on the platform. Parler came back online later with a new platform that was built on "sustainable, independent technology," as the company said.
The Parler app was launched in 2018 by John Matze, Jared Thomson and Rebekah Mercer. The social network positions itself as a platform free from censorship, which originally attracted users, who faced being blocked on Facebook*, Twitter and YouTube.
*Facebook is banned in Russia over extremist activities.