Parler, the right-wing social network known for welcoming waves of conservative figures booted from other platforms after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, is dying after being acquired by digital media company Starboard.
The buyer, which was established as Olympic Media in 2018, plans to revive Parler after a restructuring and expand into other business areas. “No sane person believes that a Twitter clone is still a viable business for conservatives,” Starboard said in a statement. Parler’s recent move into cloud and IT infrastructure will allow it to be a key part of the new parent’s efforts to provide services to so-called “underserved online communities.” The goal, in the words of the statement, will be to leverage Parler, “the world’s pioneering non-cancellable free speech platform” to create a home for other like-minded digital actors “away from ad hoc regulation ” to create hand of the platforms they hate.”
Like upstarts like Gettr and Gab, Parler gained a small following during Donald Trump’s presidency as tensions rose over the role of big tech and individual companies in controlling online content. Parler rose to prominence in the final weeks of the Trump administration and in the early months of 2021 with decisions by Twitter and other social media and technology companies to ban Trump and a number of far-right hate groups and individuals. With the influx of new users, many of whom were involved in the January 6, 2021 US Capitol attacks, Parler quickly came under fire from technology providers such as Amazon Web Services.
Parler has been struggling financially and last fall reached a settlement to be taken over by disgraced rapper Kanye West, but the parties canceled the deal a few weeks later after West, who goes by the name Ye, barred his anti- -Semitic and upset public ended. statements.
Financial terms of the recent acquisition were not disclosed, but Starboard said it expects the deal to be accretive to financial results by the end of June.
Source: Deadline
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