Tag Archives: Parler

Parler Temporarily Shuts Down

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Parler, a social network that was popularized by supporters of former President Donald Trump, has been sold to a buyer that has temporarily shut it down, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Parent company Parliament Technologies Inc. said it has sold Parler to digital-media company Starboard, months after an acquisition agreement with rapper Kanye West fall apart. The platform went offline on Friday while Starboard, which recently changed its name from Olympic Media, developed a plan to launch a revamped version of the site.

“It’s going to take a breath of fresh air,” said Ryan Coyne, chief executive officer and founder of Starboard, which owns conservative-leaning news sites such as American Wire News and BizPac Review.

According to The Wall Street Journal, last year Parliament set out to sell Parler and it wanted to focus on providing cloud and other infrastructure services to online businesses at risk of being forced off the internet for controversial content. In October, Parliament said it entered into an agreement to be bought by Mr. West, who now legally goes by Ye, but the deal ended weeks later, after the rapper ran into financial difficulties.

Engadget reported that months after Ye dropped his bid, Parler has a new owner… and is out of commission for the time being. Starboard, the owner of pro-conservative news outlets like American Wire News, has shut down Parler on a temporary but indefinite basis after completing its acquisition of the social network from Parliament Technologies.

Starboard posted the following on the Parler website (after shutting down Parler itself):

“Alexandria, VA – April 14, 2023 – Starboard (Formerly, Olympic Media) announced today that it has concluded the acquisition of Parler, the world’s pioneering uncancelable free speech platform.

No reasonable person believes that a Twitter clone just for conservatives is a viable business any more. By refocusing on the cloud and IT infrastructure space George Farmer has done an exceptional job at successfully leading Parliament into a critically important industry where it has already begun to excel.

Starboard is the perfect home for the Parler brand and its longtime loyal users. “Parler’s large user base and additional strategic assets represent an enormous opportunity for Starboard to continue to build aggressively our media and publishing business. The team at Parler has built an exceptional audience and we look forward to integrating that audience across all of our existing platforms.” said Ryan Coyne, CEO of Starboard.

While the Parler app as it currently constituted will be pulled down from operation to undergo a strategic assessment, we at Starboard see tremendous opportunities across multiple sectors to continue to serve marginalized or even outright censored communities – building a home of them away from the ad-hoc regulatory hand of platforms that hate them…”

Personally, I’m not quite sure what to think about Starboard’s announcement about it’s plans for Parler. The company claims to “continue to serve marginalized people”. But I cannot help but wonder if the “marginalized” people will mostly be the same ones who were on Parler before the app was shut down.

Kanye West To Acquire Parler Platform

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A press release on prnewswire titled: “Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, to acquire Parler Platform”, was posted on today. If you’ve been following the news, it should come as no surprise that Ye decided to buy a social media company.

From the press release:

Parlement Technologies announced today that it has entered into an agreement in principle to sell Parler, the world’s pioneering uncancelable free speech platform to Ye (formerly known as Kanye West). Ye has become the richest Black man in history through music and apparel and is taking a bold stance against his recent censorship from Big Tech, using his far-reaching talents to further lead the fight to create a truly non-cancelable environment.

“In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves,” says Ye.

The proposed acquisition will assure Parler a future role in creating an uncancelable ecosystem where all voices are welcome…

The press release posted a link to where Ye can be found on Parler. I clicked on that link, and my Safari browser said it could not open the page “because the page’s address isn’t valid.” Either Safari doesn’t recognize the Parler website, or the link attached to where you can find Ye on Parler is incorrect or broken.

The press release also says: Under the terms of their agreement in principle, the parties intend to enter into a definitive purchase agreement and expect to close during the fourth quarter of 2022. The terms of the proposed transaction would include ongoing technical support from Parliament and the use of private cloud services via Parliament’s private cloud and data center infrastructure.

Why would Ye want to buy a social media company?

Last week, Kanye West (aka Ye) was locked out of his Twitter and Instagram accounts following a weekend of antisemitic posts. Now, the saga has taken a sharp turn with news that the hip-hop mogul is acquiring the controversial “free speech” social media app Parler, Engadget reported.

According to Engadget, the deal appears to be happening quickly, with the company behind Parler (Parliament technologies) saying that the parties expect to close the transaction in the fourth quarter of 2022. The acquisition price was not revealed.

Engadget also reported: Shortly after his return to Twitter, West posted an antisemitic message, which was eventually pulled by Twitter. “The account in question has been locked due to a violation of Twitter’s policies,” a spokesperson said at the time. The rapper also shared a screenshot on Instagram with another antisemitic message, and was similarly restricted by that site.

Several sites reporting on the press release have noted that the situation is developing.

I suppose that a person, who has tons of money, and who has been kicked out of two large social media websites, would become very interested in finding one that would accept him. I suppose one way to assure you won’t be removed from that social media site is to buy it.

Parler Pivots To “Uncancelable” Cloud Services

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On Friday, Parler announced that it was entering the internet infrastructure industry in order to provide new “uncancelable” cloud services for online business, The Verge reported.

According to The Verge, in a Friday press release, Parler announced it was restructuring; the new venture, called Parliament Technologies, will provide new internet infrastructure services for businesses it says are at risk of being forced off the internet. With $16 million in new Series B funding, the company purchased Dynascale, a California-based cloud services company that touts more than $30 million in annual revenue and 50,000 square feet of data space.

“We are entering a new era as Parliament Technologies, one that goes far beyond the boundaries of a free speech social media platform,” said Parliament Technologies CEO George Farmer. “We believe that Parliament Technologies will power the future. And the future is uncancelable.”

To me, the word “uncancelable” is one that is typically used by people who tend to put a lot of hashtags in their Twitter bio that signify that they are fans of the former President Donald Trump. Once in a while, a famous (or formerly famous) celebrity complains about being “canceled”. As such, it appears that Dynascale and Parliament Technologies are aiming to attract that specific group of people.

The Verge also reported that Parler had more than 4 million people signed up for the app during the 2022 presidential election, but the company struggled to maintain those numbers. Sensor Tower app data shows that the app had fewer than 7,000 downloads last month.

TechCrunch reported that Parler topped App Store charts in early January 2021 after Twitter and Facebook banned President Trump for inciting violence at the U.S. Capitol. But that success was short lived – Apple and Google removed the app from their respective software stores after drawing a line between Parler and the January 6 violence. Amazon also pulled its web hosting, a trifecta of consequences that clearly made an impact on the company, even after it returned to tech giants’ good graces.

According to TechCrunch, Apple reinstated Parler in April 2021 after the app promised to moderate additional content on iOS, bringing it into compliance with the company’s standards. Google only allowed the app back into the Play Store earlier this month, indicating that Parler adjusted the Android app to meet the company’s requirements for “robust” moderation.

Gizmodo reported that Parler also announced that it received $16 million in Series B funding, and has accrued $56 million in funds to date. Which is what enabled Parler to purchase Dynascale, and its 50,000 square feet of server space.

Gizmodo also pointed out that other far-right, often hate and conspiracy-filled websites tend to get booted from mainstream hosting, only to reemerge elsewhere. According to Gizmodo, Kiwi Farms, an offshoot of 4chan and hate speech hotbed, was pushed from a series of web hosts to its new home with VanwaTech. The neo-Nazi site, Daily Stormer, was kicked off of GoDaddy and Google after the Charlottesville white supremacist rally in 2017. And conspiracy theorist Alex Jones had his content banned from multiple large platforms.

All of this points to the obvious conclusion that nothing is truly “uncancelable”. Parliament Technologies obtained a lot of money to buy Dynascale. Perhaps the social media site thinks it is protected because it bought its own internet infrastructure service. That could, potentially, keep the site online. But, it won’t matter if Parler is unable to attract a large enough amount of users to compete with the other alternatives to Twitter. It could still crash and burn.