Photograph: Chris Delmas/AFP/Getty Images
Kanye West, a man who can’t seem to stop saying bigoted things, is buying Parler, a social network designed especially for people who like to say bigoted things. I was a little surprised when this news broke on Monday because I thought Parler was basically a Nazified version of Myspace that nobody used any more. There are a bunch of fringe rightwing social networks out there – Gettr, Gab, Truth Social – and Parler might be the least successful of a very unsuccessful bunch. The Twitter clone was launched in 2018 with the stated aim of countering the “ever-increasing tyranny … of our tech overlords”; it had a brief moment of popularity then that fizzled out. No doubt because of the tyranny of our tech overlords.
Despite the fact it’s not a household name, I’m sure I don’t need to explain why West, who has changed his name to Ye, is interested in Parler, which, one imagines, may soon change its name to Er. The musician, who has been moving dramatically to the right in recent years, had his Twitter and Instagram accounts locked this month because of antisemitic comments. Or that’s what us lefties have been saying anyway – West seems to think he was being censored and free speech is dead and liberals are trying to cancel him yada yada yada. Instead of engaging in any sort of introspection following his Twitter suspension, Ye apparently decided to fight for his right to be a bigot. Parler’s parent company, Parlement Technologies, put that in rather more sanitised terms. In a statement, it said West is making “a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again”.
If you think you’ve heard this story before, it’s because you have. Rich conservatives are obsessed with creating safe spaces where they can never be criticised or contradicted; where nobody cares about facts and everyone cares about their feelings. Donald Trump launched Truth Social at the beginning of this year after he was banned by Twitter. Elon Musk said he was buying Twitter then said he wasn’t buying Twitter and now seems to be buying Twitter again. Trump-supporting Peter Thiel has put money into Rumble, a more rightwing version of YouTube.
While it may look suspiciously like they’re too fragile to deal with other people’s opinions, conservatives always couch their obsession with building echo chambers in terms of “free speech”. George Farmer, the CEO of Parler’s parent company, for example, said he thinks West will “change the way the world thinks about free speech”. I don’t know about that. I do know, however, that the acquisition (which is for an undisclosed sum) is likely to change Farmer’s bank balance.
Farmer, it’s important to note, happens to be married to Candace Owens, a rightwing pundit who once suggested the US military invade Australia in order to free its people “suffering under a totalitarian regime”. When she’s not dreaming about liberating Australia, Owens is busy palling around with West; the pair recently wore “White Lives Matter” shirts at Paris fashion week. Owens also defended West after he tweeted that he was going “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE … You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.” This is obviously indefensible, but Owens did her best, saying on her podcast: “If you’re an honest person, when you read this tweet, you had no idea what the hell he was talking about … if you are an honest person, you did not think this tweet was antisemitic.” (If I’m honest, I think it was.) The Farmer-Owens-West connection has led a number of people to suspect that the Parler acquisition was a brilliant manoeuvre on Owens’ part to get West to redistribute some of his wealth to her family. Candace was cashing in on Kanye, in other words.
While West’s descent into extremism is disturbing, his acquisition of Parler (assuming it goes through) is not keeping me up at night. If Truth Social is anything to go by, I highly doubt that Parler is going to be influential anytime soon. What is keeping me up at night, however, is the rightward drift of more mainstream platforms such as CNN. What’s keeping me up at night is the rightward drift of politics. West is a very prominent symbol of a much bigger problem.
• Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
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