When @WillOremus & I wrote that the Kanye West antisemitic post flap could be a preview of social media's future, I didn't think that future would be *the next week* https://t.co/xKtKfIUuHc

— Cristiano Lima (@viaCristiano) October 17, 2022

Thirty minutes of “Ye is buying Parler!” has more attention than Parler itself will get in a month.

— Quentin Hardy (@qhardy) October 17, 2022

Baffling that so many news stories about the acquisition are missing this context. This is why the news desk needs to talk to its beat reporters for these stories! The headline is that Owens used her friendship with Kanye to offload a dying platform. Not another celeb tech buy!

— Jared Holt (@jaredlholt) October 17, 2022

Kanye West, whose Twitter and Instagram accounts were locked last week over offensive posts, is buying "uncancellable free speech platform" Parler. The deal is expected to close in Q4 https://t.co/w82fhhDBYz

— Press Gazette (@pressgazette) October 17, 2022

You know what, this is great, give every annoying celebrity their own social network where they leave us alone. https://t.co/tRN6rXcFPW

— Laurie Voss (@seldo) October 17, 2022

Ye (@KanyeWest) buying Parler could be a helluva exit for founders. Or not.
Re: "free speech," reminder that Parler moderates a ton of content, & can't stop doing so, lest it host child porn, murder video, copyrighted material, etc: https://t.co/ZwEXIn0Mdi
Will @Twitter go "alt"? https://t.co/KRBbMu9hLo

— Alex Howard (@digiphile) October 17, 2022

I forgot about that! https://t.co/nHLRA0d5JA

— Jeff "The Prophet Jeffiziah" Charles (@JeffOnTheRight) October 17, 2022

Is it ethical to sell your company to someone who’s clearly insane? https://t.co/7pc4HdeNEC

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) October 17, 2022

Isn't Parler just another right-wing Mastodon instance? Seems like it would work out better for Kanye to spend that money to make yet another right-wing Mastodon instance and market that as "the REALLY real free speech social media."

But sure let him go bankrupt himself on this. https://t.co/MmLZRVjOoH

— 👾Rani Timekey Baker, Noise Channel $400C-$400F (@destroyed4com4t) October 17, 2022

"If I had a nickel every time a free-speech obsessed billionaire wanted to buy a social media platform, I would have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's funny that it happened twice" https://t.co/HSheidVmTA

— Damien ✨(in 🇫🇷) (@Eramdam) October 17, 2022

Something a little dystopian about the most widely read newspaper in the country describing an app used to amplify Sandy Hook conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers as a “libertarian-leaning social network popular with conservatives” when it’s objectively a hive of misinformation https://t.co/gMhxbN62Wn

— Matt Negrin, HOST OF HARDBALL AT 7PM ON MSNBC (@MattNegrin) October 17, 2022

If this goes as badly as I assume it will, we will all be reading stories about Delaware Chancery Court well into next year https://t.co/80hCbzrOok

— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) October 17, 2022

Mentally ill rich man swindled by grifter family https://t.co/5BU2q6Q87P

— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) October 17, 2022

hope his followers enjoy a truly janky app experience and a lot of crypto bots! https://t.co/7ukwsDofqw

— Ariel Bogle (@arielbogle) October 17, 2022

“Ye seemed to have joined Parler on Monday and had about 91 followers at the time of the announcement.” https://t.co/2EYiIjvKQ7

— Kenn White (@kennwhite) October 17, 2022

Wow OK: Kanye is acquiring Parler to take “a bold stance against his recent censorship from Big Tech.” Company says his purchase “will assure Parler a future role in creating an uncancelable ecosystem” pic.twitter.com/COCVmkUqnO

— Bobby Allyn (@BobbyAllyn) October 17, 2022

Running out of social media platforms and mainstream news outlets to express his longtime inflammatory antisemitic views, Kanye West @kanyewest is buying social media @parler_app https://t.co/wwl5NrqCHd

— Adam Milstein (@AdamMilstein) October 17, 2022

imagine having opinions so shitty you have to literally spend billions so you can have an audience https://t.co/e8HeRw8UVT

— Keith Edwards (@keithedwards) October 17, 2022

Parler, lol. Did he buy it for, like, $4? https://t.co/FaELobTIiY

— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) October 17, 2022

Here's a really good example: This site is for January 6th deniers who want rioters released from jail and pardoned.

Those seven things that look like broken links at the bottom? They're all MAGA-centric social platforms.

Parler is second-last, next to some site called Spreely. pic.twitter.com/a8EtXUkfqx

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) October 17, 2022

Seems like mostly a move to help his friend Candace Owens, whose husband is the CEO of the flagging platform, but with his purchase Kanye also gets one of the largest collections of Jan. 6 footage outside the federal government. https://t.co/ltO0J4Ws9b

— Jordan Fischer (@JordanOnRecord) October 17, 2022

All of these sites — Parler, TruthSocial, Gettr (remember that?) — are used in identical ways: to read about election denial and ragebait about trans kids.

Picking which one you use is like choosing Nike or Adidas. They all do the same thing, and they even have the same colors.

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) October 17, 2022

college football message boards are already an uncancelable ecosystem https://t.co/J8iz7KftZT

— Ryan Nanni (@celebrityhottub) October 17, 2022

NEW @Axios: Ye, formerly Kanye West, plans to acquire Parler

Big picture: Conservatives really starting to build alternate media universe
— Elon is buying Twitter
— Trump building his own platform
— Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance are funding Rumblehttps://t.co/2bMJVs6PDY

— Sara Fischer (@sarafischer) October 17, 2022

That the middlingest of the middling conservative temper tantrum apps was for sale at all tells you all you need to know. Cashing out 12 days before Elon’s purchase is supposed to close (and Trump’s return to Twitter inevitably follows). Grifters found their mark in Ye. https://t.co/4ySrGUGx8r

— Jeremy Littau (@JeremyLittau) October 17, 2022

Congratulations Kanye West on inventing 4chan https://t.co/IO5ir41GgX

— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) October 17, 2022

"This deal will change the world, and change the way the world thinks about free speech. Ye is making a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again." https://t.co/3BBQzrFZvf

— iMore (@iMore) October 17, 2022

Clearly Kanye has nobody around him looking out for his best interests. He’s getting scammed out of a ton of cash to buy Candace Owens’ husband’s worthless company. Evil.

— drew olanoff (@yoda) October 17, 2022

Parler Chief Executive George Farmer said discussions with Kayne West of a deal for Parler began casually when his wife Candace Owens attended Mr. West’s fashion show in Paris.

Owens and Kanye both wore a “White Lives Matter” shirt at the eventhttps://t.co/bxPAQs9W6s

— Anthony DeRosa (@Anthony) October 17, 2022

Parler CEO Defends Kanye as Cancellation 'Victim' Before Suggesting Rapper's Anti-Semitism is 'Up for Conversation' https://t.co/MHdQEo83pA

— Mediaite (@Mediaite) October 17, 2022

Are you really a rockstar (or a billionaire/space cowboy) if you have not bought your own social network?

— OM (@om) October 17, 2022

almost no stories about this dumb “acquisition” have bothered to mention this and it’s kinda important. basically these people are exploiting a disturbed man for his money. https://t.co/rvw8snKZQl

— shauna (@goldengateblond) October 17, 2022

Ridiculous how comfortable mainstream media is using "conservative" in place where they mean "antisemitic" and/or "racist" https://t.co/QRs9NyoYK5

— David Rothschild 🌻 (@DavMicRot) October 17, 2022

Parler is a corpse, its 15 minutes of post-January 6th fame having long since elapsed. Kanye would be better off just setting his money on fire. https://t.co/5zyRz6EHzp

— Mike Rothschild (@rothschildmd) October 17, 2022

The tech world is finally decending into complete madness https://t.co/vl8JgRxhuY

— Andreas Proschofsky (@suka_hiroaki) October 17, 2022

Here's a super hot and out-there take for your Monday morning: this isn't gonna happen https://t.co/aSi9w6Q9D6

— David Pierce (@pierce) October 17, 2022

It seems to me that the diagnoses from afar of a ‘mental health crisis’ underrate the possibility ye’s antisemitic outbursts are part of a cynical strategy to cement a place for himself in far right politics. https://t.co/38Q8dnUiAX

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) October 17, 2022

Candace Owens husband George Farmer is the CEO of Parler https://t.co/ypejxLp1dO

— Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) October 17, 2022

The rare tweet that explains everything succinctly. https://t.co/UuQrYiMdQu

— Philip Bump (@pbump) October 17, 2022

I feel like something so stupid is going to happen that it's going to change social media forever

— Ernie Smith (@ShortFormErnie) October 17, 2022

This is the funniest timeline https://t.co/vrtWQ3Cwx9

— Danny Gold (@DGisSERIOUS) October 17, 2022

A fun blending of two stories: George Farmer, the CEO of Parler, is the son of Michael Farmer, the Brexiteer Lord who is currently trying to get the government to adopt "family-strengthening policies" because they're "important for economic growth" https://t.co/58rzCp4eYI

— alex hern (@alexhern) October 17, 2022

Just to be clear, we are explicitly talking now about creating a platform for the spread of anti-semitic conspiracy theories. https://t.co/bRerGH520x

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 17, 2022

Kanye makes rash decisions and then acts like he made a profound discovery months or years later, when shit was obvious if he did a bit of deep diving at the time

After 1-2 years of working on Parler, he’ll do a spiel on how he diDn’T uNdeRsTaNd the nuances of content moderation

— Jules Terpak (@julesterpak) October 17, 2022

The bottom line is that MAGA social media is incredibly diffuse and people just use whatever they think is closer to their political identity.

Trump diehards are on TruthSocial. Edgelords are on the chans/Gab. Q people are on Telegram. TheDonald is an aggregator for all of them.

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) October 17, 2022

Lol, they both so deserve each other… https://t.co/vQaF38JxPS

— Peter W. Singer (@peterwsinger) October 17, 2022

Kanye West makes a slew of Anti-Semitic statements, then agrees to purchase a far-right website. https://t.co/83vDTElZDu

— Dash Dobrofsky (@DashDobrofsky) October 17, 2022

At present, <10% of Americans rely on Parler, Gab, Rumble, Truth Social for their news.

Yet they've attracted huge amounts of investment, all while being paranoid hubs of unbridled conspiracy theories.https://t.co/pQNDZ6Rwp3 https://t.co/bNJM3ET4RF

— Justin Ling (@Justin_Ling) October 17, 2022

Context: Kanye West is said to be buying Parler (I’ll believe it when I see it). https://t.co/7HQ3DedBUz

— Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) October 17, 2022

Given his recent turn toward the most blatant of antisemitism, hard to see how this would be remotely consistent with Parler staying on any of the app stores. https://t.co/BpCPIfWBSO

— James Ball (@jamesrbuk) October 17, 2022

Kanye thought he was grifting and now he’s buying a piece of garbage from more sophisticated grifters. Hate to see it. https://t.co/Bzmbk0emqX

— Mike Lobikis (@MLfromdeep) October 17, 2022

Big picture: conservatives built their alternate media universe a long time ago. This is a grift by people who see an easy chance to grab the dumb moneyhttps://t.co/RIoYsntF1o

— Hamilton Nolan (@hamiltonnolan) October 17, 2022

this tweet is about social media execs now https://t.co/VqM4wNF8ye

— paris martineau (@parismartineau) October 17, 2022

Parler's user base is declining; it's losing in its niche to Truth Social; and, assuming Elon ends up with Twitter, much of the reason for its existence goes away.

What is the best business argument for why @kanyewest is buying it?

— nxthompson (@nxthompson) October 17, 2022

I would've expected Gab. https://t.co/KB6oKz1Td4

— Jacob Silverman (@SilvermanJacob) October 17, 2022

Well now we know why Kanye was intentionally trying to get himself banned from Twitter last week.

People think it’s all a combo of creative genius / mental health with him, but it’s actually quite calculating and intentional. https://t.co/tmZne5JFNb

— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) October 17, 2022

👀 Ye buys @parler_app for $54.20.

Total.

That convo with Elon really did have an impact!https://t.co/PkOfkeAbAs

— Chris Messina (@chrismessina) October 17, 2022

Okayyy... A bargain basement version of the Musk-Twitter deal. https://t.co/EKCbgOKbew

— Martin SFP Bryant (@MartinSFP) October 17, 2022

That’s a lot of money to spend just to be able to say hateful things. The problem is that it’s still worth it for these folks, because that’s how valuable their hate is to them. https://t.co/INGXCOxX7u

— Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) October 17, 2022

Make sure the merger agreement includes a specific performance clause, guys. https://t.co/1wOyscDMHR

— Mike Masnick (@mmasnick) October 17, 2022

First Trump, then Musk, now Kanye. The trend seems to be for rich bigots to acquire their own social media platform while whining about free speech and wokeism. https://t.co/bxqrhQCIAJ

— Casilli (@AntonioCasilli) October 17, 2022

BREAKING: Kanye West, now Ye, has acquired social media company Parler. https://t.co/jmqHYRIiUx

— Pulte (@pulte) October 17, 2022

guess we are just formally entering the era where social networks are all just going to revolve around the personalities of their various unstable celebrity owners https://t.co/GMFkfGdihZ

— Charlie Warzel (@cwarzel) October 17, 2022

Huh, kinda figured Kanye would be more of a Gab guy at this point. https://t.co/MG2WrnHpyh

— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) October 17, 2022

congratulations to candace owens on accomplishing her twin goals of getting unlimited attention & helping her husband dump that money pit/litigation magnet of a website https://t.co/XirF1SHciG

— molly conger (@socialistdogmom) October 17, 2022

Kanye West is buying controversial "free speech platform" Parler | iMore https://t.co/Mz7DZjconf

— iMore (@iMore) October 17, 2022

Kanye West has agreed in principle to buy conservative social media platform Parler, the app’s parent company said in a statement. https://t.co/mhStrKteYo

— CNBC (@CNBC) October 17, 2022

First this MF says that George Floyd died from Fentanyl instead of a lack of oxygen caused by Chauvin’s knee on his neck…

And now this utter POS, Kanye West, is buying Parler 🤬 https://t.co/VtZ2vErWav

— The Astute Galoot (@TheAstuteGaloot) October 17, 2022

Kanye West makes a slew of Anti-Semitic statements, then agrees to purchase a far-right website. https://t.co/83vDTElZDu

— Dash Dobrofsky (@DashDobrofsky) October 17, 2022

💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚
💚 💚 Kanye West agrees 💚 💚
💚to buy Parler, company says. 💚
💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚 https://t.co/Pthm4MBEQw

— 🍀Qᵁᴱᴱᴺ🔰ᴹᴬᴳᴬ🔰ᵁᴸᵀᴿA🍀 (@QueenMAGAUltra) October 17, 2022

Ye is buying Parler https://t.co/pJWaV1SFla

— Ryan Browne (@Ryan_Browne_) October 17, 2022

SURPRISE !!!

Kanye West agrees to buy Parler, company says

Musk promises to bring Free Speech to Twitter https://t.co/SAZEHukISl

— JudgeJoeBrown (@JudgeJoeBrownTV) October 17, 2022

Running out of social media platforms and mainstream news outlets to express his longtime inflammatory antisemitic views, Kanye West @kanyewest is buying social media @parler_app https://t.co/wwl5NrqCHd

— Adam Milstein (@AdamMilstein) October 17, 2022

Now he will have his own platform to spew against Jews. https://t.co/dIoqN0G3jO

— Barbara Malmet (@B52Malmet) October 17, 2022

Kanye West agrees to buy Parler.

🤦‍♀️ https://t.co/7soitIwtPC

— CJ 🌊 (@CJ_isnowblue) October 17, 2022

To further enhance his MAGA status 🙄https://t.co/v30MJqRutW

— 𝑀𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑎 ☮️ (@MeliMels99) October 17, 2022

I'm sure this will go over about as well as his presidential bid, or Justin Timberlake's purchase of MySpace.https://t.co/tRQFarizks

— Chef Dark Amber (@AmberTunatya) October 17, 2022

Kanye West to buy Parler, promises to protect “conservative opinions” https://t.co/W5VIJFHWEL pic.twitter.com/xaQHOmznh8

— Matthew Sheffield (@mattsheffield) October 17, 2022

“Kanye West is a wealthy person and has a lot of resources, but not on the scale of being able to buy actually influential social media platforms.” https://t.co/yWSnnzy3cu

— Katie Rogers (@katierogers) October 17, 2022

Really? https://t.co/BCQBr6v7DI

— Steven Hassan, PhD (@CultExpert) October 17, 2022

This is why we don't need billionaires.

He is going to make some right wing extremists very rich who can make unlimited donations to elections.

Lets remember there are Proud Boys on the Miami Dade County School Boardhttps://t.co/fnpRQYCg0i

— The Real Mutale Nkonde (she/hers) (@mutalenkonde) October 17, 2022

Kanye West to buy social media platform Parler https://t.co/vVBUDGtS7J

— #TuckFrump (@realTuckFrumper) October 17, 2022

Kanye West To Acquire Conservative Social Network Parler https://t.co/4FtJmqEsby

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) October 17, 2022

Imagine selling your company to a brazenly open, unapologetic anti-Semite.https://t.co/jKGydePxUE

— Alex Godfrey (@MrGodfrey) October 17, 2022

Antisemitic right-wing fuckhead buys Twitter For Nazis No. 2. https://t.co/dvEO2AeBKZ

— Chuck Taggart 🏳️‍🌈🖖🏻 (@SazeracNELA) October 17, 2022

Kanye West is buying conservative social media platform Parler, company says https://t.co/2GHAtd6xTJ

— CNBC (@CNBC) October 17, 2022

I mean…if you’re gonna be a racist fu€k that looks and sounds like a complete imbecile, I suppose that’s the platform to own

The Ye 🤡…

Kanye West is buying conservative social media platform Parler, company says https://t.co/h5kaiGK1s7

— AV8 (@AV8intheblue) October 17, 2022

Parler's prominent white supremacist users are having kittens.https://t.co/WL4zEcO0xG

— EQV Analytics 🇺🇦 (@AnalyticsEqv) October 17, 2022

Kanye buys a dog. https://t.co/cQ62MOy1ni

— Robert Young Pelton (@RYP__) October 17, 2022

Alternative headline: Mentally ill man with a penchant for racist and antisemitic commentary buys right wing social network. https://t.co/modjvixuEu

— Dave Amirault 🏳️‍🌈 (@ozskier) October 17, 2022

Kanye West is in the process of acquiring the American conservative social platform Parler.

https://t.co/eDGrrwEwK2

— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) October 17, 2022

Step aside, Elon Musk.

It looks like the newest social platform owner in town will soon be none other than Kanye West, who's looking to buy conservative social platform Parler.https://t.co/CfTp45eXjE

— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) October 17, 2022