Parler Abruptly Taken Down By New Owners — Site Replaced With Brutal Statement on Conservative ‘Twitter Clone’
AP Photo/Julia Weeks
The Parler app and website were taken offline Friday after parent company Parlement Technologies Inc. announced it reached a deal with media company Starboard to buy the faltering social network.
The right-wing social media app was marketed and adopted as an alternative to Twitter for conservatives, and became a highly MAGA and Donald Trump-focused niche service.
In December, a deal to sell Parler to rapper controversial Kanye West fell through, leaving the company in a lurch resulting in massive layoffs at Parlement. Parler CEO George Farmer, husband of far-right pundit Candace Owens, is being replaced, but not many other details were available about the deal.
The app was taken offline and replaced by a brutally frank assessment from new owner Starboard, which owns several conservative-leaning publications. Describing Parler as “the world’s pioneering uncancelable free speech platform,” the statement then flatly declares: “No reasonable person believes that a Twitter clone just for conservatives is a viable business any more.”
Starboard CEO Ryan Coyne told the Wall Street Journal on Friday the purchase is a chance to reach “unsupported online communities by building a home for them away from the ad hoc regulatory hand of platforms that hate them,” which is a message not dissimilar to the pitch for the Parler app in the first place.
“While the Parler app as it is 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,” says the front page statement. “Even extending beyond domestic politics.”
Parler Home Page on April 14
The company’s entire career has been plagued by controversy dating back to the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack, and has been removed and restored from Apple and Google app stores over that time.
