News

Financial advisor breaks down why Kanye West's Parler takeover is a terrible idea

Financial advisor breaks down why Kanye West's Parler takeover is a terrible idea
Morning Joe guest questions what Kanye West can do with social media …
Video

When Donald Trump was kicked off Twitter, he created Truth Social. Now as Kanye West finds himself locked out of Twitter and Instagram he has decided to acquire Parler.

On Monday, Parler, a "free speech platform" associated with far-right ideology, announced it had entered an agreement with West to take over the social media platform.

West, also known as Ye, was locked out of his Instagram and Twitter accounts after posting anti-Semitic messages last week. Seemingly, the rapper decided to find his own social media platform than conform to the rules of others.

Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Meanwhile, people have criticized Parler for serving as a platform for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories like those circulated by QAnon.

But besides the ethical issues at hand, MSNBC's Squawk Box co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin believes the agreement is a bad financial decision too.

On Monday morning's episode of Morning Joe, Sorkin explained that advertisers were unlikely to invest in the future of Parler due to West's comments.

"Oh, goodness gracious," he laughed. "Elon Musk is going to own Twitter, Trump will own Truth Social , and Kanye will own Parler. By the way, Peter Thiel and J.D. Vance will own something called Rumble. So the new media mogul-dom is owning one of these things.

"Parler, as you know, had sort of fallen off a bit in part because it had been taken as a competitor to Truth Social and to Twitter and everything else. What Ye, as he's now calling himself, will do with all of this, I do not know.

"Given all [West's] anti-Semitic screeds and other comments he's made, he was just out talking about how he thinks that George Floyd was killed by fentanyl or something crazy. I don't know who's going to be on this platform if advertisers will want to back this platform -- we will see."

West's increasingly dangerous rhetoric has begun isolating him from mainstream people and platforms.

Along with his temporary social media ban, Addidas has said it is reviewing its relationship with West too.

Meanwhile, George Farmer the CEO of Parler said he believes the 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," Farmer added.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The Conversation (0)
x