Soon the end for Talking? The new owner of the ultra-conservative social network has temporarily suspended this platform, the time to decide on its future. “No reasonable person still believes that a clone of Twitter just for conservative and far-right users is a viable business,” Starboard, the company that bought the network, said on Friday in a message posted on the Parler homepage.
Launched in 2018, the platform defends a vision of freedom of expression almost without limits. It was widely embraced by supporters of Donald Trump who felt censored on mainstream social media, from Facebook to Twitter.
Integrate the audience with other company sites
Starboard boss Ryan Coyne wants to integrate this audience on his company’s other sites. “Parler’s user base and other strategic (IT) assets represent a huge opportunity to continue to aggressively build our media and publishing businesses,” he said, quoted in the official message.
Starboard (formerly Olympic Media) owns news sites with a right-wing perspective on current events, such as American Wire News. “Advances in artificial intelligence, combined with existing computer code and other new products will allow Starboard to serve communities in need of help, building places for them away from the regulated platforms that hate them,” says the company.
A takeover proposal by Kanye West rejected
At the beginning of December, Parler had announced that it would give up being bought out by rapper and entrepreneur Kanye West, who multiplied the controversies, in particular by displaying his admiration for Hitler.
The network was temporarily pulled from Apple and Google’s mobile app stores last year over a lack of content moderation in the face of calls for violence from supporters of the former Republican president.