Data.ai estimated that Parler downloads across Apple’s iOS platform and Google Play dropped to 21,000 in the third quarter of the year from 58,000 in the first quarter. Twitter, by comparison, had 4.5 million downloads in the third quarter, down from 5.2 million. Data.ai estimated that Parler had 706,000 monthly average users in the middle of the year, compared to an estimated 2.8 million iPhone users on Truth Social.
Dan Wang, a strategy professor at Columbia Business School, said that Parler was an “incredibly niche” player, with limited influence and only a few hundred thousand monthly active users. “That’s really a drop in the bucket,” said Dr. Wang, whose research focuses on how social networks drive social and economic transformation. “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.”
Ye was at the center of several cultural firestorms in recent weeks, which led to accusations of racism and antisemitism, and prompted the restrictions against his social media accounts.
Over the weekend, the rap YouTube series “Drink Champs” released a new episode featuring Ye in which he repeated several antisemitic conspiracy theories and questioned the cause of the death of George Floyd, the Black man who was murdered in 2020 by a police officer in Minneapolis. (On Sunday, a lawyer representing Mr. Floyd’s family said they were considering filing a lawsuit against Ye for his statements about Mr. Floyd’s death.)
Earlier this month, Ye disrupted his YZY show at Paris Fashion Week by wearing a T-shirt featuring the words “White Lives Matter,” a phrase that the Anti-Defamation League has called hate speech. He was photographed at the show alongside Candace Owens, a conservative commentator who was wearing a similar shirt and is married to Mr. Farmer, the Parlement chief executive. Mr. Farmer called Ye “a compatriot in the fight for free speech” in Monday’s statement.
Ms. Owens, whose Twitter account was temporarily suspended in 2020 over pandemic-related posts and whose Facebook posts have sometimes been flagged with fact-checking labels, has publicly voiced support for Ye. She tweeted this month that “Ye is my friend.” In April, she tweeted that she loved the way he thinks.
Last week, Ye posed for red carpet photos with Ms. Owens at the Nashville premiere of her movie, “Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of B.L.M.” The film claims that after Mr. Floyd died in police custody, setting off worldwide protests, the Black Lives Matter movement used the unrest to raise millions of dollars. Ms. Owens has railed against the movement and described Mr. Floyd as a “horrible human being.”
