Kanye West plans to buy Parler, a conservative social media site

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Kanye West plans to buy the conservative social media website Parler. 

The Chicago-native rapper, legally known as Ye, said in a statement: "In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial, we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves."

The "agreement in principle" was announced Monday morning by Parler's parent company, Parlement Technologies. 

Last week, West was locked out of his Twitter account "due to a violation of Twitter's policies," the social media platform told CBS News in a statement. 

Twitter did not specify which policies had been broken, but the action came not long after West posted an antisemitic tweet in which he threatened to go "death [sic] con 3" on Jewish people.

In the tweet — which has since been removed — West also wrote, "The funny thing is I actually can't be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also."

In March, West was suspended by Instagram  after posting racial slurs targeting "Daily Show" host Trevor Noah.

Terms of the purchase of Parler weren't disclosed. The deal is expected to close by year-end.   

Parler drew a surge of users following the 2020 presidential election, fashioning itself as a forum for conservative thought and alternative to other social media sites. 

But Amazon stopped hosting the company on its web service last year after the technology giant said Parler had failed to block content that could incite violence in wake of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Other mainstream media platforms followed.