Right-wing social media platform Parler sent an email to over 200-300 of its verified users to announce rapper, designer and rumored 2024 presidential candidate Ye's acquisition deal without using the blind carbon copy (BCC) function.
BCC would have blocked email recipients from seeing the addresses of the other recipients on the email chain.
This slip-up meant Ivanka Trump's private email address was visible to hundreds of users.
Also exposed were the personal emails of many verified users and Parler investors including Donald Trump Jr.'s fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle, New York Republican Representative Elise Stefanik and right-wing pundit Candace Owens.
Owens' husband George Farmer is CEO of Parler's parent company, Parlement Technologies.
\u201cToday's media operations fail:\n\nParler sent an email to all users with 300+ of their verified users CC'd instead of BCC'd\n\nNow hundreds of people are replying and everyone has access to the personal emails of many verified users and Parler investors\u201d— Adam Ryan \ud83e\udd1d (@Adam Ryan \ud83e\udd1d) 1666024168
Parler did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Parler was launched as a conservative answer to Twitter amid right-wing extremist claims hate speech and threats ofviolence were protected by the 1st Amendment. Despite the manufactured outrage against community standards on mainstream social media platforms, Parler and other options marketed to White nationalists, White supremacists, Christian nationalists and conspiracy theorists who often found themselves suspended or banned from other platforms failed to take off.
The email error came shortly after Farmer praised Ye for "making a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space." Farmer's announcement came a week after Ye was locked out of his Twitter and Instagram accounts for making a number of anti-Black, misogynoir and antisemitic posts.
Last week, in direct response to the bans, news reports confirmed Ye reached an agreement in principle to acquire Parler for an undisclosed amount.
Financial terms of the deal have not yet been announced, but it is expected to be completed later this year.
But the news Parler exposed the emails of many of its verified users and investors prompted many to mock the company.
\u201chearing that kanye is buying a dying alt-right social media site so he can post somewhere again and then the site tried to nicely announce this to its paying VIPs and instead accidentally doxxed them all is likely the funniest tech news this month https://t.co/wuUKSMHrJa\u201d— Lucky Zelle \u2728 (@Lucky Zelle \u2728) 1666504686
\u201cOopsie\u2026 Parler doxxing all of its users\u2026\n\nhttps://t.co/lIEBFS0EoS\u201d— Haunted bobbiedoll.eth\ud83d\udd2a\u200e (@Haunted bobbiedoll.eth\ud83d\udd2a\u200e) 1666120572
\u201cWhen you see what a well oiled machine Parler is there\u2019s no wonder a genius investor like Ye would jump at the chance to flush millions down the worlds biggest toilet for the chance to keep posting antisemitic garbage. https://t.co/55zfzGPrma\u201d— \ud83d\udc80Spoopy\ud83d\udc80S\u24b6int\ud83d\udc80Sluggo\ud83d\udc80 (@\ud83d\udc80Spoopy\ud83d\udc80S\u24b6int\ud83d\udc80Sluggo\ud83d\udc80) 1666209252
\u201cSeems like a smart buy, Ye https://t.co/gZlWKABw23\u201d— Mashable (@Mashable) 1666139108
\u201cDoxxing yourself to own the libs?\u201d— Mr. Nick Charles\ud83c\udf78 (@Mr. Nick Charles\ud83c\udf78) 1666059969
\u201cOh ya, this whole Parler Ye thing was a good idea. \ud83d\ude44\ud83e\udd23\n\n Ivanka Trump, Candace Owens and Other Parler 'VIP' Users' Emails Leaked in Kanye Announcement #SmartNews https://t.co/f2u01Clguu\u201d— SueEllenMishky (@SueEllenMishky) 1666153521
\u201cYou know that one guy in the office who does Reply All and it causes a giant mess for like two days straight?\u201d— Darryl Mott \ud83d\udc80 (@Darryl Mott \ud83d\udc80) 1666230845
\u201cThis is legit hilarious. They might as well be faculty.\u201d— SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN \ud83e\uddac \ud83d\uddfd\ud83e\udd18\ud83c\udffd (@SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN \ud83e\uddac \ud83d\uddfd\ud83e\udd18\ud83c\udffd) 1666050555
\u201cI can't believe the IQ of Parler just plummeted below Gab.\u201d— Luke Russell (@Luke Russell) 1666053515
The Parler controversy is only the latest to involve Ye during a month of significantly bad press.
Ye received backlash after White Lives Matter shirts—including ones worn by Ye and Candace Owens—were unveiled during his YZY Paris Fashion Week show. As a result, Ye went on several misogynoir and antisemitic rants and was accused of anti-Blackness by community activists.
Instagram locked Ye out of his account after he posted an antisemitic conspiracy theory in screenshots of text messages with Sean "Diddy" Combs.
In response, Ye returned to Twitter after a long hiatus to accuse Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg of personally locking him out of his account after Instagram announced it locked him out for posts that violated its policies. Ye also tweeted he'd go "death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE," prompting media attention and further accusations of antisemitism.
News outlets later reported Ye made several conspiratorial, racist and antisemitic statements during unaired segments of an interview he had with Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, including a claim Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger created the organization “with the KKK [Ku Klux Klan] to control the Jew population.”
