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Jordan Peterson Announces Free Speech, Anti-Censorship Platform 'Thinkspot' (newsbusters.org) 774

Psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson announced a subscription-based free speech platform called 'Thinkspot' on Wednesday that promises to provide users the best features of other social media platforms, but without censorship. From a report: It's being marketed as a free speech alternative to payment processors like Patreon in that it will "monetize creators" and as provide a social media alternative to platforms like Facebook and YouTube. Peterson discussed Thinkspot with podcaster Joe Rogan on June 9, emphasizing a radically pro-free speech Terms of Service. He described that freedom as the "central" aspect saying, "once you're on our platform we won't take you down unless we're ordered to by a US court of law."
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Jordan Peterson Announces Free Speech, Anti-Censorship Platform 'Thinkspot'

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  • Good luck... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by butchersong ( 1222796 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:24PM (#58751158)
    Anything zealously free speech will be labeled a hate platform. I'll be surprised if they are allowed to get an app hosted in google play store or ios.
    • Re:Good luck... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SuricouRaven ( 1897204 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:51PM (#58751366)

      It will in this case, because most of people who go there will do so because they have either been blocked from mainstream sites, or support someone who has been blocked. The userbase will self-select into a cess pit.

      • Re:Good luck... (Score:4, Informative)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @04:35PM (#58751772) Homepage Journal

        Don't forget the lobster aficionados.

    • "Free speech" doesn't mean free from curation. I suspect that's the crux of their plan.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      This goes way back, so many here today probably don't remember it, but /. used to be one of the freest discussion platforms around.

      Does anyone remember the Scientology debacle, and the huge reluctance expressed by the editors at deleting a post?

      Of course, /. today is a sad imitation of what it once was. The moderation is absolutely atrocious these days, to the point of me always having to switch to -1 just to see all of the insightful comments that have been wrongly modded down.

      I suspect that I've even seen

    • Re:Good luck... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:58PM (#58751434) Homepage

      I'll be surprised if they are allowed to get an app hosted in google play store or ios.

      So use the fucking browser. Geez, it's like ya'll forgot there was life on the internet before everything went all appy (great, now I've likely invoked that app troll).

    • Peterson’s daughter Mikhaila encouraged podcast listeners to sign up as testers for the platform in its current beta phase, before the intended August 2019 launch. “We’re in desperate need for a platform that doesn’t arbitrarily decide to throw people off because of random crowd mentality,” she said.

      Apparently her father didn't tell her about the part where you can be downvoted into oblivion.

      On a platform where you have to pay for access.

      *facepalm* x 1000

    • Close. Anything that zealously free speech MUST BE a hate platform.

      By their definition, I could go online and spew the most vile hateful, disgusting things around, accusing innocent people of multiple crimes and they won't take them down until someone spends a lot of cash to order.

      There are people that do that. Have you read comments sections?

      Which means:

      1) They will attract people that get kicked off of more restrictive websites,
      2) They will repel people that do not like this garbage
      3) Leaving a major

  • Good (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:25PM (#58751164)

    Free market and all that.

  • Good Luck! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:26PM (#58751172)

    You maybe steadfast but the payment processors won't be. They will bend at the smallest amount of pressure.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:26PM (#58751174)

    It'll attract the most fringe elements, racists, etc, and nobody else will want anything to do with it because people generally do not want to read all that shit.

    The challenge isn't to create a censorship-free platform, it's to create a censorship-free platform that the average person would ever want to use. Otherwise it will be a racist echo-chamber and everyone else will stay miles away.

    • by Kazymyr ( 190114 )

      Welcome to free speech. If you think that anything someone says is illegal, you're welcome to bring a lawsuit.
      Otherwise feel free to live under Communism. I have, and it wasn't pretty.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 )

      The challenge isn't to create a censorship-free platform, it's to create a censorship-free platform that the average person would ever want to use.

      The average person wants an echo chamber, because positive feedback is more enjoyable than getting modded/voted down because someone disagrees with your political position.

      Slashdot is the perfect example of this. For whatever reason, this site still seems to attract cowardly scum who are more than happy to mod down, rather than argue their position.

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @07:22PM (#58752786)
      Peterson, Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder all make a very, very good living off that community. There's a _lot_ of angry young men and even some women stuck in shit jobs with no futures looking for something to give them answers.

      Peterson especially has a whole new audience. Religion is kind of on the decline in America but folks still want a sense of belonging and spirituality. Peterson's philosophy is designed to give you that without straying too far into actual Christianity. He's sort of like an agnostic televangelist in that regard.
  • But not anonymous (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:27PM (#58751186)
    But it doesn't sound like it will be anonymous. Otherwise this wouldn't work:

    >> we won't take you down unless we're ordered to by a US court of law

    Also, this guy's about to get a rude lesson in copypasta shitposting if he seriously believes this:

    >> "If minimum comment length is 50 words, you're gonna have to put a little thought into it"
    • So he's already not abiding by his own 'free speech' claim, if the speech must be a minimum of 50 words.

      Weird.

  • by raftpeople ( 844215 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:28PM (#58751192)
    4Chan
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by denzacar ( 181829 )

      More like Tidal for fascists. Only with even LESS talent and business acumen.

      After all, he's expecting that teenage boys will pay so they could do what they already do for free on various #Chans and forums.

    • by lgw ( 121541 )

      Perhaps so, but 4chan is remarkably tame these days. There are still a few racists on /pol/ (though even that's tame compared to the racism that's normal in many places in the world), but most of the site is just weebs being weebs.

    • Why the other 497 seconds?

  • Useful for piracy? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Comboman ( 895500 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:29PM (#58751200)

    "once you're on our platform we won't take you down unless we're ordered to by a US court of law."

    What about a cease-and-desist order from a copyright lawyer?

    • by guruevi ( 827432 )

      A copyright claim is not a legal order, the copyright holder has to go to court and spend actual money to get an order to take something down. I'm sure they wouldn't spend money on fighting it, but in the mean time it will be several months before it's taken down and the courts will get clogged which may finally create an incentive for lawmakers to legalize some of this or make some other provisions for creators.

      Even though YouTube makes it look like it doesn't, the US has strong protections against copyrig

      • That's not quite right. A DMCA claim is a legal document backed by law. It does not need to go through a court to have the force of law. The reason this is so is because it does not compel someone to do anything. What a DMCA take-down notice does is remove liability from the platform if they comply with the take down. They don't have to comply, but if they go that route then they can be included in the copyright lawsuit and be held liable for copyright infringement if the court sides with the copyright owne

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Even worse just a bog standard copy/paste DMCA notice. I doubt he will want to fight those on his user's behalf. The only option is to take the material down until they file a counter-notice.

  • The real test (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:30PM (#58751210) Homepage

    The real test will be if people with dramatically opposing viewpoints to Peterson sign up. Let's see what happens to their content. I'm half tempted to do that myself...

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      Peterson has always welcomed opposing viewpoints, he argues them all the time, that's kind of his job. I do wonder what will happen with all the alt-right and far-left content that is currently on YouTube, it will need a strong reputation system to combat having those float up to the top of the pile.

    • Don't (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @07:23PM (#58752796)
      the best thing you can do is ignore him. You're just giving him eyeballs to sell advertisers to. Feel free to browse the site with an adblocker on, but if you really oppose Peterson volunteer in a political campaign that opposes his right wing ideology. In America that would be Liz Warren or Bernie Sanders.
  • Free market (Score:3, Insightful)

    by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:30PM (#58751212)

    The free market will fill these voids in the wake of YouTube and FaceBook demonetization for anything remotely 'offensive' to anyone. I've been thinking about starting a platform like this but I just don't have the influence.

    However lawmakers on the left have been talking to regulate FaceBook and YouTube and its creators are inviting it as well so the decisions can be out of their hands.

    The only problem I can foresee is that it will need a very strong reputation system for the 'bad stuff' that isn't illegal but nevertheless offensive (eg. far left and far right ideas of racial supremacy) doesn't float to the 'suggestion' lists.

  • "unless we're ordered to by a US court of law"

    Oh yeah.
    But I have to honor at least the attempt to promote unfettered crowd-supported Speech.
    Too bad us Crowds are such Asshats.

  • ...network!
  • Most of the people posting here are saying free speech is hate speech, that only nazis want free speech. Oh well, so much for that little experiment...

    • Most of the people posting here are saying free speech is hate speech, that only nazis want free speech.

      That is such disingenuous tripe. Nobody is asking for the government to intervene. These platforms are private companies that are there to make money so they are going to go to cater to the largest group of people possible. Advertisers on the other hand do not wish to be associated with certain individuals as it may harm their well crafted image and therefore sales. In response the platforms choose to exclude certain type of content to keep the advertisers from leaving. This isn't censorship, this is t

    • Literally no one here said that.

  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:45PM (#58751314)

    A Patreon that promises not to take anyone down is a pretty good idea, if nothing else they can get a lot of more edgy content (sexual or otherwise) that is being pushed off of Patreon.

    What I would love to see out of a platform built to replace Patreon is, a system that was a little more potentially disconnected. That is to say, right now creators post all content to Patreon and there's a not a great way to have most the experience outside Patreon...

    What if instead you had a platform where maybe the default was something like how Patreon works as far as content hosting, but if you wanted to reduce your monthly fee you could opt to have the site show updates that mostly linked back to your real site - kind of like an RSS reader only one built around collecting payments and helping your site understand who was authorized to see what.

    Basically once you grow beyond a certain size it doesn't seem like Patreon makes sense, but it's a pretty large leap to a a whole site of your own and managing everything. Something in between would be great.

    • A Patreon that promises not to take anyone down is a pretty good idea

      This is while it will be winning... until they go back on things and do take people down... they will be forced to... too many laws.... too many jurisdictions.... too many secret government orders

  • This project will be viciously attacked as hate speech and I suspect it will be shut down by registrars yanking domain and all payment processors blacklisting it.
    • This project will be viciously attacked as hate speech and I suspect it will be shut down by registrars yanking domain and all payment processors blacklisting it.

      Just think how quickly the "war on drugs" could've ended if we went after drug dealers by cutting off their domain names and banning them from payment processors!

      I bet this would work on terrorists, too. Siri, clear my schedule for the week, we're done here.

  • by ardmhacha ( 192482 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @03:53PM (#58751382)

    "a subscription-based free speech platform called 'Thinkspot' on Wednesday that promises to provide users the best features of other social media platforms, but without censorship."

    The best feature of the big social media platforms is the huge number of people they reach. A subscription based site will not attract nearly as many people as the big free sites.

    It will probably attract a right wing audience (as Peterson seems to be flavor of the month in some right wing circles) who will using the voting mechanism to down-vote and liberal/left-wing/anti_trump comments ensuring that it will turn into another Gab-like site.

    • A subscription based site will not attract nearly as many people as the big free sites.

      Because most people want to share memes, stupid quizzes and clickbait-y articles, and post pictures of their kids/pets/meals. I seriously doubt the average person actually wants to argue politics every single time they go online.

  • Services they rely on will be attacked: payment processor, hosting provider, banks, domain name registrars, etc etc. Fascist left won't tolerate any wrongthink.

    • 1) PoliticalCompass.org

      2) After grasping the above; realize that all Fascism definitions are NOT anywhere on the left. Italian Fascism (the creators) are upper right.

      3) the correct term: AUTHORITARIAN. In the 2D grid, they are near the top and they can range left/right economically but probably in the USA they are middle to right economically, not actually on the left at all. Relative to the small political diversity in the USA, they are probably left or left leaning (the USA tends to be a y=x, greens being

      • by melted ( 227442 )

        Here's Benito Mussolini's official definition of fascism: https://www.urbandictionary.co... [urbandictionary.com]

        Maps really well on the US political left: huge government that runs everyone's lives, globalism and expansion, zero tolerance to views contrary to official ideology. Does not apply at all to the populist right that's currently in power. Marginally applies to neocons.

  • An all-new online premiere service for abusive phenotypes, sociopaths, and cyberstalkers. Need your daily ration of abusive foul mouth language? This is your place to be!

    All is well until some poor kid commits suicide after being psychologically abused on this site. Perhaps the saving grace here is it's not a free site, and kids don't have a whole lot of money to toss at this.

  • Learned my lesson

  • I see the possibility of it being abused by the rare genuine hate speech, but someone's got to try. I wish him luck. Free speech is worth fighting for even if there are risks.

  • "The first amendment only applies to protection from the government" is such a fig-leaf when it comes to justifying censorship.

    We're entering into an environment where a very small number of gate-keepers are effectively able to silence anyone and anything with views they consider 'problematic'.

    Saying it's okay to censor views that a) you 'just happen' disagree with and b) the agent doing the censorship isn't the government just sets the stage and tone for future censorship down the line.

    The notion of freedo

  • by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @04:52PM (#58751954)
    Sorta like Reddit promised it would be.
  • Speaking in general, it's a laudable idea to offer a platform that values absolute or near-absolute free speech. However, if it's made available to the public in any capacity, paid or not, it will always devolve into a cluster of some sort of extremism.

    Let's say you get a platform and there are 10 regular users. Nine of these could be along various bands, political or otherwise, and decent but one will be absolutely rabid about something, both in their own posts and replying to others. Because the platform pushes near-absolute free speech, their posting habits cannot be easily curtailed without violating that in some degree. One or two of the other nine users will eventually tire of the rabid user and leave; this amplifies the rabid user by changing the ratio. Even if the remaining seven stick around, the rabid user will attract other like minds, changing the ratio further and each of those seven will have their own cut-off point and leave.

    The eventual result is that the community as a whole will be rabid; there will be pockets of sanity here and there, but that's not what will be presented to the outside world. Once it hits a threshold the rabidness can turn toxic, at best getting unwanted attention and at worst causing legal issues. The proprietor may be able to ignore what is happening up until this point, but when it comes the proprietor must make a choice: Try to rein in this to curtail toxicity, at the risk of the entire business model and mass desertion, or to acquiesce and become an explicit accessory.

    Putting a financial gate up can make this process slower, but I don't expect it to completely stop the process. The only way that someone can provide a platform for near-absolute free speech without this problem is by gatekeeping the fuck out of it, making it a private society where a person has to have a personal recommendation from a long-standing member to even be considered and the vast majority have to agree to their inclusion. Much like Benjamin Franklin's Junto [benjamin-f...istory.org]. There would still be a max size for those, as well, with Franklin's Junto handled by having separate "branches" managed by original members that were largely ignorant of each other and the "parent" branch.

    The reason this doesn't happen in the real world, or at least takes a much longer time to occur, is two-fold:
    1) In real life it's far harder for "rational" actors to exit. Most do not have the option to pick up and move, or perhaps not even quit their job outright, and more will be forced into countering rabid actors
    2) There are few-if-any placed where a rabid actor can have a loud and constant presence. Either their time and ability is far more limited, or they'll be countered due to #1, or both

    I fear /. has been succumbing to this for some time, though unique features and momentum are pushing back.

  • if it is subscription based, then you cannot have an anonymous account on the system. if you cannot speak anonymously, it is not providing you the entirety of free speech as defined by the first amendment and interpreted by the supreme court.

    apparently, he wants to have a minimum length requirement in an attempt to force people to put thought into what they write. i wonder how he's going to respond if people start putting garbage text to pad out small comments to the minimum length. I wonder how he'd respon

  • I'd play but I'm not an intellectual dark spot
  • by EndlessNameless ( 673105 ) on Wednesday June 12, 2019 @05:40PM (#58752338)

    How will this turn out?

    The platform will attract its share of trolls and hate groups. Most people dislike those things, so they'll report it and/or leave. Most likely a few will report, then they'll leave when nothing happens.

    And the end result is a platform with a higher concentration of trolls and hate groups, which in turn drives away even more regular users. The cycle repeats. Eventually it either collapses into obscurity or becomes an alt-right/hate forum.

    If there are any doubts about that, browse this site at -1 for the unfiltered experience. And that's just a taste of it... because the behavior doesn't create an echo chamber here. On a more typical social media site, there will be a positive feedback loop.

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