Facebook locked University of Toronto professor Jordan B. Peterson out of his account Sunday, reported The Daily Caller News Foundation. The company demanded he upload a photo ID, which Peterson did twice, to no avail.
“Perhaps Facebook is only being careful about fraud, in my case,” the professor said. “But they are handling the issue in a very opaque manner and, because of their other censorial actions, it is impossible not to be instantly suspicious.”
And that’s a fair point. Conservatives discovered Facebook deprioritizing right-of-center news a couple years ago during the presidential election and Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t backed down, admitting a few days ago that Facebook will manipulate its algorithm to show what he calls more trusted publications like the Wall Street Journal and New York Times more often than others. The company wants control over not just what you consume, but also what you produce, censoring completely innocuous content like this lady with stereotypical Mexican props.
And remember, it’s not just Facebook. “The actions of the Big Three (Google, YouTube, Facebook) invoke justifiable paranoia,” Peterson told me. “They do produce crooked, manipulative algorithms, driven by an explicitly political agenda. They continually demonetize arbitrarily and harshly (most recently with Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro and I). They do shut people down (as YouTube/Google clearly did to me last year), with little explanation, and they constantly gerrymander their curated content.”
In August, Google temporarily banned Peterson from accessing both his Gmail — which the professor claimed contained hundreds of thousands of emails — AND his YouTube, which had 350,000 subscribers. “We understand you’ve recently been unable to access your Google account, and we appreciate you contacting us,” said Google when Peterson reached out. “After review, your account is not eligible to be reinstated due to a violation of our Terms of Service.” Google never said which term he violated, but unbanned him shortly after the media got a hold of it. Facebook did the same thing Sunday.
Remember when I said Peterson had 350,000 YouTube subscribers six months ago? Well, that number has since more than doubled. Anti-leftist voices are gaining prominence, particularly when they come from places dominated by the left, like academia. But whether it’s violent protests, arbitrary speaking fees, industry blacklists, shady algorithms, or outright banning, the left still has the power to silence even the most fearless and resourceful anti-establishment figures.
You might remember that earlier in May, The Forward wrote a piece on Jordan Peterson called “Is Jordan Peterson Enabling Jew Hatred?” Well, the anti-Semitic-colored paint didn’t stick so well, forcing the outlet to at least change the piece’s ridiculous photo tying Hitler to Peterson, but now progressives are trying the misogyny angle, with The New York Times publishing a piece called “Jordan Peterson, Custodian of the Patriarchy.”
Author Nellie Bowles says “Mr. Peterson is staunchly against what he calls ‘equality of outcomes,’ or efforts to equalize society. He usually calls them pathological or evil. What do you mean OR efforts to equalize society, Nellie? Do you see what she’s done there? She’s conflated equality of opportunity and equality of outcome and suggested that Peterson is against equality as a whole and not just the Marxist kind.
Another thing that irked me about Nellie’s piece…she says “When Mr. Peterson talks about good women — the sort a man would want to marry — he often uses these words: conscientious and agreeable.” So here she tries to spin the professor’s use of Big Five personality traits as Peterson somehow making a moral judgment on women. But why do you keep calling him MISTER Peterson? I know you might be mad, Nellie, because, even after blowing around $300,000 on a four-year Columbia journalism degree, you’re still just seen as a fake news hack, but are you THAT intent on smearing Peterson that you can’t even call him “doctor” or just say Peterson? No, it’s a snide little “mister.”
So. The Forward has tried the anti-Semitism card, New York Times has tried the misogyny card. Which progressive outlet will attack Peterson next and, more interestingly, which -ism or -phobia will they use? Let me know in the comments.
Progressive Jewish outlet The Forward published a piece entitled “Is Jordan Peterson Enabling Jew Hatred?” which sported a picture of the University of Toronto professor slapped on top of one of Adolf Hitler (the outlet since changed the picture). And author Ari Feldman gathered the opinions of people who are not at all politically-motivated like a professor and activists from the Southern Poverty Law Center and People for the American Way.
The author mentions Peterson’s April blog post in which the professor links Jewish over-representation in positions of power and competence to a higher Jewish IQ. Feldman calls this argument “an old anti-Semitic dog whistle.”
But Feldman doesn’t address the obvious, which is that anti-Semitism doesn’t lie in acknowledging IQ differences but instead in what people CHOOSE TO DO about those differences.
The Forward interviews Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt, who thinks Peterson’s assertions are “suspicious.” She says: “It’s not [Holocaust] denial, but when people start asking questions like that, I begin to get leery,” Lipstadt said. “The question is, is he a self-help guru who find[s] the Holocaust a convenient way of attracting attention, or is there serious thought going on here?”
Lipstadt seems to think that when Jordan Peterson argues that aspects of the human nature like revenge and disgust played a role in causing the Holocaust, he undermines the role that anti-Semitism played. But it doesn’t take more than a cursory YouTube search to find that Peterson has discussed both.
I spoke with the professor and he told me:
“Feldman appears to assume 1 that anti-Semitism is the true and final cause of the Nazi phenomenon and 2 that anti-Semitism itself isn’t a mystery worthy of explanation….But anti-Semitism is in fact a mystery, and it was to solving that mystery (and the issue of pathological tribalism in general) that I devoted all 500 pages of Maps of Meaning.”
Peterson noted that Feldman attempted to smear him by pointing to the professor’s citation of a critique of Professor Kevin MacDonald, who thinks Jewish people use a “group evolutionary strategy.” But Peterson linked to an article REFUTING MacDonald’s theory. The professor continued:
“As for his editors, who dared to juxtapose me with a picture of Hitler? There are certain comparisons you don’t make lightly, lest you dilute their malevolent symbolism….And you don’t use such things as the most reprehensible of clickbait tactics and get to simultaneously pose as a noble supporter of the Jewish people.”
Listen, loons are always going to latch themselves onto prominent public figures and contort those figures’ views to fit and further their conspiracies. Instead of trying to discredit people with guilt by association, Feldman and the cherry-picked activists he cites could benefit from “cleaning up their rooms” and embracing this little thing called personal responsibility.
