Clinical psychologist and University of Toronto Professor Jordan Peterson said Google must be more transparent with the way it filters content, and accused the major tech giants of censoring material they disagree with, Tuesday on “Fox and Friends.”
Peterson said he was doing a YouTube interview with internet celebrity Ethan Klein, and the video was eventually banned in two dozen countries.
“We talked about a lot of different things because YouTube interviews are three hours long. And he cut a piece of it where we discussed accusation that had been leveled at me for being alt right and far right and white supremacists — ridiculous allegations. And put that video up and it was banned in two dozen countries,” Peterson said. “Maybe it was banned because it had the words white supremacist in it, but that’s actually quite a problem. Because perhaps you want discussion of that, so that seems to be what happened. He complained and they backed down.”
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The “Fox and Friends” segment comes after a Daily Caller exclusive that revealed over 100 companies are acting as Google’s secret police. (RELATED: Google Has An Actual Secret Speech Police)
Peterson said he is not a white supremacist but thinks he’s labeled as such because it’s a way for the “radical left” to shut down debate.
“In the world we live in right now if you stand in opposition to the radical left, which I certainly do, then the easiest strategic move for the radical left people is to call you some pejorative term so they don’t have to deal with you,” Peterson said. “Not just to shut you down but to damage your reputation. To cause real harm. It’s not merely a matter of shutting you down. There is more malevolence to it than that.”
Peterson said the more he sticks to his guns and refuses to apologize the better off he is. “I have learned over the last year if you don’t — if you are careful with what you say to begin with and I am very careful with what I say and then if you are attacked that you don’t back down and you don’t apologize, things flip around extremely quickly,” he said.
“Now I’m in a position where if I get attacked, it almost inevitably, fingers crossed, turns out to be a benefit to me,” he added.
Peterson said he understands Google’s need to filter content but said it must make its algorithms public and act in a more transparent way.
“I understand why they have to do it to some degree because they don’t want ISIS promoting their particular brand of pathology,” Peterson said. “I think it’s necessary for Google and YouTube and these large social media channels to make what they are doing absolutely transparent to the public.”
“Not only because of the human decisions that are involved,” he continued. “It’s because they’re building algorithms to screen things even before they are put up.”
Peterson said the system is flawed, and he’s beginning to see YouTube and Google demonetize certain accounts and deem them unfit for advertisers.
“It shows you that the algorithms are faulty. I know lots of people on YouTube that have been demonetized. That happens all the time,” he said. “If you’re a center conservative I would say, then the probability that if you have a discussion that it’s going to be demonetized is extremely high.”
“It needs to be made public,” Peterson concluded. “We need to evolve mechanisms to determine how shared social media are going to be screened, so the real pathological material remains under control. The stuff that violates law, but it can’t be done behind closed doors.”
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