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Comment by shallot_router | Hacker News Reader

Probably because he disagrees with his views, and surely no true professor would say something he disagrees with.

I just thought it was interesting you (edit: you're not parent, I meant parent) didn't call him out by name, and I wanted to make the connection explicit.

Despite being successful for an academic, he's not exactly a famous psych prof at the level of say, Steven Pinker. Before politics collided with his work this year he didn't seem to be politically active at all, either.

It might have changed a bit after Joe Rogan's podcast but to be honest, most people outside of Canada probably have no idea who Jordan Peterson is.

Most people, no, but he's immensely popular with a certain section of the right. Nonetheless I was a bit confused because you seemed to be implying that Peterson is just another apolitical academic who caught the short end of the deep learning stick, when there's a lot more evidence that his ban could have been politically motivated. I don't understand why I'm getting downvoted for that.

I think you're right. It was probably politically motivated, at least indirectly. It was more likely due to coordinated flagging efforts rather than a human at Google deciding to ban the account.

He's getting a lot of support from the right, the center (e.g. Joe Rogan) and from many on the left such as Sam Harris as well. In all cases, it seems to be for free speech issues. He seems to hold a deep opposition to political extremes, though it's hard to tell what he favors other than free speech since his videos meander into mythology and literature so much.

He had identified himself as classical liberal.

Apologies, I misread that you were just quoting his language.

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