Amid the crackdown against channels and independent content creators dubbed by YouTube to be promoting extreme views and ideas, and the subsequent uproar it caused by many who fear that the global tech giant’s (YouTube is owned by Google) decision might result in censoring legitimate conservative and right-wing voices, Jordan Peterson, a high profile Canadian professor of clinical psychology and staunch advocate of free speech, announced he will be launching a social media website alongside Dave Rubin and other key figures. Peterson says the site will have strong free speech policies, and the announcement is quite timely in light of the new Pinterest censorship scandal.

The project is in a beta stage, with more details expected soon. As it explains on its sigh up page: “thinkspot is a collaborative community where individuals can explore and exchange ideas in a thoughtful and respectful manner. The platform is an intellectual playground for censorship-free discourse”

Peterson made the announcement Monday morning on Twitter, stating, “Per the Joe Rogan podcast this week, I’m backing a new platform called thinkspot, currently in Beta. Get on the waitlist here, exciting announcements coming very soon. Thinkspot.com”

Peterson and other thinkers within the “intellectual dark web” have played with this idea for a while. The intellectual dark web includes an interesting variety of thinkers, ranging from atheist Sam Harris to Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew. It also includes right-of-center figures such as PayPal founder Peter Thiel and left-of-center figures such as professors Bret and Eric Weinstein.

According to Peterson, who has over two million subscribers on his YouTube channel and saw his self-help book titled “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos” become a global best-seller, the platform won’t voluntarily ban any users.

“Once you’re on our platform we won’t take you down unless we’re ordered to by a U.S. court of law,” he said. Thinkspot will also differ from standard social media platforms by requiring comments at least 50 words long in an attempt to elevate the level of public discourse. “You’re gonna have to put a little thought into it,” Peterson said.

The relevance of Peterson’s announcement is highlighted by this week’s Pinterest controversy, as Pinterest banned the pro-life organisation Live Action after falsely accusing the group of “spreading misinformation” and classifying their content as porn, according to leaked documents.

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