Twitter suspends Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson from Twitter

Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson has been suspended by Twitter after tweeting about the actor Elliot Page.

In the tweet, Peterson wrote, “Remember when pride was a sin? And Ellen Page just had her breasts removed by a criminal physician.”

Twitter said Peterson violated its rules on “hateful conduct,” apparently because he had used Page’s given name, Ellen, instead of Elliot, which is what Page now goes by. He also referred to Page as “her.”

Peterson’s daughter Mikhaila spoke out in his defense. “Wow. @jordanbpeterson got a twitter strike. No more twitter until he deletes the tweet. Definitely not a free speech platform at the moment. @elonmusk.”

Peterson previously courted controversy when he spoke out against Lia Thomas’s inclusion it the University of Pennsylvania women’s swimming team. “Transgender activism has made a mockery of women’s sports,” he said at the time.

Peterson threatened to quit Twitter last month after he tweeted about a plus-sized Sports Illustrated model, saying she was “not beautiful.” 

Peterson made similar comments after the NFL announced its first transgender cheerleader. He said that the athlete was “not beautiful either. Happy now Twitter trolls?”

Peterson said he was then hit with an “endless flood” of backlash. “The endless flood of vicious insult is really not something that can be experienced anywhere else. I like to follow the people I know but I think the incentive structure of the platform makes it intrinsically and dangerously insane,” he said.

“So I told my staff to change my password, to keep me from temptation, and am departing once again,” he added, announcing his break from Twitter. “If I have something to say I’ll write an article or make a video. If the issue is not important enough to justify that then perhaps it would be best to just let it go. And I plan to write an article on the technical reasons that Twitter is maddening us all very soon. Bye for now.”