Kira Davis reporting for RedState
Dr. Jordan Peterson has posted a blistering (and characteristically artful) reprimand aimed at Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. Peterson’s Twitter account was suspended back in June after he made comments about the “transition” of actress Ellen Page. Page (who now goes by Elliot) underwent a double mastectomy before proudly “coming out” as a man to the public. Peterson questioned the logic of women having perfectly healthy breasts removed for cosmetic purposes.
The Daily Wire host refused to delete the tweet, and claims his appeals to the platform have gone ignored, even though he has never received any real explanation about who complained, how many people, or how his tweet violated the platform rules.
A few weeks ago the wise folks at Twitter deemed it necessary to suspend my access to that platform -despite the fact that I had several million followers; despite the fact that I had used the platform in good faith; despite the fact that I had put in the years of time and effort necessary to gain such an extensive following; despite the fact, as well, that I was a genuine force on Twitter, trending with a rather appalling and frightening degree of regularity. In many ways. I’m your monster sir.
Three snaps in a Z formation! Hot damn, Peterson has a way with words, doesn’t he?
Very little is exactly clear with regard to your social media network. Apart from the fact that you allow an awful lot of misbehavior, what with the appalling proliferation of anonymous and near demonic trolls, and bots, and professional manipulation of the public space by actors such as the Russian and Chinese governments.
Tell us how you really feel, Doctor!
Peterson then goes on to discuss his insider knowledge of the depths of the disfunction at the social media company, including the bot account problem that Elon Musk and other potential purchasers have raised. He calls the recent testimony of the Twitter whistleblower “damning” and points to the company’s glaring weaknesses and growing chaos as disqualifying factors in the media corporation’s self-coronation as the arbiter of acceptable speech.
Peterson’s savage, half-hour missive addresses a range of thoughts, including Trump’s ban. He calls Trump’s Twitter suspension “a stain on the political landscape which has not yet been scrubbed away,” and then immediately proceeds to verbally skewer Agrawal and his “minions” for their bias and incompetence.
“You haven’t seen fit to lift ban despite the fact that there is truly no shortage of genuinely bad actors on your very poorly run platform and despite the fact that you simply do not have the moral standing or the authority in the most fundamental moral rather than narrowly legalistic sense to interfere in the operation of the polity that encompasses your operation; and that you are bound in allegiance to. And you banned and haven’t lifted that ban on Trump, despite the fact that the ban in all likelihood…did more harm than good.”
“The power of your platform is immense, and I think the actions of your company are making things in the world much worse than they need to be.”
The entire video is well worth your time, and too packed with pitch-perfect, academic prose to properly transcribe. Make time to watch. You won’t regret it.
Peterson closes with a savage summation of the situation.
I would also in closing like to reiterate my irritation that ONE: I was banned from your platform without anything other than a generic and self-serving, low-resolution explanation. TWO: that my appeal of that ban was ignored even though my refutation of the aforesaid behavior was noted and acted upon within hours, if not minutes. THREE: that your company’s reasons for banning and manipulating or regulating the behavior of your users are utterly opaque, ineffectual and self-contradictory. FOUR: that your own security personnel and potential investors or even purchasers of your company are being property scared off by the chaos that reigns under your authority. FIVE: that you…continue censoring a former president of the United States, even has a critical election approaches…and finally SIX: your careless, censorious behavior and enabling of the anonymous Machiavellian and narcissistic psychopaths who inhabit the Twitter underworld is warping and dementing the entire domain of public discourse.
….and scene!
Well done, Dr. Peterson.