Mathematician and cultural critic James Lindsay has been permanently suspended from Twitter after a left-wing writer reported him for “hateful conduct.”
Lindsay was suspended for violating Twitter rules against hateful conduct. According to a screenshot of an email Twitter sent to Lindsay, one of his tweets was said to promote “violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.” The email Twitter sent to Lindsay was reported by the Post Millennial.
The offending tweet read, “Ok, child sexulaization [sic] specialist.” Lindsay wrote it on Thursday in reply to Alejandra Caraballo, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, who had quote tweeted something he posted and wrote, “Your misogynoir is showing.”
Caraballo revealed Friday morning that she reported Lindsay and was proud of that fact. “Tell James, I want him to know it was me,” she wrote in a tweet with screenshots showing she submitted a report for hateful conduct.
“We suspended @ConceptualJames’s account for breaking our hateful conduct rule. We found they broke our hateful conduct rule through different reports received about their behavior,” Twitter said in a notification to Caraballo.
“They aren’t allowed to create new accounts. We let people know that they’ve suspended, the safety rules they broke, and which content broke our rules,” Twitter said.
Lindsay’s suspension comes weeks after he was previously locked out of his Twitter account for violating the platform’s rules by using the term “groomer.” In July, Twitter updated its hateful conduct policy and announced that accounts that use the term “groomer” against transgender or nonbinary people would be in violation of its rules against “hateful conduct.”
“We are committed to combating abuse motivated by hatred, prejudice, or intolerance, particularly abuse that seeks to silence the voices of those who have been historically marginalized,” Twitter health product communications lead Lauren Alexander said at the time. “For this reason, we prohibit behavior that targets individuals or groups with abuse based on their perceived membership in a protected category. Use of this term is prohibited under our Hateful Conduct policy when it is used as a descriptor, in context of discussion of gender identity.”
Lindsay was also suspended in May for tweeting “misleading” information about COVID-19 vaccines.
In a statement to the Post Millennial, Lindsay was unapologetic.
“Twitter has inconvenienced me and simultaneously confessed that they have a vested interest in protecting the sexualization of children. This also suggests the possibility of an untoward relationship between Twitter and Media Matters, which deserves investigation,” he said.
He added, “I’m glad they’ve drawn so much attention to the issue, in any case. It has to stop. We must protect our children.”