Google shut down free speech advocate Jordan Peterson on Tuesday, blocking him from his popular YouTube channels and tens of thousands of e-mails.

Later, after the issue attracted media attention, Google abruptly reversed its position and reinstated the Gmail account.

Peterson said the reason was never made clear to him, and it could have been a technical issue with his newly-launched YouTube channel — Jordan Peterson Clips — or a mistake on Google’s part.

“It’s impossible to tell,” he said. “My suspicion is that there were political reasons for shutting it down. I made a fuss about it, someone noticed, and turned it back on.”

A Google spokesman said in an email that the company was not able to comment on the details of individual accounts but had responded directly to the user.

Peterson drew international attention after objecting — in a YouTube video he posted — to changes in human rights legislation that he argued would compel Canadians to use gender-neutral pronouns at risk of fines and imprisonment.

The University of Toronto professor and clinical psychologist has been shouted down at public speaking events by protesters and at one point was cautioned by his employer.

But Peterson has attracted a large following as a champion of free speech, especially online where his YouTube videos have 18 million hits and 350,000 subscribers.

So Peterson was surprised Tuesday when Google abruptly shut down his Gmail account without warning, locking him out of his YouTube channels, although they remained up.

When he complained formally to Google, Peterson received a reply from the “Google Accounts Team.”

“We understand you’ve recently been unable to access your Google account, and we appreciate you contacting us,” Google replied in the e-mail. “After review, your account is not eligible to be reinstated due to a violation of our terms of service.”

Peterson said he was given no real explanation for why he was frozen out of his e-mail account of some 15 years, or why it was returned.

“Maybe Google could be a little clearer in its communications with its users when they decide to do something as radical as shut down their e-mail account, especially when they send a second indicator saying that they’re not going to reinstate it ... and they don’t provide any information,” he said. ”I do attract a lot of traffic to YouTube. They sent me one of their little silver awards which you get after you climb past 100,000 subscribers.”

Peterson’s new YouTube channel received 15,000 views in its first day.

“It wasn’t handled with any degree of caution nor transparency,” Peterson said. “I think the lack of transparency is one of the things that’s most worrisome. They sent me very opaque messages.”