Twitter users outraged to learn David Simon, creator of 'The Wire,' has reportedly been banned

"Die of boils, @jack."
 By 
Nicole Gallucci
 on 
Twitter users outraged to learn David Simon, creator of 'The Wire,' has reportedly been banned
David Simon was reportedly banned from tweeting. Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

David Simon, creator of HBO's The Wire, Generation Kill, Treme, The Corner, and more, was reportedly banned from posting on Twitter after wishing death on several users in politically charged tweets.

On Friday, following the death of famous celebrity chef, and Simon's close friend, Anthony Bourdain, the television writer shared a short tribute, along with news of his Twitter ban, on his personal website.

"I have been banned from Twitter, and as I am at this moment indifferent to removing the tweets they insist are violative of their rules, it is unclear when I will return to that framework," Simon wrote. "So I’m hoping that if I post anything remotely meaningful about Tony, others will do me the favor of linking it beyond this digital cul de sac."

Though Simon's Twitter profile is still intact and online, he's reportedly unable to post new tweets. And while he didn't identify which specific tweets inspired the restrictions, several of his political tweets seem to violate Twitter's "Violence and physical harm" guidelines, which clearly state: "You may not make specific threats of violence or wish for the serious physical harm, death, or disease of an individual or group of people."

On June 5, Simon told a user to "die of a slow moving venereal rash that settles in your lying throat."

And on June 6 he told another user to "Die of boils."

Simon went on to challenge Twitter's rules in the post on his website, questioning why other tweets that he sees as harmful are not in violation.

"Suffice to say that while you can arrive on Twitter and disseminate the untethered and anti-human opinion that mothers who have their children kidnapped and held incommunicado from them at the American border are criminals — and both mother and child deserve that fate — or that 14-year-old boys who survive the Holocaust are guilty of betraying fellow Jews when there is no evidence of such, you CANNOT wish that the people who traffic in such vile shit should crawl off and die of a fulminant venereal rash," he wrote.

"Slander is cool, brutality is acceptable. But the hyperbolic and comic hope that a just god might smite the slanderer or brutalizer with a deadly skin disorder is somehow beyond the pale."

"The real profanity and disease on the internet is untouched, while you police decorum."

Simon then went on to address Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, telling him to also "die of boils."

"As far as I’m concerned, your standards in this instance are exactly indicative of why social media — and Twitter specifically — is complicit in transforming our national agora into a haven for lies, disinformation and the politics of totalitarian extremity," Simon wrote. "The real profanity and disease on the internet is untouched, while you police decorum."

Many users responded to the ban with outrage, calling on Dorsey to fully restore Simon's account or take the same action in all instances of rule violations.

Several people brought up the fact so many other accounts that violate Twitter harassment rules — white supremacists, and big names like Roseanne Barr, who recently tweeted an extremely racist remark that led to her show being cancelled by ABC, and Donald Trump himself, who's been accused of violating Twitter policies several times and threatening violence against North Korea— have not been restricted.

In the past, Twitter has explained its refusal to ban the U.S. president by declaring his tweets "newsworthy."

While the platform wants to work to further prevent the spread of hate speech and has recently taken steps to crack down on bots and prevent on-site abuse, users seem to feel Twitter still has some serious issues to work out.

It remains unclear if Simon's posting restrictions are temporary or if his account could be restored if he deletes the tweets in violation of the rules. Mashable reached out to Twitter for comment and will update this post once we hear back.

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Nicole Gallucci

Nicole is a Senior Editor at Mashable. She primarily covers entertainment and digital culture trends, and in her free time she can be found watching TV, sending voice notes, or going viral on Twitter for admiring knitwear. You can follow her on Twitter @nicolemichele5.

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