It seemed odd that filmmaker David Simon hadn’t tweeted about the death of celebrity chef and storyteller Anthony Bourdain on Friday morning. The two had worked together on Simon’s show “Treme,” and writer Laura Lippman, Simon’s wife, had tweeted early Friday that Simon had something of a man crush on the chef.

But now, we know that the uncharacteristic silence apparently wasn’t his choice.

The former Baltimore Sun reporter, known for his opinionated stances and lively dialogue on Twitter, stated on his personal website that Twitter has banned him from the social media website for tweets that violated its rules.

In a blog titled “Bourdain,” Simon stated that while others have freely shared “anti-human” opinions on immigrants and spread lies about young survivors of the Holocaust on Twitter, fighting back with words on Twitter was not allowed for him. Simon tweeted “Die of boils” to a Twitter user Wednesday, which is likely the tweet that got him banned.

Twitter states in its policy that users “may not make specific threats of violence or wish for the serious physical harm, death, or disease of an individual or group of people.”

— Brittany Britto