- The Washington Times - Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke served a brief stint in Twitter jail for using his account to encourage violence in violation of the platform’s terms of service.

Twitter temporarily restricted Mr. Clarke’s account after receiving complaints from several users who reported him for violating the company’s policies against promoting violence, CNN first reported Tuesday.

The former lawman was briefly unable to post publicly or retweet content until he deleted three tweets referencing attacks against the media, CNN reported.

“When LYING LIB MEDIA makes up FAKE NEWS to smear me, the ANTIDOTE is to go right at them. Punch them in the nose & MAKE THEM TASTE THEIR OWN BLOOD. Nothing gets a bully like LYING LIB MEDIA”S attention better than to give them a taste of their own blood #neverbackdown,” Mr. Clarke wrote in one of the posts.

The same tweet was accompanied by an image that depicted Mr. Clarke and President Trump as professional wrestlers teaming up against an opponent whose face was replaced with CNN’s logo.

Twitter determined Mr. Clarke’s account violated its rules and placed his account on “read-only mode” until he deleted the wrestler tweet and two others, CNN reported.

“I can confirm the CNN story is accurate,” a Twitter spokesperson told USA Today. “We won’t have any further details to share,” the spokesperson said.

All three tweets disappeared Tuesday afternoon, and in their place appeared a new post seemingly responding to his temporary Twitter time-out.

“I will NOT be Intimidated into silence by LYING LIB MEDIA,” Clarke wrote. “I will NOT be intimidated by LIBERAL hyper partisan government HACKS who weaponize government authorirty (sic) to go after people whose views they don’t like. I will STAND AND FIGHT for TRUTH & what I believe is RIGHT. JOIN ME.”

Twitter rules prohibit users from making “specific threats of violence,” including wishing “serious physical harm” against an individual or group.

Mr. Clarke, 61, served as sheriff of Milwaukee County from 2002 to 2017. He campaigned heavily for Mr. Trump during the president’s 2016 campaign and was once rumored to be in the running for a position in the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. Clarke launched his Twitter account in 2010 and currently boasts about 985,000 followers.

• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.

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