diff --git a/bin/ansible b/bin/ansible
index 58b4b1bf86a..be4edc23089 100755
--- a/bin/ansible
+++ b/bin/ansible
@@ -39,7 +39,6 @@ import traceback
 
 # for debug
 from multiprocessing import Lock
-debug_lock = Lock()
 
 import ansible.constants as C
 from ansible.errors import AnsibleError, AnsibleOptionsError, AnsibleParserError
diff --git a/lib/ansible/utils/display.py b/lib/ansible/utils/display.py
index 93df39bb1da..76ecb227159 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/utils/display.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/utils/display.py
@@ -37,14 +37,6 @@ from ansible.errors import AnsibleError
 from ansible.utils.color import stringc
 from ansible.utils.unicode import to_bytes, to_unicode
 
-try:
-    from __main__ import debug_lock
-except ImportError:
-    # for those not using a CLI, though ...
-    # this might not work well after fork
-    from multiprocessing import Lock
-    debug_lock = Lock()
-
 try:
     # Python 2
     input = raw_input
@@ -184,9 +176,7 @@ class Display:
 
     def debug(self, msg):
         if C.DEFAULT_DEBUG:
-            debug_lock.acquire()
             self.display("%6d %0.5f: %s" % (os.getpid(), time.time(), msg), color=C.COLOR_DEBUG)
-            debug_lock.release()
 
     def verbose(self, msg, host=None, caplevel=2):
         # FIXME: this needs to be implemented