Apple iPhone forums gripped by deleted thread paranoia

The iPhone 4 antenna debacle has upped the paranoia levels in Apple's support forums as moderators reportedly nix any mention of Consumer Reports' volte face on the talking light slab.

Consumer Reports had previously given its blessing to the iPhone 4, but did a U-turn yesterday.

The news started to spread like wildfire through the Apple community, until the vendor's support moderators turned their corporate firehoses on any mention of CR's about face.

A quick search of Apple's support forums does throw up mentions of the report. But it also reveals lots of complaints about disappearing posts.

In response to the question "Are the moderators removing threads about the Consumer Reports findings?", Security guy says:

Yes.

I posted one around 6pm and it went poof! within a few minutes shortly after I got my dinner out of the microwave. But with the volume of the people posting, they just can't get to everyone.

Erik at least got a missive from the support central committee:

yes, they removed a post of mine about this and sent me the following email:

Dear Erik (erikfsn),

We appreciate the assistance you provide users in Apple Discussions. However, your recent post is in violation of the Apple Discussions Terms of Use available here:
http://discussions.apple.com/help.jspa

Please do not include links in your post or signature that do not directly answer a user's question.

Thank you,

Apple Discussions Staff

But the passive-aggressive fire blanket is not damping down everyone and ApplesFascism currently has a post titled:

Wake Up - Apple is lying to you - Deleting messages to hide this

It's still there at time of writing. But then again, it's not wake-up time in Cupertino yet. ®