Apple drops Consumer Reports/iPhone 4 threads down memory hole [updated]

Update 3pm Tuesday:Wired's Epicenter blog points to at least two threads referencing the CR story that have been left intact. Perhaps an overzealous forum manager has now reined in the urge?

If you were looking for a message thread on Apple's support forums pointing to Consumer Reports' article 'not recommending' the iPhone 4, it's not there any more. Apple's support forum moderators deleted the thread. Bing cached it.

If it happened once, maybe you'd say it was a glitch. But what if it happened twice? Three times? Four times, five, six?

Sadly, this isn't the first time we've heard about Apple deleting discussion board threads on topics which are unflattering to Apple's products. It's closer to the fiftieth time. In fact, we've heard so many reports about this happening that it seems safe to call this standard operating procedure for Apple's discussion boards. That's not to say that there are no negative threads on the discussion boards, but the ones that are there are the ones that Apple's moderators have decided to leave active.

It's hard to imagine what Apple hopes to gain by doing this. Instead of having one negative news story, now we have two: not only did Consumer Reports come out and say they don't recommend the iPhone 4, but now Apple seems to be trying to prevent people from talking about it on their support board.

Want some overwrought comparisons to Orwell's 1984? Apple seems to be begging for it.

Thanks to reader Paul Richards for pointing this out.