They might have an excuse that fans can believe, but the real reason is to suppress bad press.
Your assertion doesn't match the plain facts though.
We know Apple isn't suppressing this issue because there's a long, detailed thread about it on their own discussion site. If they wanted to try to suppress it, they would surely include that but didn't.
Also, suppressing information about problems to prevent bad press can't work anyway, since Apple only controls its own litter corner of the internet. If Apple didn't allow discussion of this issue on their board, it would be discussed elsewhere and generate the same bad press. If we suppose Apple tries to work in its own self-interests, they wouldn't bother with deleting posts to prevent bad press since it can't possibly work.
Meanwhile, there are obviously legitimate reasons to moderate postsm, so the fact that posts are being deleted doesn't seem nefarious on its own. There are angry people in that thread and angry people tend post things that need moderation.
I mean, I don't know. I'm open to the possibility that Apple is doing something bad. But so far, there's really no smoke, much less any fire.
They ignored the problem for 4 years.
Yes, and sort of the reason why most people discuss these sort of issues in other forum to gain support and evidence before posting it in the Official Forum.
Negative Post there, whether they are Hardware or Software are regularly deleted.
And I thought it was quite well known.
Could it be the posts were deleted legitimately?
Some people in that thread are pretty angry and may have let it get the better of them.