Antonella Barba at the WWII Memorial Fountain

Two converging lines of evidence are making it clear that American Idol is going all out to keep the Antonella Barba scandal from reaching a boiling point.

The first line of evidence comes from several individuals including PopCrunch reader Stacy who describes the hard-core censoring that’s going on at the American Idol discussion boards:

The American Idol discussion boards are censoring anyone who makes a post commenting that they are offended or outraged by Barba’s behavior. The posts and/or entire threads disappear in a matter of minutes, and going there to say you think she has tarnished the AI show will likely get you banned.

The second line of evidence comes from a variety of celebrity news webmasters who are reporting that their webhosts have received threats to take down recent pictures from either the Barba camp or official American Idol representatives.

So what we have here is an attempt by America’s biggest show to bully its way through the current controversy. Let’s not let them do it.