When digg's staff began pulling stories during the HD-DVD key fiasco because they were either potentially violating digg's TOS or could simply land the site in hot water, that was one thing. But when Andy Hagans (a self-proclaimed professional link baiter, mind you) does some real poking around to uncover intriguing evidence that digg's staff - not the Bury Brigade™, as they're called - is pulling stories they don't like, it's a whole different story.

To summarize: Andy and some of his friends have noticed healthy stories that were rising up the ranks suddenly disappear. While plenty of stories have suffered the fate of being buried, these stories weren't showing up in specific searches of buried stories. Replying to Andy's query of digg's staff as to what's up, they apparently offered what is sounding more and more like the canned cop-out: "it was buried as lame by too many users."

If all this is true, one has to wonder why digg's users aren't getting their panties in a bunch the same way they did over a 16-digit number that no one really needs. Is digg pulling stories? Will we see another valiant reply from Kevin Rose on the digg blog? How trustworthy is a social news system that allows stories to disappear and get buried without asking those who bury them to be accountable for their decision?