Amazon apparently removed hundreds of one-star ratings for Fox News host Megyn Kelly’s new book.
The Los Angeles Times reported that more than 100 negative reviews of Kelly’s “Settle For More“ appeared on the online retail giant’s site within hours of its release Tuesday.
The newspaper reports many of the negative comments came from a link from a pro-Donald Trump Reddit forum, The_Donald.
Tina Andreadis, an executive with the book’s publisher, HarperCollins, told the Los Angeles Times the reviews have the “hallmarks of an orchestrated effort to discredit the book” and brought them to the attention of Amazon. Many of the negative reviews disappeared from the site by early Wednesday.
Amazon hasn’t made a statement on the incident.
“Over 120 1 star reviews have been deleted. Are we living in a free country anymore?” wrote one Amazon commenter, reported USA Today.
“Trump is president, but she wrote the book certain Clinton would win,” one one-star reviewer, Tim from Maryland, wrote. “Now the book and her shows advertisers are getting boycotted. So apparently her attorneys have called to get negative reviews deleted. And they succeeded. I’m shocked.”
Another Amazon commenter Brianna wrote, “I have written many thoughtful reviews as to why this book is horrible! They have all been removed even though I am a reputable Amazon customer/reviewer which is why originally Megyn had the true rating of one and a half stars and now four and a half FIXED STARS!”
As of Wednesday, the book was rated two-and-a-half out of five stars with about 700 reviews.
Some people complained that the book wasn’t very good. “Choppy, yawn fest, breaks no new ground, depth that a college-bound 10th grader can exceed,” wrote DPN II.
There were a few five-star ratings sprinkled throughout, with most of them deriding President-elect Trump.
During the campaign, Kelly and Trump had a contentious relationship.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
