Hillary Clinton memoir: Amazon removes hundreds of 'fake reviews'

Around 45 per cent of reviews gave ‘What Happened’ a top five-star rating, while 50 per cent gave it one star

The former presidential candidate signs copies of her book at a New York store (AP)

Amazon has reportedly removed more than 900 reviews of Hillary Clinton’s new book from its site over suspicions they were written by people who hadn’t read it.

What Happened, Ms Clinton’s memoir detailing her unsuccessful 2016 US presidential bid, shot to the top of the retail site’s bestseller list when it was released.

Analysing the reviews that appeared on Amazon’s US site in the hours after it came out, Quartz noticed that they were almost evenly split between congratulating or criticising the memoir. Around 45 per cent of the first 1,660 voters gave it a top five-star rating, while 50 per cent gave it one star.

Addressing the response, Jonathan Karp, president of What Happened publisher Simon & Schuster, said: “It seems highly unlikely that approximately 1,500 people read Hillary Clinton’s book overnight and came to the stark conclusion that it is either brilliant or awful.”

At the time of writing, the number of visible reviews on the site has been drastically reduced. There are 574 reviews on Amazon’s US site, 95 per cent of which give it five stars. All of these were “verified purchases”, meaning the reviewer actually bought a copy of the memoir from Amazon.

The most recent comments on the book make reference to reviews that may have been removed. “I would’ve given this one star but didn’t want my review deleted,” one poster said.

“You owe me big time for a legit review,” another wrote.

In a statement to The Independent, an Amazon spokesperson said customer reviews must be “related to the product” to help customers make purchase decisions.

“In the case of a memoir, the subject of the book is the author and their views. It’s not our role to decide what a customer would view as helpful or unhelpful in making their decision. We do however have mechanisms in place to ensure that the voices of many do not drown out the voices of a few and we remove customer reviews that violate our Community Guidelines.”

The 495-page book includes Ms Clinton’s thoughts on why her campaign for president failed, as well as criticism of Donald Trump. In it, she compares Mr Trump’s “war on truth” to George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

“Attempting to define reality is a core feature of authoritarianism,” she wrote. “This is what the Soviets did when they erased political dissidents from historical photos. This is what happens in George Orwell’s classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, when a torturer holds up four fingers and delivers electric shocks until his prisoner sees five fingers as ordered.”

Ms Clinton also wrote that the former Apprentice star and real estate mogul represents “a clear and present danger to the country and the world”.