Reality check

Many people are in the habit of consuming information reported on by mainstream media news organizations with a critical eye. But it's just as important, probably more so, to do when consuming information 'posted on the Internet.'

My friend Jim at the Critical Bookworm blog reposted a claim he'd heard. In fairness, he wasn't insisting it was the absolute truth, but it's an interesting case study.

Jim passed along the following tidbit he heard: Apparently, it's been noticed that roughly 100 negative reviews of Nancy Pelosi's book have been scrubbed from existence on Amazon.Com.

The claim came via an email to him citing a website citing another website. That alone made me suspicious.

Why were the negative reviews supposedly scrubbed and by whom? Were they attacking her or her politics or panning the substance her book? Were only critical reviews removed? Were they allegedly removed by Pelosi herself or by Amazon?

Skeptical, I checked out the amazon.com web page for this book that he linked to and EACH of the last ten reviews at that moment were 1 star out of 5. They give her such accolades as:

"Poorly written, lackluster story"
"She should be indicted"
"Another pile of leftist bs"
"A whine fest"
"...made me puke"
Pelosi is a "clueless, spoiled rich girl"
"lacking any substance"
"vapid"

There were only 42 total reviews. 31 of them gave the book the lowest 1 star of 5 rating. Only 9 reviews gave her 5 stars out of 5.

Though it did publish a 5 star review saying that the poster's first review of the book was removed.

While this certainly doesn't disprove the allegations, it's hardly what you'd expect from what's implied to be a whitewashed web page conspiratorially edited to permit only hagiographic reviews.