Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure

[Blake]

*Taken from TL*

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JNUPSxbJL._SL500_AA272_PIkin3,BottomRight,28,7_A A300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

There's a book selling online on Amazon.com that is creating a lot of polemic. "Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure" have already got over 600 one-star reviews. The book does exactly what you think it does. Teaches pedophiles how to love children and avoid getting caught.

Amazon was already noticed and refuses to censor the book, and quotes free speech as it's official statement to defend it:
Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions.


While the majority seem to agree the book should be removed. Many have argued that free speech is universal. And that it's no different to censor a book aiding pedophiles than it is to censor Darwin's On The Origin of the Species. Or that a book cannot be attributed human characteristics such as moral or immoral.

Is the author just exercising his free speech and doing nothing negative to our society? Is there a limit for free speech? Are we supposed to pick what should be censor? Or would censorship cause more problem than this book?

**AMAZON HAS NOW REMOVED THIS BOOK**

Sample:
http://tctechcrunch.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/am1.jpg

[Yooxra]

Not even sure I want to read this.

[Onion]

I understand the free speech argument, but how can they sell something that promotes illegal activity.

[Rhun]

by no means am i defending the pedo book, but i'm sure there are a ton of things that promote illegal activity that they sell and other places sell...first thing that came to mind is

http://www.amazon.com/Grow-Great-Marijuana-Uncomplicated-Cannabis/dp/0977650502/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289517618&sr=1-4

[Onion]

Growing weed is legal with the right paperwork, completely different.

Telling people how to get away with sexual abuse of children is disgusting.

We all know you bought the book saitou.

[Rhun]

ok fine

http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Methamphetamine-Manufacture-Psychedelic-Amphetamines/dp/1559502231/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1289550397&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Improvised-Explosives-How-Make-Your/dp/0873643208/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1289550447&sr=1-2

[Gogan]

Wow, interesting issue. I don't think Zorthy's book examples are quite the same thing. If there were books like "How To Kill", then yeah, it'd be similar. Oh wait... there actually are books like that:

Kill Without Joy (http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Without-Joy-Complete-Book/dp/0873646479/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1289560275&sr=1-2)
Death Dealers Manual (http://www.amazon.com/Death-Dealers-Manual-Bradley-Steiner/dp/0873642473/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1289560275&sr=1-1)

Apparently those are ok, but a book on pedophilia not so much? I guess in our violence-desensitized world, killing is more accepted than pedophilia. After all, you can't turn on the news for 5 minutes without hearing about a murder somewhere. We almost tune it out after a while. Pedophilia, on the other hand, definitely catches our attention.

I'm not sure where the law falls on these kinds of issues. Does free speech really allow for these kinds of books to be distributed? I guess you can't stop someone from self-publishing a book, but it's legal for Amazon and other distributers to carry it? There are some interesting comments at:

http://gigaom.com/2010/11/10/amazon-kindle-pedophilia/

CNN interviewed the author:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/11/10/amazon.pedophile.guide/?hpt=T2

One of the choice quotes there: "Penetration is out. You can't do that with a child, but kissing and fondling I don't think is that big of a problem."

Wow...

Apparently there's some legal precedent in the matter:

http://www.spj.org/news.asp?ref=185

A U.S. appellate court found the publisher of the book "Hit Man" liable as an accessory to triple murder committed by one of its reader. I don't know what other cases have been tried for this sort of thing, but I'd like to think that someone found guilty of pedophilia and owning a copy of this guy's book would also hold the author liable as an accessory. Can Amazon be accountable too though? Dunno.

Anyway, crazy stuff. That author must have a death wish to print something like that.

[Fusa]

Can Amazon be accountable too though?

lawyers would fight anything, just like that craigslist bullshit with the prosistution of women via craiglist.


logistically it would be to much for a site to filter everysingle ad, and im sure im the terms of argeement it would say something about what you advertise yadda yadda yadda, in the end we're not liable.

[Gronthor]

The check and balances of this would be that the public would boycott Amazon over this enough to hit their books to force the organization to drop the book. Thus you keep freedom of speech but public opposition to the company policy would invoke the change.

The problem is that i would say the majority of people would find this immoral (the book) the media in which we rely on does not share the same values as the general public.

[Onion]

According to that CNN article, part of Amazon's guidelines for what is not allowed say:

Pornography, offensive material and "titles which may lead to... illegal activity" are among the prohibited content listed in the guidelines.

I don't see how this falls out of that category. I would say it qualifies as both offensive (to the large majority) and potentially leading to illegal activity. That being said, with the vast amount of books out there that tell you how to make a bomb or kill someone, I don't see the latter argument holding any water.

The point of the first amendment was to provide everyone with protection to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't infringe on that same right of someone else, as well as the law (provided the law is constitutional).

Someone buying the book, or Amazon selling it, isn't what I see as wrong, but if something happened as a result of someone owning the book I believe the author should be held responsible like in that case with the book "Hit Man". If you're going to instruct someone how to do something and publish it for anyone to obtain, you should be responsible for the repercussions of that decision. People are held responsible for yelling FIRE in a crowded area if anyone is injured, I see it as the same issue.