Amazon withdraws paedophile book from sale

Amazon appears to have caved in to pressure to withdraw from sale a book which gives advice to paedophiles. The decision comes after threats of a boycott against the online retailer.

Amazon had earlier defended the availability of The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct on its site, claiming: "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."

But as of this morning, the book's web page had been replaced with an error message.

The book, available only for the popular e-reader, the Kindle, was self-published in late October by Phillip R Greaves, who says in his product description that paedophiles are misunderstood and his advice is intended to help them abide by the law.

"This is my attempt to make paedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certain rules for these adults to follow.

"I hope to achieve this by appealing to the better nature of paedosexuals, with hope that their doing so will result in less hatred and perhaps lighter [sic] sentences should they ever be caught."

There is nothing illegal about the book, according to Christopher Finan, the head of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, who told Fox News that under the First Amendment, Greaves could publish anything that is not child pornography or legally obscene. As the book contains no illustrations, it is neither.

But, unsurprisingly, Amazon attracted the ire of its customers, who posted user reviews under the book, giving it one star in their droves.

One reviewer wrote: "It is ILLEGAL to molest children, and for Amazon to promote such is insane. I'm an abuse survivor, and am OUTRAGED Amazon would choose to promote this nonsense. I will not be purchasing anything from your website until this is removed."

Twitter users echoed the sentiment, as did Facebook users, in the form of two pages calling for a boycott against Amazon.

The complainants have now got what they wanted, but the inevitable consequence of their campaign was that, by the time the book was removed from sale this morning, it had leapt within eight hours from 158,221st to become the 96th best-selling book on Amazon. ·