If you've been watching the news lately, you may have heard about the controversy surrounding a pedophilia book offered at Amazon.com. The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover's Code of Conduct, has hit 65 out of 100 top selling e-books. (scary, I know) Amazon initially defended their decision to keep the book, but after the threats of protest removed the book from its site today.
The question is whether or not pulling this book from Amazon's site is considered censorship. This is such a tough question to answer. While we all feel entitled to our right of freedom of speech, we don't want pedophiles buying "how-to" books! However, once one book is censored where does it stop? There are other books that may provoke a criminal activity (such as An Anarchist's Cookbook, a how-to-guide on making a homemade bomb) on Amazon - should these be banned as well? Censorship is a slipper slope.
Is Amazon Violating Free Speech by Pulling Pedophile Guide?
You're right, censorship is a slippery slope. However, I do not necessary think that removing this offensive book should be considered censorship. I think that companies have a right to decide which products to sell or not to sell and removing this book just shows that a "how- to" book for pedophiles goes against Amazon's company values. Unfortunately, people will probably be able to find this book elsewhere.
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