Should this book be on Amazon?

Note to Amazon: You have a mom problem. We love books. We love toys. We love nearly all the stuff you sell, and we especially love the way you ship it to our doors without making us bundle our kids and trudge out into the dark winter days to get it. Keep doing that.

However. The mom bloggers of the world have noticed that in addition to bestsellers and discount diapers, you’re selling a “self-published” how-to guide for pedophiles.  You’re not winning any mother’s heart with this one.

From the Stir’s excellent rant on the topic to the fireworks display of angry tweets that accompanied this link this morning, mom bloggers are letting each other (and presumably Amazon) know how angry they are that this book exists and can be bought on the site.

I feel angry about it, too. When I saw the title, I kind of threw up a little in my mouth.

Yet I know that book banning is basically always a bad idea. I was just last night telling a friend that freedom of speech is my one big American independence zealotry. I believe in gun control and socialized medicine and well-regulated financial markets. But I’ll go down fighting for an extreme definition of freedom of speech. One that includes protecting Amazon’s legal right to sell this loathesome book.

That said, the fact that you can do a thing doesn’t mean that you should. I have the right to speak my mind about the recent elections, attachment parenting and the fact that my husband used all the cereal and put the empty box back in our pantry. Again.

Sometimes, however, I choose to speak less freely than the government allows me to do. It’s best for everyone that way.

This might be a case where Amazon should be choosing not to support the publication and dissemination of this book, even though they can legally sell it if they wish. After all, it’s an e-book. I used “self-published” in quotes above because Amazon is de facto publishing this book. It’s pretty much only accessible for sale through their website. Without Amazon’s huge platform, the content of this book would have a much smaller potential audience.

Amazon’s published guidelines for digital content would seem to suggest a how-to guide for child molesters is out of bounds. They say:

Offensive Material
What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect. Amazon Digital Services, Inc. reserves the right to determine the appropriateness of Titles sold on our site.

Illegal Items
Titles sold through the Digital Text Platform Program must adhere to all applicable laws. Some Titles that may not be sold include any Titles which may lead to the production of an illegal item or illegal activity.

I’d expect a title aimed at helping pedophiles abuse kids and try to get off with lighter sentences would be nixed under both those clauses.

Poking around a little, I notice that Amazon is actually selling a number of books with totally objectionable content, that urge people to do totally reprehensible things.

They sell Mein Kampf, a book written by the worst mass murderer of the 20th Century, advocating a genocide he later carried out. There’s the Anarchist’s Cookbook, if you need to make bombs. Then there’s the 120 Days of Sodom, by the Marquis de Sade, a book which glorifies sexual violence in pornographic detail.

These three books have something in common: I read them in college courses. I mention them only to demonstrate that the original target audience for a book isn’t always it’s only audience, and that people rarely do the awful things they read about. Sometimes (though clearly not in this case), books that seem obscene or criminal later become classics like Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

That doesn’t mean every book that encourages criminal behavior deserves an audience. At a guess, I’d say the Pedophile’s Guide To Love and Pleasure probably isn’t textbook material. The author doesn’t provide an excerpt, and I wasn’t interested in giving him $5, so I don’t know the details of this book. But the description makes it clear he’s not one of the great minds of the 21st century (or capable of using a spellchecker):

This is my attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certian rules for these adults to follow. I hope to achieve this by appealing to the better nature of pedosexuals, with hope that their doing so will result in less hatred and perhaps liter sentences should they ever be caught.

The self-publishing world is, of course, riddled with slightly insane people who couldn’t pass 7th grade English but believe they’ll reinvent the world with their brilliant ideas. This guy is just creepier than most since he’s advocating pedophilia.

I expect that, given the media outcry and their own stated guidelines about objectionable content, Amazon will pull this book shortly. I’d be shocked if the author isn’t in for a long conversation with law enforcement officials about his personal life. And probably no one will very much miss it, because it was a crappy book that would never have been published or read by anyone without the advent of Amazon’s digital publishing platform.

I worry about Amazon being the gatekeeper of publishing. Amazon is rapidly transitioning from the largest fish in the book publishing sea to the sea itself: a book that can’t be sold on Amazon can barely be sold. If you’re that big, there’s an argument to be made that you have a responsibility to publish everything, no matter how reprehensible it is.

That’s an argument Amazon hasn’t swallowed yet. As long as they are acting as gatekeepers against the publication of obscene material that encourages illegal activities, they should not be selling this book.

Photo: Amazon

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