Once you accept the premise that ideas are as harmful as actions, you can make an argument to censor pretty much anything.

I strongly believe you’re wrong, in part because I’m a first amendment scholar and spend my life thinking about this, and in part because you’re ignoring the massive power of community norms. I’ll try to keep this brief, since comments are hardly the place for nuanced argument, but you need to consider the following:

Local, independent bookstores rely on the patronage of locals to stay in business. This means they must stock books that locals approve of and will buy. This means that in the bible belt, you’re not likely to have LBGTQ books stocked in the local bookstores, even though you’re likely to have LBGTQ youth (and newly identified adults) who would very much benefit from access to such books. Where, then, should such people get access to these books? Amazon is a natural answer to that question– and the reviews and matching algorithms help these people separate the wheat from the chaff when deciding which book is right (and keep them from, by mistake, getting an “ex-gay” book or some such). So, large, non-local bookstores are highly beneficial for the dissemination of information that many communities deem offensive (and therefore no “diverse, local, independent” bookstore will stock such materials. This is my defense of large, non-local sources of a huge variety of information.

Now, I haven’t read any self-published books about child rape (which I haven’t read, and I’m guessing you haven’t either) available on Amazon for download, so I don’t know how it fails (or passes) the Miller test or other possible standards that could legally be applied to it—I don’t know if they book is protected by the first amendment as interpreted by SCOTUS – and neither do you. If it’s obscene under that test, by all means Amazon should stop selling it.

However, if it is legal, I believe that Amazon has nearly a duty to sell it (if they are going to be in that business to the extent they are) if they take corporate citizenship in America seriously. Amazon is the behomeath in the industry, with massive first mover advantage and market power, in some portions of its business, I venture to guess it has substantial market power. Companies with substantial market power should bear certain responsibilities, especially when that market power has the ability to silence unpopular opinion. A business can– and sometimes should– legitimately be concerned with “censorship” because this market power gives it quasi-governmental responsibility.
Second, we MUST as a society be able to draw a line between the written word, or even artificial depictions (CGI animation, for example) describing or depicting a crime and a crime itself. A crime requires harm. This book isn’t harming anyone– and anyone reading it is responsible for their own actions, before the book, after the book, at all points. The same is true for someone publishing a book on how to make meth, or the hundreds of books out there already that encourage rape of adult women, or which give people ideas about how they can get away with murder. As a society we’re irrational when it comes to children, and perhaps that’s vaguely rational (given that children often need special consideration)… but that doesn’t change the fact that this book itself isn’t causing harm to, or evidence of, a single hurt child.

And as a final point thought, should Amazon pull Plato’s Symposium? It is also a manual on how men can/should seduce pre-pubescent and pubescent boys. Really. Clearly you would draw the line somewhere between Plato and Greaves… but where, and on what principle? These are not easy questions, despite the ease with which you seem to dismiss the free expression value of books about child rape.

Hill, How do we interpret cases in which a work passes a “Scotus-Test” of being non-pornographic, but would be trapped in the newer laws that prohibit inciting hate-crimes? I guess this is off-topic here, so maybe I should ask you in some other context.

In my mind you have just given up your right to complain the next time a private company refuses to support or carry LGBT literature…

You seem to forget that ~50% of this country believes in a mythic gay agenda and wants all information & portrayal of LGBT wiped out of our culture.

And as far writing about or inciting illegal activities – as much as I think it was wrong and stupid – the supreme court upheld the state’s right to outlaw sodomy – making participating a LGBT sex illegal in some places in the US. So any book that talks at all about any kind of LGBT sexual encounter is talking about an illegal activity.

Do I find the thought of this book abhorrent… yes I do – but I find censorship more abhorrent.

As they say the road to hell is paved with the best intentions.

Hill would you please do a guest post on my site? lorireed dot com
I would love to have you weigh in!

@Hill, assuming that this book would pass the three-prong obscenity test set out by SCOTUS (and, unlike works by Plato, I doubt it has any serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value), of course Amazon has the right to sell it, but I find it a stretch to claim that Amazon has an obligation to sell it on corporate citizenship grounds. With the internet and social networking sites readily available to anyone with a library card, it can hardly be said that any one publishing company has a monopoly on the written word. Mr. Gervaise is free to post his book on any number of websites. I don’t think the first amendment gives him any sort of right to publication or profit, just a freedom from censorship.

Oops, I should have combined comments… @Penn Girl- I (and many others) have significant problems with the “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” standard (and, actually all prongs of Miller)… I know of no non-results oriented principle that effectively separates the “serious” from those that aren’t “serious.” You’re also correct that there is no “First Amendment Right” to be published or to turn a profit (although he could copyright the book).

The internet is often held as the end of barriers to the dissemination of ideas. I don’t believe that argument because the internet simply has too much content. When one google searches something, hundreds of thousands of hits come up– especially if you’re not quite sure what you’re looking for (indeed, there are many startups out there attempting to create better search engines). A non-Amazon example: There are hundreds of sites out there with local business reviews, for example, but (at least in Boston) Yelp is the go-to site… the others simply don’t measure up in search mechanisms, reliability, comprehensiveness etc. THIS is power on the internet. With that kind of power comes, I believe, certain responsibilities. In the area of Yelp I believe those responsibilities include not loading advertiser’s pages with fake reviews. In the area of Amazon, I believe it’s not restricting unpopular (but legal) content.