Amazon continues hosting links to paedophile literature

After being forced to remove an E-book aimed at paedophiles from its online listings yesterday, Amazon is now accused of retaining links to websites selling pro- paedophilia literature.

The rederections lead to works by two leading members of a British 1970s pro-paedophilia activist group, the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE). Amazon, the world’s largest book retailer, is already embroiled in a massive controversy for its decision last month to allow on its website an E-book version of the Paedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure – a Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct.

Thousands of online protests followed, forcing the retailer to delete the self-published listing yesterday. The book, oddly described as ‘an attempt to make paedophile situations safer for the juveniles involved’, received 2,500 customer reviews, many of which were extremely angry. Meanwhile, hard copies of a book by Tom O’Carrroll, ‘Paedophilia – the Radical Case’ is still available on Amazon’s site via third-party sellers.

Amazon UK, the site’s British offshoot, hosts links to vendors selling ‘Perspectives on Paedophilia’, a collection of essays on the subject. One author whose work is included, Peter Righton, is a former childcare expert and PIE member convicted of being ‘concerned in the importation of indecent material, e.g. long-lens photographs of children, into the UK’.

At first, Amazon defended its decision to allow the Paedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure to be sold on its site, saying that they ‘consider it censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable’. However, after the customer reviews began to arrive, the offending E-book listing was deleted. Amazon take a percentage of every sale made on its site, and is not available for further comment on the issue.

News Index on Censorship’s Padriag Ready considers that, although the E-book may well cause offence, retailers should not act as censors. He adds that he is not sure that the book would incite people to act in a certain manner. Obviously, 2,500 Amazon customers do not agree.