Pedophile How-To Guide: Amazon Caught With Pants Down

Here at WonderHowTo, we are often presented with morally questionable HowTo's. When it comes to stocking our library, we have to weigh in the community value of indexing tutorials with potentially negative repercussions. Where is the line when it comes to areas like weapons, sex, and drugs?

That said, how about a straight-up, no holds barred guide to pedophilia? No-brainer, right? Who in their right mind would defend such a thing?

In short, here's the scoop. On October 28th, a man named Philip R. Greaves II self-published an e-book on Amazon entitled "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct" for $4.79 per download.

(*Note: Rather than quote some of the horrifying accounts from the book, here's an explanatory blurb from TechCrunch: "The book itself is a disgrace – a how-to guide for pedophiles. It includes, among other things, tips on how to get away with it and how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases by purchasing condom-like products for children too small to use actual condoms.")

What happened next is the real shocker. Amazon declined to remove the book, issuing the following official statement:

"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."

Utter outrage ensued from thousands of Twitter users and Amazon customers, resulting in Amazon's eventual removal of the guide. They likely made an innocent filtering mistake in their self-publishing service. But their real mistake was the wrong response. Hard to defend pedophilia, regardless of issues of censorship.

Seriously, who runs their PR department?