Amazon refuses to pull pro-pedophilia book

A book for sale on Amazon has ignited a grassroots Twitter campaign to boycott the retailer over their refusal to pull the book from their virtual shelves.

Pedophile's self-help book

The self-published eBook, The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover's Code of Conduct, is reportedly a graphic and disturbingly detailed account of the author's desire to:

"[A]ttempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certain[sic] 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[sic] sentences should they ever be caught."

Viral status

The book was first exposed on Twitter earlier Wednesday by Lattes and Life blogger Tiffany. She found a blog post about the book and tweeted about it. That's when it hit viral status – her friend, a popular Twitter user, retweeted her comment and soon people throughout the United States were contacting Amazon, demanding they remove the book.

Amazon wouldn't budge -- and they haven't removed the book as of Wednesday night and the book's page has received over 1,500 comments within a few hours. One mother wrote:

"As a mother of a child who has been molested, shame on Amazon for allowing such garbage to be sold on it's[sic] site. The author of this book is a predator and should never have been allowed to write or promote this trash that is called a book of information. How many children will be assaulted because of this? Amazon-take it off your site."

Another called into question the validity of the boycott campaign.

"It's as though we are being brought to a bubbling boil as caricatures of ourselves. We are creatures of the moment, of rage and spite. And you know what? This is what will make the quest for child safety an eternal losing battle. How many copies of this book would have sold, had you not gotten furiously indignant? 100? 200? The author can't even spell properly. It would have passed beneath the radar, would have never been a moment's glance of a thing. But now, all you Mothers Against and Fathers Protecting have ENSURED the dissemination of the very thing you most fear. I don't want to see my children hurt. The best way to keep that from happening is not censorship, is not fury, is not protest of anything with a sharp edge. It's education. It's spending thirty minutes just sitting and talking to them. Maybe if we had a movement to promote that, well, we'd have a lot less focusing on idiocy like this. "

Why would Amazon do this, when their terms of service state that they won't sell objectionable material (like pornography)?

They claim it would cause censorship, a defense they've used in the past with other such books.

"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," a statement read.

Bad business, Amazon

Various influential bloggers have vowed to boycott Amazon and not mention them in any upcoming gift guides, something that will hurt the retailer during the competitive retail season.

It's in Amazon's best interests to just pull the book, especially since the author told The Smoking Gun that he's only sold one copy of the book -- likely to the blogger who wrote about it earlier today.

Now he's likely to sell many more because of the attention, unfortunately. Ultimately this book will help the author solidify his reasoning behind writing and publishing the book. Amazon will likely cave, but the boycott ultimately doesn't solve anything around the huge issue of pedophilia and child molestation.

Weigh in: What do you think of the Amazon boycott?