Amazon.com's recent decision to publish, defend its decision to publish, and then withdraw a Kindle how-to guide for child molesters has confused a good many people. Here are seven questions I've been hearing over the past 24 hours.
1. How did this ever get published?
It was never published in print; it was essentially self-published through the Kindle e-book distribution system. And as the book itself demonstrates, pretty much anything can be self-published through the Kindle e-book distribution system.
2. Doesn't the book just advocate pedophilia? Is Amazon.com censoring opinions?
No, it's actually a how-to--though from the excerpt that has cropped up on the blogosphere, it sounds like a really scatterbrained and poorly-written one. Several books that advocate or defend pedophilia are still for sale on Amazon.com, but they're not instruction manuals.
3. What do Amazon.com's terms of service say about the book?
Amazon's terms of service prohibit "titles which may lead to illegal activity." While this can be interpreted in a very broad way (Thoreau's Civil Disobedience would fall under this rule, for example), a how-to manual for pedophiles would seem to fall under even the narrowest interpretation of this TOS regulation.
4. Was Amazon.com getting rich off sales?
I don't see how; while the book hit #96 on Amazon.com's Top 100, a boycott during the holiday season, which is by far Amazon.com's peak sales period, would cost the company far more money than a single $4.79 Kindle title could possibly make.
5. Did Amazon.com violate the author's First Amendment rights by removing the title? If Amazon.com had not removed the title and a boycott followed, would the boycott have violated Amazon.com's First Amendment rights?
No and no. The First Amendment regulates the government, not corporations and private individuals. There is a more general free speech issue at play when private corporations censor material, but it's a cultural issue that has nothing to do with the First Amendment. This is not a banned book; it's a book that a publisher/distributor has made a business decision not to sell.
6. Has Amazon.com removed products from its web site before?
Yes, many times. In one similar case, Amazon.com declined to sell a rape-simulation game earlier this year.
7. So why did Amazon.com initially defend its decision to sell the book?
I've been ruminating on that question myself, and I have no answer. I can think of no sensible reason--not even a bad sensible reason--why Amazon.com would not have immediately enforced its terms of service and removed the title as soon as it started generating complaints. This situation has created a huge amount of bad press for Amazon.com, and is likely to be costly for the company in the long run. It has also undermined Amazon.com's own terms of service; if they arguably didn't apply to this title, then what does it take to get a book rejected by Amazon.com without delay or controversy?
Comments
There is a correction that needs to be addressed here:
“1. How did this ever get published?
It was never published in print; it was essentially self-published through the Kindle e-book distribution system. And as the book itself demonstrates, pretty much anything can be self-published through the Kindle e-book distribution system.”
Is actually partially correct. The actual method of publication the author went through was Create Spaces. It is Amazon.com’s POD publishing program that allows individuals to publish books and distribute them through the Kindle, as well as Print-On-Demand.
There is an explanation for what happened and why it wasn’t immediately pulled. When author’s upload onto the digital platform for Kindle, they sign on to ‘Terms of Service” and wait a couple of days before the “book” goes live, but there’s no check of whether or not the book complies with the terms. Many books are offensive, so at first when people complained, Amazon employees at call centers just gave the stock reply. By the time it reached the point of Amazon’s replying to the Associated Press, they clearly should have pulled it, but my guess is that either they stuck to their guns to avoid a cascade as there is so much material — racist, anti-Semitic, etc. that they’d have to review — or the reaction just came too fast for Amazon to work out that the book truly violated guidelines and needed to be pulled.
The only reason Amazon pulled this title was due to public pressure, resulting in concern for lost revenue. Unfortunately, Amazon has identified several people as having participated in pornographic videos, who claim to have been victims of child pornography. I have cancelled my Amazon account and have asked my friends to do the same until this company stops making money off of victims of abuse.