On November 10, 2008, a book became available on Amazon.com, titled "A Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure."
As one can imagine, this created immense backlash. At first, Amazon defended itself, explaining that it wanted to offer the free marketplace for people to exchange ideas. Amazon continued to to say that not allowing this book to be for sale is censorship.
However, later that day, Amazon pulled the book without making a statement.
In this case, it is important to examine the values at stake here. In my opinion, the most important values would be safety or children, moral obligations, freedom of information, and respect. It is important for Amazon to be a free marketplace of ideas, including the important of freedom of speech and the press.
That being said, maintaining these important ideas is important. However, when it comes to safety and the good for all people involved, what is the best decision? Probably pulling the book. There is no other motivation behind this book, other than promoting something that is against the law. Therefore, I believe Amazon ultimately did the right thing. They should have made the decision sooner, and issued a statement explaining their position- regardless of what it was.
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