Online fury mounts over 'paedophile guidebook'

The news that Amazon is selling a self-published book defending paedophiles has sparked online anger directed at the company.

The fury of various twitter users and those leaving comments on the Amazon site is coupled with demands concerning the retailer's obligation to vet items before they are sold in its online stores, AP reported.

But the company says it is not its place to censor books.

The book, The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct by Philip R Greaves II, offers advice to pedophiles afraid of becoming the center of retaliation. It is an electronic book available for Amazon.com Inc's Kindle e-reader.

According to buzzfeed.com, much of the rage surrounds the author's reasoning behind the book.

“This is my attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certain 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 sentences should they ever be caught”, buzzfeed and others reported the blurb as reading. Attempts by SBS to verify this on the Amazon site were met with a message saying the page was down.

The book has triggered mounting outrage on Twitter and beyond. A chorus of Twitter users is calling for Amazon to pull the book, with a few threatening to boycott the Kindle store until it does.

Amazon did not immediately respond to an inquiry about whether and how it vet books sold in its store.

But in response to the BBC, the outlet said it did not want to censor.

"Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable", an Amazon statement read.

"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."