Well, it is a huge difference. An article has a name, it can be linked independently, and it appears on a new web page with the logo of LessWrong above it. The only context it has is "this is the article published on LessWrong".

You convinced me. Just vividly imagining this caused an availability bias.

It's like coming with a monster costume on Halloween; everyone knows it's a monster constume for Halloween.)

That's a great analogy. I'm going to steal it!

Unfortunately this just makes the whole things worse. If LW becomes the rare place where this topic is treated reasonably, we can expect dozens of new members coming to express the same feelings here.

This is a good point, and wouldn't be limited to just pedophiles. Permitting all taboos in the name of rationality is just going to lead to more taboos being discussed. Good luck selling rationality to people after that. Then again, if rationality simply doesn't appeal to regular citizens, perhaps attracting controversy would be a great marketing strategy ;)