A remote indigenous tribe Amazon tribe in Brazil has sued The New York Times and others, claiming a story about its first exposure to the internet has led to widespread reports that its members have become addicted to pornography.
Filed last week in Los Angeles, the Marubo Tribe of the Javari Valley’s lawsuit also names TMZ and Yahoo as defendants and seeks at least $180 million from each. The sovereign community alleges the story, about the arrival of Starlink in 2024, falsely portrays its 2,000 people as “unable to handle basic exposure to the internet, highlighting allegations that their youth had become consumed by pornography.”
“These statements were not only inflammatory but conveyed to the average reader that the Marubo people had descended into moral and social decline as a direct result of internet access,” the lawsuit says, according to the Associated Press. “Such portrayals … directly attack the character, morality, and social standing of an entire people.”
The lawsuit was first reported by Courthouse News.
In a statement to the AP, the Times said: “Any fair reading of this piece shows a sensitive and nuanced exploration of the benefits and complications of new technology in a remote Indigenous village with a proud history and preserved culture. We intend to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.”
The story, by Times reporter Jack Nicas, suggested the community was now facing the same struggles as much of the modern world after less than a year of service, including “teenagers glued to phones; group chats full of gossip; addictive social networks; online strangers; violent video games; scams; misinformation; and minors watching pornography,” with the latter being most unsettling to tribal leaders.
That theme was expanded upon by other outlets who aggregated it, including TMZ, sparking a follow-up story in the Times, headlined: “No, a Remote Amazon Tribe Did Not Get Addicted to Porn.” “There was no hint of this in the forest, and there was no suggestion of it in The New York Times’s article,” Nicas wrote in his second piece.
The tribe’s lawsuit says that effort “failed to acknowledge the role the NYT itself played in fueling the defamatory narrative. Rather than issuing a retraction or apology, the follow-up downplayed the original article’s emphasis on pornography by shifting blame to third-party aggregators.”
The lawsuit seeks at least $180 million from each named defendant, including general and punitive damages.
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