Latest news with #EnoqueMarubo
Russia Today
25-05-2025
- Russia Today
Amazon tribe sues NYT over ‘porn addicts' claim
A remote South American tribe has sued the New York Times, TMZ, and Yahoo for defamation following a series of stories alleging that the indigenous community devolved into porn addiction and other first-world social issues after receiving internet access, Courthouse News Service (CNS) has reported. The Marubo people live in around two dozen remote villages in the far west of Brazil's Javari River Valley, with the entire tribe's population estimated at about 2,000. In 2022, twenty Starlink satellite internet antennas were donated to the tribe, enabling easier communication between distant settlements and providing access to the broader internet. In 2024, a New York Times reporter and photographer visited the Marubo and later published an article describing teenagers as 'glued to their phones' and 'minors watching pornography.' Additional reports by TMZ and others, aggregated by Yahoo News, republished or reworded parts of the story and claimed the tribe had become 'addicted' to sexually explicit content. On Tuesday, community leader Enoque Marubo and Brazilian activist Flora Dutra – who played a key role in connecting the tribe to the internet – filed a lawsuit in a Los Angeles court against the NYT, TMZ, and Yahoo News, accusing them of defamation and related offenses. 'The New York Times portrayed the Marubo people as a community unable to handle basic exposure to the internet, highlighting allegations that their youth had become consumed by pornography shortly after receiving access,' CNS quoted the plaintiffs as saying. The statements were described as 'inflammatory' and suggested that 'the Marubo people had descended into moral and social decline.' The reporter and photographer were invited to stay in one of the villages for a week but left after less than two days – 'barely enough time to observe, understand, or respectfully engage with the community,' the lawsuit claimed. The TMZ story, which included footage of Dutra delivering Starlink devices to the Marubo, allegedly led to her receiving death threats and the collapse of her co-founded startup, NAVI Global, which had once been valued at $3 million. The New York Times journalist later published a follow-up piece titled 'No, a Remote Amazon Tribe Did Not Get Addicted to Porn.' The newspaper has since insisted that the original article never explicitly made such a claim. According to CNS, the Marubo people and Dutra are seeking $180 million in damages, including $100 million in punitive damages.
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Yahoo
Amazon Tribe Sues NYT Over Porn Addiction Claims
A recent New York Times story covered how the Marubo people of Brazil were adjusting to life with the internet. They had received Starlink only months earlier, and according to the NYT piece, it had introduced serious problems into their society. Chief among those was "minors watching pornography." Representatives of the Marubo people took issue with the story and the tabloid headlines it spawned on sites like TMZ and Yahoo. They claimed it was not just insulting and inaccurate but damaging in an actionable way, so they took legal action. The Marubo community just filed defamation charges in an LA court, seeking $180 million in damages from the NYT, TMZ, and Yahoo. The Marubo people number about 2,000 in all. They live in villages along the Ituí River of the Javari basin. Their population has steadily grown over the past 50 years, coming back from the disease and violence of first contact in the 19th century. In 2022, the Marubo tribe received 20 Starlink antennas thanks to the efforts of community leader Enoque Marubo and Brazilian activist Flora Dutra. Nine months later, Jack Nicas hiked through the jungle in order to visit the tribe and report on how the internet was affecting them. The tribe invited him to stay for a week, but Nicas left after about 48 hours. He did not mention his early departure in the NYT piece. Published in June of 2024, the article claimed that the Marubo were now struggling with "teenagers glued to phones; group chats full of gossip; addictive social networks; online strangers; violent video games; scams; misinformation," and, of course, pornography. Classy as ever, TMZ took the story and ran with it, publishing a piece titled Tribe's Starlink hookup results in porn addiction! Similar headlines echoed across the internet. Realizing the narrative had perhaps gotten away from him, Nicas published a follow up: "No, a remote Amazon tribe did not get addicted to porn." For Morubo representatives, it was too little, too late. According to the complaint, the news story and the dozens of salacious articles that followed damaged Enoque Marubo and Flora Dutra personally, as well as the tribe as a whole. It was they, after all, who introduced the internet. And they were the ones receiving the most online abuse. They claim to have received thousands of hateful online messages. These included "death threats, racist and misogynistic abuse, and reputational smears." They allege that the articles launched "a global media storm" that subjected them to "humiliation, harassment, and irreparable harm to their reputations, safety, and standing both within their own people and on the world stage." The New York Times agreed that other outlets had incorrectly reported on the story. But they had never averred that the Marubo people had become addicted to pornography, the outlet insisted. Maybe so, the suit alleges, but their initial story had at the very least struck the match that became the firestorm. The NYT story has uncomfortable echoes with past representations of Indigenous people. There are centuries of patriarchal depictions of Indigenous people as falling from Edenic innocence to debauched ruination as soon as they encounter the sins of Western civilization. See, for instance, the "noble savage" of 18th-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He described Indigenous people in the Americas, the Caribbean, and Africa as living in an ideal state of nature. But when they encountered civilized men, they fell from this state of grace, and struggled to cope with the vices and complications of "civilized" life. The English writer and explorer John Lawson wrote that in Carolina, "Most of the Savages are much addicted to Drunkenness, a Vice they never were acquainted with, till the Christians came amongst them." Recent reporting on the Marubo discusses their internet usage in similar terms. "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 complaint alleges. "They directly attack the character, morality, and social standing of an entire people, suggesting they lack the discipline or values to function in the modern world."
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Yahoo
Amazon tribe sues New York Times over story it says led to porn addict claims
An Amazonian tribe has sued the New York Times (NYT) over a report about the community gaining access to high-speed internet, which it claims led to its members being labelled as porn addicts. The defamation lawsuit said the US newspaper's report portrayed the Marubo tribe as "unable to handle basic exposure to the internet" and highlighted "allegations that their youth had become consumed by pornography". The lawsuit also named TMZ and Yahoo as defendants, and said their news stories "mocked their youth" and "misrepresented their traditions". The NYT said its report did not infer or say any of the tribe's members were addicted to porn. TMZ and Yahoo have been contacted for comment. The Marubo, an Indigenous community of about 2,000 people, is seeking at least $180m (£133m) in damages. The NYT's story, written nine months after the Marubo gained access to Starlink, a satellite-internet service from Elon Musk's SpaceX, said the tribe was "already grappling with the same challenges that have racked American households for years". This included "teenagers glued to phones", "violent video games" and "minors watching pornography", the report said. It stated that a community leader and vocal critic of the internet was "most unsettled by the pornography", and had been told of "more aggressive sexual behaviour" from young men. The report also noted the perceived benefits of the internet among the tribe, including the ability to alert authorities to health issues and environmental destruction and stay in touch with faraway family. The lawsuit claims other news outlets sensationalised the NYT's report, including a headline from TMZ referencing porn addiction. The response led the NYT to run a follow-up report around a week after its original story, with the headline: "No, A Remote Amazon Tribe Did Not Get Addicted to Porn". The report said "more than 100 websites around the world" had "published headlines that falsely claim the Marubo have become addicted to porn". But the lawsuit claimed the NYT's original story had "portrayed the Marubo people as a community unable to handle basic exposure to the internet, highlighting allegations that their youth had become consumed by pornography". The named plaintiffs, community leader Enoque Marubo and Brazillian activist Flora Dutra, who helped to distribute the 20 $15,000 Starlink antennas to the tribe, said the NYT story helped fuel "a global media storm", according to the Courthouse News Service. This, they said, subjected them to "humiliation, harassment and irreparable harm to their reputations and safety". The TMZ story included video footage of Marubo and Dutra distributing the antennas, which they said "created the unmistakable impression [they] had introduced harmful, sexually explicit material into the community and facilitated the alleged moral and social decay". A spokesperson for the New York 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." Musk's satellites 'blocking' view of the universe Musk and Rubio spar with Polish minister over Starlink in Ukraine India's Jio and Airtel ink deals to bring in Musk's Starlink
