Amy Walker
BBC journalist
An Amazonian tribe sued The New York Times over a story about how their members became addicted to pornography after getting the internet.
The defamation lawsuit claims that the American media report portrayed the Marubo tribe as "unable to cope with exposure on the internet" and that the youth had become "obsessed with pornography."
The New York Times and Yahoo, because their news "mocked the youth" of the tribe and "misrepresented their traditions."
The report does not say that any member of the tribe is addicted to pornography, according to the New York Times.
The Marubo tribe, a community of about 2.000 people, is seeking at least $180 million in damages.
The New York Times story was written by a journalist nine months after the tribe gained access to Starlink, the satellite internet service from Elon Musk's SpaceX company.
The report says the tribe already faces the same challenges as American households, such as "teenagers glued to their phones," "violence in video games," and "minors viewing pornography."
The story of one of the tribal leaders, who publicly opposes the Internet, is also described.
He was upset about pornography and spoke of "more aggressive sexual behavior" among young men, the report said.
The text also discusses the positive effects of the Internet in the community, such as the ability to alert the competent services in the event of health problems, environmental destruction, and to maintain contact with family who live far away.
The lawsuit claims that other media outlets sensationalized this text, as well as the headline, which clearly indicated pornography addiction.
In response to the backlash, the New York Times published a follow-up article about a week after the original story, with the headline:
"No, a remote Amazonian tribe did not become addicted to pornography."
It says that "more than 100 websites worldwide" have published headlines falsely claiming that people from the Marubo tribe have become addicted to pornography.
However, the original New York Times story still "portrayed Marubo as a community unable to cope with online exposure and accused them of having their youth consumed by pornography," the lawsuit states.
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The named plaintiffs, community leader Enoke Marubo and Brazilian activist Flora Dutra, who helped secure 20 Starlink antennas worth $15.000 each for the tribe, claim that the New York Times article sparked a "media storm of global proportions."
Because of this, they say, they were exposed to "humiliation, harassment and irreparable damage to their reputation and security."
The story was accompanied by a video of Marubo and Dutra sharing antennas, which, they claim, "created the unequivocal impression that they were the ones who introduced harmful, sexually explicit content into the community and fueled the alleged moral and social decline."
A New York Times spokesperson said it would defend the lawsuit in court.
"Any objective reading of this text shows that it is 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," he said.
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