An Indigenous tribe in the Amazon has filed a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, claiming a report about their access to high-speed internet led to damaging and false portrayals of their community, including claims of pornography addiction, BBC reported on Friday.\n<\/p>\n
The lawsuit, brought by the Marubo people, alleged that the NYT article misrepresented their response to internet access provided by Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink service.\n<\/p>\n
It stated the report suggested the Marubo were \u201cunable to handle basic exposure to the internet\u201d and implied their youth had become \u201cconsumed by pornography.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The lawsuit also named TMZ and Yahoo as defendants, and said their news stories \u201cmocked their youth\u201d and \u201cmisrepresented their traditions\u201d.<\/p>\n
One TMZ headline reportedly referenced porn addiction, which plaintiffs argue mocked their community and misrepresented their culture.\n<\/p>\n
The NYT maintains that its original report was a \u201csensitive and nuanced\u201d look at how new technology is affecting remote communities.\n<\/p>\n
It included both challenges such as youth viewing violent content and benefits like improved communication and access to health alerts.<\/p>\n
The tribe, numbering about 2,000 members, is seeking at least $180 million in damages.\n<\/p>\n
According to BBC, the NYT\u2019s story, written nine months after the Marubo gained access to Starlink, a satellite-internet service from Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX, said the tribe was \u201calready grappling with the same challenges that have racked American households for years\u201d. <\/p>\n
This included \u201cteenagers glued to phones\u201d, \u201cviolent video games\u201d and \u201cminors watching pornography\u201d, the report said.\n<\/p>\n
It stated that a community leader and vocal critic of the internet was \u201cmost unsettled by the pornography\u201d, and had been told of \u201cmore aggressive sexual behaviour\u201d from young men.\n<\/p>\n
Plaintiffs include Marubo leader Enoque Marubo and Brazilian activist Flora Dutra, who helped introduce Starlink to the community.\n<\/p>\n
They say the media coverage sparked a \u201cglobal media storm\u201d that led to harassment and harm to their reputations and safety.\n<\/p>\n
A follow-up NYT article later clarified; \u201cNo, A Remote Amazon Tribe Did Not Get Addicted to Porn,\u201d noting that over 100 outlets had mischaracterized the original story.<\/p>\n
The Marubo claim the coverage, including a TMZ video of antenna distribution, falsely implied they had introduced harmful content to their own people, contributing to a narrative of moral decline.\n<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the New York Times said, \u201cAny 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.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe intend to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Indigenous tribe in the Amazon has filed a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, claiming a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3161],"tags":[55921,55922,3082,9142,1426,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-126359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-amazon-tribe","9":"tag-defamation","10":"tag-internet","11":"tag-new-york-times","12":"tag-story","13":"tag-technology","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114559435733863862","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}