The Marubo people are challenging allegations that they morally degraded after receiving Starlink internet access
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.
