Indigenous Amazon tribe says New York Times story led to its members being smeared as porn addicts

LOS ANGELES – An Indigenous people from the Brazilian Amazon has sued The New York Times, saying the newspaper's reporting connected the tribe's first vulnerability to the internet led to its members being wide portrayed arsenic technology-addled and addicted to pornography.

The Marubo Tribe of the Javari Valley, a sovereign assemblage of astir 2,000 radical successful the rainforest, filed the defamation suit seeking hundreds of millions of dollars successful damages this week successful a tribunal successful Los Angeles.

It besides names TMZ and Yahoo arsenic defendants, alleging that their stories amplified and sensationalized the Times' reporting and smeared the people successful the process.

The suit says the Times' June 2024 communicative by newsman Jack Nicas connected however the radical was handling the instauration of outer work done Elon Musk's Starlink “portrayed the Marubo radical arsenic a assemblage incapable to grip basal vulnerability to the internet, highlighting allegations that their younker had go consumed by pornography.”

“These statements were not lone inflammatory but conveyed to the mean scholar that the Marubo radical had descended into motivation and societal diminution arsenic a nonstop effect of net access,” an amended mentation of the suit filed Thursday says. “Such portrayals spell acold beyond taste commentary; they straight onslaught the character, morality, and societal lasting of an full people, suggesting they deficiency the subject oregon values to relation successful the modern world.”

In a connection to The Associated Press, a Times spokesperson said: “Any just speechmaking of this portion shows a delicate and nuanced exploration of the benefits and complications of caller exertion successful a distant Indigenous colony with a arrogant past and preserved culture. We mean to vigorously support against the lawsuit.”

The taxable of Nicas' communicative was that aft little than a twelvemonth of service, the assemblage was present facing the aforesaid kinds of struggles with the pervasive effects of the net and the proliferation of smartphones that overmuch of the satellite has dealt with for years.

Nicas listed a wide scope of those challenges: “teenagers glued to phones; radical chats afloat of gossip; addictive societal networks; online strangers; convulsive video games; scams; misinformation; and minors watching pornography.”

He aboriginal wrote that a tribal person “is astir unsettled by the pornography. He said young men were sharing explicit videos successful radical chats, a stunning improvement for a civilization that frowns connected kissing successful public.”

The portion makes nary different notation of porn, but that facet of the communicative was amplified and aggregated by different outlets including TMZ, which ran a communicative and accompanying video headlined, “Elon Musk’s Starlink Hookup Leaves A Remote Tribe Addicted To Porn.”

The suit says the video conception “falsely framed the Marubo Tribe arsenic having descended into motivation collapse.”

Messages seeking remark from TMZ and Yahoo were not instantly answered.

The misperceptions brought connected by the aggregation and repackaging of the communicative led the Times to people a follow-up.

“The Marubo radical are not addicted to pornography,” Nicas wrote successful the the 2nd story. “There was nary hint of this successful the forest, and determination was nary proposition of it successful The New York Times’s article.”

That did not fulfill the tribe, which says successful the suit that it “failed to admit the relation the NYT itself played successful fueling the defamatory narrative. Rather than issuing a retraction oregon apology, the follow-up downplayed the archetypal article’s accent connected pornography by shifting blasted to third-party aggregators.”

Nicas wrote that helium spent a week with the Marubo tribe. The suit says that portion helium was invited for a week, helium spent little than 48 hours successful the village, "barely capable clip to observe, understand, oregon respectfully prosecute with the community.

The suit was first reported by Courthouse News.

The plaintiffs besides see assemblage person Enoque Marubo and Brazilian writer and sociologist Flora Dutra, some of whom appeared successful the story.

Both were instrumental successful bringing the people the net connection, which they said has had galore affirmative effects including facilitating exigency medicine and the acquisition of children.

They cited the TMZ video, which shows them mounting up antennas for the connection, arsenic creating the "unmistakable impression” that the 2 “had introduced harmful, sexually explicit worldly into the assemblage and facilitated the alleged motivation and societal decay.”

The suit seeks astatine slightest $180 million, including some wide and punitive damages, from each of the defendants.

“The fallout from the work was not constricted to nationalist perception,” the suit says, “it destroyed lives, institutions, and culturally important projects.”

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