In April, I walked more than 50 miles through the Amazon rainforest to visit the remote villages of the Marubo people. The 2,000-member tribe had recently received high-speed Internet and wanted to understand how it had affected their lives.
During a week-long visit, I saw how they used the Internet to communicate between villages, chat with distant loved ones, and ask for help in emergencies. Many Marubo also told me that they were deeply concerned that connecting with the outside world would alter their culture, which they had preserved for generations living deep in the forest. Some seniors complained about teenagers glued to phones, gossip-filled group chats and minors watching pornography.
As a result, the story we published on June 2 was in part about the Marubo people’s introduction to the evils of the Internet.
But after publication, that angle took on a completely different dimension.
Over the past week, more than 100 websites around the world have published headlines falsely claiming that the Marubo have become addicted to pornography. Along with those headlines, the sites published images of the Marubo people in their villages.
The New York Post was among the first, saying last week that people in Marubo were “hooked on pornography.” Dozens of people quickly followed that shot. TMZ’s headline was perhaps the most telling: “TRIBE’S STARLINK CONNECTION RESULTS IN PORN ADDICTION!!!”
The Post and TMZ did not respond to requests for comment.
Similar headlines proliferated around the world, including in the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, Nigeria, Mexico and Chile. RT, the Russian state media outlet, published the statement in Arabic. There were countless videos, memes and posts on social media.
In Brazil, the rumor spread quickly, even in the small Amazonian towns where some Marubo now live, work and study.
The Marubo people are not addicted to pornography. There was no indication of this in the forest, and there was no suggestion of it in the New York Times article.
Instead, the article mentioned a complaint by a Marubo leader that some Marubo minors had shared pornography in WhatsApp group chats. This was especially worrying, he said, because Marubo culture disapproves even of kissing in public.
Many of the sites that misrepresented this detail are news aggregators, meaning their business model is largely designed around repackaging reports from other news organizations, with often sensational headlines to sell ads.
Because these sites also link to the original reports, they are generally protected legally, even if they misrepresent the material.
At this point, these types of misleading sites and headlines are just another part of the Internet economy. To an informed Internet user, his tactics look familiar.
For the Marubo, however, the experience was disconcerting and infuriating.
“These claims are unfounded, false and reflect a prejudiced ideological current that does not respect our autonomy and identity,” Enoque Marubo, the Marubo leader who brought Starlink to his tribe’s villages, said in a video posted online Sunday night. .
The Times article had overemphasized the negative aspects of the Internet, he said, “resulting in the spread of a distorted and harmful image.”
Alfredo Marubo (all Marubo use the same last name), the leader who said in the Times article that he was concerned about pornography, issued a statement Tuesday from his tribal association saying that misleading headlines “have the potential to cause irreversible harm.” to people’s lives. image and, therefore, we feel exposed to this misinterpretation of accurate reports.”
Eliseo Marubo, lawyer and activist for indigenous rights, has become one of the most public faces of the Marubo tribe. So when the headlines went viral, Eliseo said he had tens of thousands of message notifications and tags in comments on social media. Many mocked the Marubo people, he said.
Eliseo said the article had sparked important debate about the sudden arrival of high-speed Internet to remote indigenous groups, showing the promise of the Internet in its own way. But the resulting misinformation also illustrated the dangers of the Internet.
“The Internet brings many advantages,” he said, “but it also poses many challenges.”