Indigenous Amazon tribe sues US newspapers for portraying members as porn-addicts | Here's what lawsuit says

An Indigenous tribe in Brazil's Amazon, Marubo Tribe of the Javari Valley, has sued multiple newspapers and tabloid in US for a report that allegedly led to the tribe members being portrayed as porn-addicts.

A report in June 2024, by The New York Times, first exposed the tribe on the internet. The report widely showed the people of the time as technology-addled and addicted to pornography. The lawsuit by the tribe, a community of around 2000 people, also named TMZ and Yahoo as defendants and alleged that their stories amplified the claims of the Times. Now, the community id demanding hundreds of millions of dollars in damage via their lawsuit files in Los Angeles court.

The defamation lawsuit said that the Times' report was on how the tribe was handling the introduction of satellite service through Eon Musk's Starlink. But, the report portrayed the Marubo as "a community unable to handle basic exposure to the internet, highlighting allegations that their youth had become consumed by pornography."

"These statements were not only inflammatory but conveyed to the average reader that the Marubo people had descended into moral and social decline as a direct result of internet access," the lawsuit filed o Thursday (May 22) claimed.

"Such portrayals go far beyond cultural commentary; they directly attack the character, morality, and social standing of an entire people, suggesting they lack the discipline or values to function in the modern world," it added.