A remote Amazonian tribe is suing the New York Times, claiming a report it did on its members receiving high-speed internet led to them being smeared internationally as porn addicts.

The Marubo, living deep within the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, were gifted with $15,000 in Starlink equipment in 2022. A Times crew hiked more than 50 miles in 2024 to reach the tribe and report on the impact of the internet access on its people.

The article described the positive effects it brought and how tribe leaders set up rules surrounding internet use, but also brought up challenges the technology forced the tribe to deal with.

“Teenagers glued to phones; group chats full of gossip; addictive social networks; online strangers; violent video games; scams; misinformation; and minors watching pornography,” reporter Jack Nicas wrote.

The leader of a Marubo association of villages, Alfredo Marubo, a vocal critic of the internet, told the paper he was unsettled by the pornography. “We’re worried young people are going to want to try it,” he said of the graphic sex depicted in the videos.

Other news outlets ran with the pornography angle, often with salacious headlines. TMZ, which the tribe is also suing, blared: “Tribe’s Starlink Hookup Results in Porn Addiction!!!” The article claimed porn addiction was “ravaging the community’s young men.” A headline in the New York Post, one of the first outlets to pick up the story, claimed the Marubo people were “hooked on porn.”

About a week later the Times did a followup story refuting that angle. “The Marubo people are not addicted to pornography,” Mr. Nicas wrote. “There was no hint of this in the forest, and there was no suggestion of it in The New York Times’s article.”

The second article was not enough to satisfy the Marubo people, who said the damage was already done. This week, the tribe, and the activist who helped secure the internet equipment, sued the Times, Yahoo, and TMZ in a Los Angeles court, according to Courthouse News Service.

“The NYT 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,” the complaint states. 

“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. 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.”

The suit claims the Times story brought humiliation, harassment, and irreparable harm to the tribe on the world stage.

“The Marubo people became the subject of international ridicule, reduced to memes and headlines that mocked their youth, misrepresented their traditions, and portrayed them as morally degraded,” the complaint claims.

The lawsuit seeks $180 million with $100 million as punitive damages from each of the three news outlets.

The Times told Courthouse News Service that its original story “does not say or infer any members of the tribe were addicted to pornography. This was incorrectly reported by other media outlets.” The paper said its story was “nuanced” and explained the benefits and complications of the internet access. “We intend to vigorously defend against the lawsuit,” a spokesman said.

TMZ and Yahoo had not responded to requests for comment by several media outlets.