Redcuban1959 [any]

No, a remote village in the Amazon has not become addicted to pornography

A New York Times report on the arrival of high-speed internet in a remote village in the Amazon ended up bringing a warning about the dark side of the web itself.

In April, I hiked more than 80 kilometers through the Amazon rainforest to visit the remote villages of the Marubo people. The 2,000-strong indigenous group had recently been connected to high-speed internet, and I wanted to understand how this had affected their lives.

In a week-long visit, I saw how they used the internet to communicate between villages, talk to distant loved ones and ask for help in emergencies. Many Marubo also told me they were worried that the connection with the outside world would shake their culture, which they have preserved for generations in the forest. Some elders complained about teenagers glued to their cell phones, participating in gossip groups and watching pornography.

As a result of the investigation, the story that the New York Times published on June 2 was partly about introducing the Marubo people to the evils of the internet.

But after publication, this perspective took on an entirely different dimension.

Last week, more than a hundred websites around the world published headlines that falsely claimed that the Marubo had become addicted to pornography. Alongside these headlines, the websites published images of the Marubo people in their villages.

The New York Post, a New York tabloid, was one of the first to say last week that the Marubo people were “addicted to pornography”. Dozens of media outlets quickly followed suit. The headline on the TMZ website was perhaps the most blunt: “TRIBE CONNECTION TO STARLINK PROVES PORN ADDICTION!!!”

The Post and TMZ did not respond to the Times’ requests for a statement.

Similar headlines have proliferated around the world, including in countries such as the UK, Germany, Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, Nigeria, Mexico and Chile. RT, the Russian state media, published a text with the claim in Arabic. There were countless videos, memes and posts on social media.

The Marubo people are not addicted to pornography. There was no suggestion of this in the villages, nor in the New York Times report.

Instead, the report cited a complaint made by a Marubo leader that some teenagers had shared pornography in WhatsApp groups. This is especially worrying, he said, because Marubo culture disapproves even of kissing in public.

Many of the sites that distorted this information are news aggregators, which means that their business model largely revolves around repackaging reports from other news outlets, often using sensationalist headlines in order to sell ads.

As these sites also post links to the original report, they are generally protected by law, even if they misrepresent the content.

Today, these types of sites and misleading headlines have become yet another part of the internet economy. To an experienced web user, these tactics are familiar.

For the Marubo, however, the experience was disconcerting and infuriating.

“These allegations are unfounded, untrue and only reflect a biased ideological current that disrespects our autonomy and our identity,” said Enoque Marubo, a Marubo leader who brought Starlink to his villages, in a video posted on his networks on Sunday evening.

According to him, the Times report overemphasized the negative aspects of the internet and “resulted in the dissemination of a distorted view”.

Alfredo Marubo (all Marubo use the same surname), the leader who said in the Times report that he was worried about pornography, also spoke out on Tuesday in a statement through his indigenous association. He said that misleading headlines have the potential to generate “irreversible exposure to people’s image and, for this reason, we feel exposed in the face of the misinterpretation of true news”.

Eliesio Marubo, a lawyer and indigenous rights activist, is one of the best-known figures among the Marubo people. That’s why, when the headlines went viral, Eliesio said he received tens of thousands of messages and tags in comments on social networks. Many mocked the Marubo people, he said.

Eliesio said the report opened up an important debate about the sudden arrival of high-speed internet in remote indigenous groups. This discussion shows the promises of the internet, but illustrates its dangers with misinformation.

“The internet does bring a lot of ease,” he said, “but it also brings a lot of difficulty.”