The New York Times Misrepresented An Amazonian Tribe To Attack Elon Musk
The New York Times’s recent reporting on an Amazon tribe’s internet access via Elon Musk’s Starlink has created an interesting situation. NYT reported on the internet in an allegedly balanced way, outlining both positive and negative aspects. However, a more critical read reveals the takeaway of the article could very well be intended to paint internet access as a cultural disruption for the Marubo tribe, descending them into porn addiction (among other things).
The New York Post, a paper with a less sterling reputation (to say the least), got its hooks in the story and weeded out all the plausibly deniable parts for them. It put out a far more scandalous-sounding article which caused these stories to get back to the Marubo, who now have internet access, and it pissed them off.
It isn’t The New York Post who is really in the wrong here, though. It is the New York Times, which I believe had an agenda beyond simply reporting on the world…
The New York Times’s Original Article
The NYT’s article “The Internet’s Final Frontier: Remote Amazon Tribes,” published on June 2, 2024, by Jack Nicas and Victor Moriyama, presents a seemingly nuanced view of the Internet's impact (though it frames “the Internet” through Starlink) on the Marubo tribe. It details positive aspects (emergency communication, educational opportunities) and negative aspects (exposure to pornography, cultural disruption).
Despite its professedly balanced approach, the article includes sensational elements that emphasize the negative impacts. It’s not pornography; it’s “minors watching pornography.” It’s not phone overuse; it’s “teenagers glued to phones (just like your awful teenagers, western NYT reader!).” And “traditions” are often demonized in the West, but how dare we disrupt native traditions!
Elon Musk is corrupting these precious savages! They are simple folk and incapable of thinking for themselves. If you put a phone in their hand, their animalistic impulses just take over!
Specific quotes about “increasing laziness” and adopting “the ways of the white people” hit certain cultural signifiers that the NYT audience of middle-aged, “upper-middle-class” liberals come to expect, satisfying their itches of guilt, pretense of intelligence over the younger generations, and belief in their own subversiveness.
By embedding these elements within a broader context, NYT maintains plausible deniability, putting forward an image of nuance. But imagine a headline: “Suspected Pedophile Donates $100,000 to Orphans.” This technically reports multiple sides of a story but is not neutral. The point of that story is not someone’s generosity but to pin a salacious label on them. This is, of course, a significantly worse hypothetical version of what I believe NYT is doing here, but it should illustrate the mechanic I am asserting is at play.
These things exist within the narrative – at least partly – to pin the label of “evil businessman who ruins native communities” on Elon Musk. In the NYT canon, Musk is a singularly evil individual, a villain. NYT tends to focus on controversies and gleefully covers setbacks associated with his ventures, public statements, and influence on discourse. While the NYT may occasionally report on positive aspects of Musk's achievements, these are frequently accompanied by critical analysis or framed within broader discussions of his controversial actions and their implications.
I certainly am not defending him; I disagree with many of his viewpoints, and he is in the upper echelons of the ruling class. But class is the issue with him, not his viewpoints, and it is his viewpoints that the NYT is exclusively concerned with, as they exist purely to propagandize the interests of the class Musk belongs to (at least in my opinion).
A gossip-laden Murdoch rag complicated that for them, though.
The New York Post’s Blunt Interpretation
The NYP’s piggyback article, “Remote Amazon tribe finally connects to internet — only to wind up hooked on porn, social media,” published on June 4, 2024, by Andrew Court, strips away the nuanced context and focuses directly on the sensational aspects highlighted by the NYT. The headline and content are blunt, emphasizing the tribe’s exposure to pornography and asserting their social media addiction.
The New York Post is known for its sensationalist style and tabloid journalism. It often fixates on scandalous and controversial subjects, frequently employing bold, attention-grabbing language. This approach is starkly different from the more ostensibly nuanced and reputable style of publications like the New York Times.
So, unlike the NYT, the Post does not provide a balanced view, omitting many of the positive impacts of internet access mentioned in the original article. This creates a more one-sided and dramatic narrative. The NYP’s approach reflects an interpretation of the NYT’s underlying sensational elements. While the Post’s coverage lacks subtlety, it does not misrepresent the facts but amplifies the aspects likely to draw the most attention.
While the Post has covered Elon Musk in various lights, its primary goal is to generate buzz, and it resorts to cultural signifiers that paint technology as bad rather than Western society.
The Marubo tribe, now equipped with the internet, did not take kindly to the narrative arising around them supposedly becoming lazy, porn-addicted gossip-mongers. Before Starlink, they would have never heard about how they are portrayed in Western media.
Now, they can see anything said about them and post a rebuttal — which, using Instagram, they did. Enoque Marubo, the tribal leader who brought Starlink to his tribe’s villages, said, “These claims are unfounded, untrue, and reflect a prejudiced ideological current that disrespects our autonomy and identity.”
This caused the liberal-catering New York Times to shit its pants.
NYT’s Follow-Up
The NYT likely did not anticipate this direct backlash from the tribe. With the tribe’s criticism, the paper positioned itself as a victim of misrepresentation by other media outlets like the NYP. The follow-up NYT article, “No, a Remote Amazon Tribe Did Not Get Addicted to Porn,” published on June 11, 2024, by Jack Nicas, addresses the sensational headlines that emerged following the original piece. It clarifies that the tribe is not, in fact, addicted to pornography and criticizes other outlets for distorting the reporting.
This narrative reinforces the NYT's image as a responsible and ethical publication, contrasting itself with the conservative, bad Post. Rather than address the fact they are ultimately responsible for creating a narrative that paints the Marubo as porn-addicted, NYT frames it as a “cautionary tale on the dark side of the web.”
“Over the past week, more than 100 websites around the world have published headlines that falsely claim the Marubo have become addicted to porn,” says NYT. “By now, these sorts of sites and misleading headlines are just another part of the internet economy. To an informed internet user, their tactics are familiar.”
This is clear flattery to the reader with the intent of validating them for “seeing through misinformation.” But to an informed internet user, these tactics are also familiar. The NYT’s original article framed the issue through this subheader: “Elon Musk’s Starlink has connected an isolated tribe to the outside world — and divided it from within.”
According to the NYT’s original article, “After only nine months with Starlink, the Marubo are already grappling with the same challenges that have racked American households for years: teenagers glued to phones; group chats full of gossip; addictive social networks; online strangers; violent video games; scams; misinformation; and minors watching pornography.”
While I am sure these things are true, the clear intent is to emphasize these negatives and tie them to Starlink. In fact, when a negative is mentioned in the original NYT article, so is Musk or Starlink. But when a benefit is mentioned, it’s “the Internet,” which looks more like this: “The Internet brought clear benefits, like video chats with faraway loved ones and calls for help in emergencies.”
The fact is, The New York Times parades around its “objective” reporting while quietly leading the reader to the destination of their choosing, just as any outlet does.
A defense for this would likely be something like, “All human reporting contains perspective,” which is true! But in this case, they are the ones responsible for the narrative against the Marubo, who I am alleging NYT ultimately sees as (at best) unimportant or (at worst) necessary collateral damage in the quest to make Musk look bad.
The ultimate question I have for you is, “If they are willing to create a narrative that uses far-off people they thought its readers wouldn’t have access to in order to smear a member of the class their paper usually works to protect, why wouldn’t they do it with everything?”
Conclusion
The controversy surrounding The New York Times’s reporting on the Marubo tribe’s internet access highlights how, regardless of how “reputable” an outlet is, it has an agenda. The NYT’s original article subtly emphasized the negative impacts of Starlink on a remote Amazon tribe, fitting into their broader critical stance on Elon Musk while maintaining a veneer of balanced reporting.
The New York Post amplified these negative aspects, stripping away nuance and creating a more scandalous story. This sensationalism reached the Marubo tribe, who, now connected to the internet, responded by criticizing the media coverage as insulting and inaccurate. Their backlash forced the NYT to “address” the issue, positioning themselves as victims of misrepresentation.
However, this move did not address the fact that NYT created this narrative (regardless of how much more “balanced” their frame was). which used the Marubo to subtly lead readers to negative conclusions about Musk and Starlink while glossing over the positive aspects.
Elon Musk is sometimes right about things, and a lot of the time wrong. For all the pious liberal positioning The New York Times engages in, they’re as bad about pushing an agenda as anyone else is. Maybe worse, because they’re more clever about it.
What did they think people were going to use the internet for?