Tiny Amazon tribe gets internet, NYT writes story, attorneys sue Times for $180 million

This is the way the world ends
 This is the way the world ends
 This is the way the world ends
 Not with a bang but a whimper"
     --T.S. Eliot "The Hollow Men"

As everyone should know, the last line suggests that the end of the world--or perhaps just the end of a way of life--won't be dramatic but instead is more likely to be gradual and totally anticlimactic, as things gradually stop working.  It may not even be noticeable for decades.

And on that note:

The New York Times wrote about an Amazon tribe that was doing its thing when a combination of the Brazilian government and hi-tech introduced...the Internet.  

And now, in a preview of the future, attorneys for the tribe have sued--for $540 million.

You may well wonder what sort of horrible thing was inflicted on deez po' pipo--who, the Times takes pains to note, are brown-skinned and a "historically underrepresented community."

Those are VERY powerful buzz-words to Manhattan juries.

You've never heard of the "Marubo" tribe--2,000 pipo in the Amazon.  And you never would have if not for a piece of technological wizardry called "Starlink."  

Because you're Americans, and reeeally well informed, you know that Starlink offers satellite internet anywhere in the world.  And again because you're well informed, you also know Starlink is one of Elon Musk's businesses, right?

Ahhh, Elon Musk--the second-most-hated man in the nation by the leftists who run the Times.  So...y'think maybe "the plot thickens"?  And now all the pieces are in place for our story.

Last year Starlink brought the Internet to the Amazon.  Nomally this wouldn't have been newsworthy, eh?   Would the Times publish a story on "Airplanes arrive in the Amazon"?  But the rat-bastards who run the Times are always eager to find stories to tar Musk, so when a reporter found a "hook," the editors loved a story moaning about the awful results of Musk's creation "inflicting" the Internet on this innocent primitive tribe.

The Times wailed that after the tribe was given access to duh Internet--via duh satanic invention of duh eeeebil Elon Musk!--some members of the tribe may have discovered...did you already guess?...internet porn.

The story was perfect for Times readers: "Helpless, innocent, naive brown-skinned pipo haz dere innocent tribal society totally wrecked by duh eeeebil Elon Musk!  Traditions destroyed as young males of the tribe become porn addicts!"

The Times story didn't actually say that, but the "loss of innocence" angle, and "because of Musk," were right in the wheelhouse of Times editors.

One small problem:  tribal leaders denied it was true, and claimed the Times story had made them "objects of ridicule."  And because you're all sophisticated Americans you can predict what happened next, right?  Sure ya can:

Seeing a potentially huge payday, cunning plaintiffs' attorneys contacted the tribe and explained that the tribe needed to sue the Times for exposing the tribe to world-wide ridicule by publishing the story.  Papers were signed and the attorneys quickly filed some flavor of defamation lawsuit against the Times for spreading what the lawsuit claimed was a  "false narrative."

The attorneys sued not just the Times, but also two other media outlets that re-printed its story.

I swear I am NOT making this up.

The lawsuit claims the Times's story "attacked the character, morality, and social standing of an entire people,” and they've sued the Times and the two outlets that reprinted its story for $180 million EACH.

Nowhere did the Times story call either the Marubo tribe or its youth porn addicts, nor did it suggest porn was a huge problem.  That was all implied.  But of course none of that mattered to the attorneys, who saw a chance to make half of the tens of millions the media would probably offer to settle.

The lawsuit claims the Times story made the Marubo "a subject of international ridicule” and reduced them to “memes and headlines.”  Apparently in 2025 attorneys have managed to convince juries that everyone has a right not to be ridiculed.  We're not sure how being "put in headlines" is actionable, but we're not attorneys, so...

"Being reduced to memes," y'say.  I'd guess AOC, Gavin Newsom, Adam Schiff, Rashida Tlaib and a dozen other Dem pols are surely watching this lawsuit and considering similar legal action

"This is the way the world ends..."