Teenagers in a remote Brazilian tribe have become hooked on pornography months after they were given high-speed internet access via Elon Musk’s Starlink.
The indigenous Marubo people, who for hundreds of years have existed in small huts along the Itui River in the Amazon, were connected to the billionaire’s satellite network in September.
The community embraced the technology, marvelling at the life-saving ability to call for immediate help when grappling with venomous snake bites as well as being able to remain in contact with faraway relatives.
But, since a group of men arrived at the camp with antennas strapped to their backs to connect the remote tribe of 2,000 people to the internet, there have been some less desirable consequences.
Critics warn tribe members have become “lazy”, reclining in hammocks all day glued to their phones to gossip on WhatsApp or chat to strangers on Instagram.
And there have already been reports of young men engaging in aggressive sexual behaviour after being exposed to pornography, Alfredo Marubo, leader of a Marubo association of villages, told The New York Times.
Young men brought up in a culture where kissing in public is seen as scandalous have been sharing explicit videos with one another in group chats, he said, adding: “We’re worried young people are going to want to try it.”
Alfredo also warned that members of the tribe have stopped speaking to their own families since they have gained access to the internet.
‘Things have got worse’
Tribe elder Tsainama Marubo, 73, said while everyone “was happy” when the internet arrived, “now things have got worse”.
“Young people have gotten lazy because of the internet,” she said, adding: “They’re learning the ways of the white people.”
Kâipa Marubo, a father of three, said he was concerned about his children playing first-person shooter video games, fearing they might want to mimic the attacks.
Another leader, Enoque Marubo, 40, said the tribe has started limiting the hours members could access the internet because its introduction had “changed the routine so much that it was detrimental”.
Members can browse the internet for two hours in the morning and five hours in the afternoon and all day on Sundays.
”In the village, if you don’t hunt, fish and plant, you don’t eat,” Enoque said.
Enoque worked with Brazilian activist Flora Dutra to bring the internet to the tribe.
They contacted American philanthropist Allyson Reneau, who reportedly donated 20 Starlink units to the Marubo tribe.
Musk’s Starlink owns around 60 per cent of the roughly 7,500 satellites orbiting Earth and has helped bring connectivity to some of the trickiest places in the world.
Its technology was first made available in Brazil in 2022, but only reached the more remote areas of the Amazon last year.
The region was the last frontier of the clash of civilisations that began in 1492, when Europeans first started arriving en masse in the Americas, conquering indigenous peoples with force and overwhelming them with technology such as metal swords.
Thanks to its dense vegetation and sheer size, the world’s largest rainforest remained cut off from that process until the rubber boom of the late 19th century.
But in recent decades, various commodities, above all oil, timber and land for ranching, have seen more and more isolated tribes enter into contact, some willingly, others reluctantly, with the outside world for the first time.
That has brought them the benefits of modernity, such as the internet and Western medicine.
But some have suffered from new diseases to which they have no immunity to, as well as alcoholism, racism, sexual exploitation, enslavement and massacres.
Traditions may be lost
The result is that across the Amazon traditional cultures are now being consumed by Western materialism.
The process is visible in jungle towns across the basin, where indigenous people now routinely binge on Hollywood action films, Mexican telenovelas and Premier League football.
Such concerns were voiced by TamaSay Marubo, 42, the tribe’s first woman leader, who said she was worried the tribe’s traditions would be lost to young people who “just want to spend the whole afternoon on their phones”.
But one positive change for the Marubo people means the tribe can now call for immediate medical help, rather than rely on the rigmarole of sending radio signals between villages to reach the authorities.
Enoque said this has “already saved lives” and that “the internet will bring us much more benefit than harm. The leaders have been clear. We can’t live without the internet”.