Yahoo Inc. has been dropped as a defendant in a lawsuit in which an Amazonian tribe sued it and other media entities over 2024 reports about the community obtaining access to high-speed internet, which the tribe contends led to its young members being viewed as having porn fetishes.
The Los Angeles Superior Court defamation lawsuit contends a New York Times report portrayed the Marubo tribe as “unable to handle basic exposure to the internet” and spotlighted “allegations that their youth had become consumed by pornography.”
Yahoo was sued for republishing the story under the headline “Remote Tribe Gets Hooked On Internet Porn.” On Tuesday, the plaintiff’s attorneys filed court papers with Judge Tiana J. Murillo asking that the part of the case against Yahoo be dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning it cannot be refiled. The judge signed an order making it official. No reason was given for the decision.
The plaintiffs, community leader Enoque Marubo and Brazillian activist Flora Dutra, maintain in the suit brought May 20 that the NYT made fun of their youth and misrepresented their traditions. In addition to defamation, the plaintiffs allege the paper is liable for false light invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, misappropriation of likeness, intrusion upon seclusion, fraudulent inducement negligence and unfair business practices
But in an anti-SLAPP motion filed previously, NYT attorneys contend the three reports were protected by free speech, that all of the causes of action should be tossed and that the insinuations of the plaintiffs are incorrect. The paper maintains the articles represent statements made in a public forum and that the stories reported on issues of public interest.
“The Times never stated or implied that members of the Marubo Tribe were addicted to porn,” the NYT attorneys state in their court papers. “A simple reading of The Times’ June 2, 2024 article makes that absolutely clear. Instead, the article reported on the important public issue of how the introduction of the internet transformed daily life for members of an isolated Indigenous tribe in the Amazon forest.”
In addressing the new challenges, one tribal leader interviewed expressed a concern that unnamed young men within the tribe were sharing pornographic images, according to the NYT’s lawyers’ court papers.
“That was it,” the same attorneys state. “Astonishingly, other news outlets quickly began misrepresenting The Times’ article, claiming The Times had discovered that the Marubo Tribe was addicted to porn — a statement neither stated nor implied in the article.”
The state’s anti-SLAPP — Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation — law is intended to prevent people from using courts, and potential threats of a lawsuit, to intimidate those who are exercising their First Amendment rights. A hearing on the NYT’s anti-SLAPP motion is scheduled Sept. 15.