Amazon: Starlink Internet Transforms Marubo Tribes – 20 mins

A remote tribe in Brazil’s Amazon finally has Internet access for Elon Musk’s company. But it doesn’t seem like a blessing: Half of the tribe’s members are now addicted to social media and porn, and the other half complain. Society is deeply divided.

It all started in September last year: the Tesla founder’s Starlink service was launched in the Marubo tribal community with 2,000 people. This was the first time that the tribals got internet connectivity. “When it started, everyone was happy,” Chinama Marubo, 73, told the New York Times. “But now everything has become worse. Young people have become lazy with the Internet; they are learning the white man’s way of life.

In general the Marubo lived a chaste life, even kissing in public was criticized – but now, with the introduction of high-speed Internet service, all moral rules have been turned upside down, Alfredo Marubo (Editor’s Note: The tribe is all surnamed Marubo) : Many young Marubo men share pornographic videos in group chats. , and he has even observed “extremely aggressive sexual behavior” in some.

“We’re worried that young people will want to try it,” he said of the kinky sex acts now on screens. Also: “Everyone is so self-absorbed that sometimes they don’t even talk to their own family.”

New York journalist Jack Nikas recently visited the Marubo tribe. He can confirm the complaints of the elderly: the tribesmen live a “new lifestyle”, many of them “sit for hours on their phones, typing, sending voice messages and watching video clips”.

“I saw two boys watching a video of Neymar Jr. one after the other,” Nikas said. Others are fed “fake news,” fall for scams, consume pornography, or become addicted to social networks and violent video games.

Although the internet brings many benefits such as communication in case of medical emergency or exchange with other villages, the internet is a trap for most people.

It also disrupts hunting and agriculture, which are essential to the tribal way of life, Nikas says. Marubo now had to introduce some rules: the internet was now available “only for several hours in the morning and several hours in the evening, then all day on Sunday”.