If there’s one thing Elon Musk knows how to do, it’s ruin a good thing. First, the Tesla founder ruined a perfectly good social media platform with his Twitter—or should we say X—takeover. Then he took the fun out of space with his spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX. Now, Musk has decided to connect an isolated Amazonian tribe to the outside world with his satellite internet service Starlink. And the results of this latest decision have been… Interesting, to say the least.

Located in one of the most isolated stretches of the planet, the Marubo people, located around the Ituí River in Brazil, have long been one of the last communities without internet. However, after Musk decided to set up the community, which consists of approximately 2000 people, with high-speed internet nine months ago, things took a turn for the best and worst. 

One side of the coin has been that the connectivity is a blessing that has both underscored productivity and kept the community in touch with the rest of Brazil.

However, the Marubo people are now dealing with teenagers glued to phones. This addiction has now also fuelled group chats full of gossip, addictive social networks, interactions with online strangers, and minors watching excessive pornography.

Alfredo Marubo, leader of a Marubo association of villages, told The New York Times that he was particularly worried about how the introduction of online pornography was affecting the tribe: “We’re worried young people are going to want to try it.”

The community leader went on to explain that young men were suddenly sharing explicit videos in group chats, which is an extraordinary development for a culture that frowns on kissing in public. Marubo further added that others had reported more aggressive sexual behaviour from young men.

“I think the internet will bring us much more benefit than harm,” Enoque Marubo, another tribe leader, added, “at least for now.”

Nevertheless, the prospect of minors who are changing their behaviour based on online porn is quite disturbing.

X recently announced its new plans for allowing pornographic content, despite the fact that the platform is already struggling with content moderation.

We have launched Adult Content and Violent Content policies to bring more clarity of our Rules and transparency into enforcement of these areas. These policies replace our former Sensitive Media and Violent Speech policies - but what we enforce against hasn’t changed.

Adult…

— Safety (@Safety) June 3, 2024

The platform updated its guidelines to allow “consensually produced and distributed adult nudity or sexual behaviour” as long as it’s properly labelled and “not prominently displayed.”

X will still prohibit pornographic content that is exploitative, nonconsensual or promotes objectification, contains obscene behaviours or involves the sexualisation or harm to minors. The platform is also going to prevent adult content from being used for profile pictures, banners and other publicly visible places.

The decision still raised more than a couple of eyebrows since it is unclear how the platform will properly verify whether pornographic acts have been produced consensually, or whether all parties were aware of it being recorded.

Considering the new influx of young users with Musk’s expanding projects in developing countries, we can only assume that these concerns around content moderation will increase.