Robby Starbuck, a conservative author and activist, took a swing at Meta on Friday, just a week after an executive apologized for the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) search engine spreading false information about him.
“I think it’s one of the first times I’ve ever seen a company come out in the middle of active litigation and essentially say, ‘Yeah, we did that. Sorry about that’ — which is sort of bizarre, leaves one scratching your head, like that’s a bizarre legal strategy,” Starbuck told NewsNation’s “On Balance” in an interview.
“But essentially, they admitted guilt,” he continued. “So, in one hand, I’m happy they did that, but secondarily … I’m concerned about what is the precedent for the future. Are we going to allow AI to invent whatever it wants out there as the truth, when, in fact, it’s not?”
The conservative film maker has accused Meta’s system of falsely reporting that he was present at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and that he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. He later filed a lawsuit against the company that owns Facebook and Instagram.
Following roughly nine months of litigation, an executive reached out to Starbuck to issue an apology.
“Robby – I watched your video – this is unacceptable,” Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, wrote in a post last week on social platform X. “This is clearly not how our AI should operate. We’re sorry for the results it shared about you and that the fix we put in place didn’t address the underlying problem.”
Starbuck said while he appreciates the apology, he is focused on the bigger picture, including how AI and misinformation could affect elections in the future.
“It comes after us privately trying to solve this, not just for me, but for everybody, because that’s my real goal here — I want to fix this problem, so it never does this to anybody,” he told host Leland Vittert, while also questioning why there isn’t more bipartisan support for his cause.
“I want to stop this for everyone, regardless of their party,” Starbuck added.
Asked if he’s seeking damages, the conservative replied “yeah.”
“There’s damages for sure. I mean, it’s like any other defamation case,” he said. “They damaged my reputation, my character.”
“People have come up on the streets thinking that I was a criminal that pled guilty to a crime that I obviously did not commit,” Starbuck continued. “It even suggested my kids be taken away from me by authorities. And again, my kids have seen people come up to me thinking that I was at Jan. 6 … that I got arrested for breaking in … none of that is true.”
He’s also reported death threats associated with the false information.
According to the lawsuit, Starbuck is seeking over $5,000,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.
The legal complaint came after Meta launched its standalone version of its AI assistant late last month, touting more “personal” and “relevant” responses. The application uses its Llama 4 coding model to collect information from across the company’s platforms, according to the press release.
