Conservative Activist Sues Meta AI Alleging False Claims About Him, Potentially Creating New Liability for AI Chatbots
At a time when artificial intelligence seems to be stepping into many roles previously held only by humans, perhaps it should not be shocking that an AI bot has become a defendant in a defamation suit.
What happened: Conservative activist and anti-DEI crusader Robby Starbuck filed a defamation suit against Meta, claiming that the company’s AI chatbot falsely accused him of being present at the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol.
A closer look: NewsGuard traced the controversy to an August 2024 dustup between Starbuck and a Vermont motorcycle dealership called Wilkins Harley-Davidson. Starbuck criticized Harley-Davidson for the company’s DEI initiatives and corporate advocacy.
In the midst of the feud, the dealership posted a screenshot showing a Meta AI response (the prompt was not provided) that claimed, “Starbuck was present at the [U.S. Capitol] riot and has been accused of participating in or promoting the event.” The post included the caption, “Interesting what Meta AI says about you Mr. Conspiracy Theorist,” referring to Starbuck.
Actually: “None of this ever happened,” Starbuck stated in a video he posted on YouTube. “It is literally an invention of Meta’s AI.” Indeed, he has plenty of proof to back his denial.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Starbuck, who has lived in Franklin, Tennessee, since 2019, filmed a live video for his podcast “Grow Up” with his wife Landon Starbuck from their Tennessee studio.
That same day, Starbuck posted on X more than 40 times, calling Jan. 6, 2021, “one of the worst days in modern American history” and “shameful.” While the riot was ongoing, Starbuck posted, “I don’t care what group you’re a part of, destroying property is stupid & wrong.”
Starbuck does not appear in NPR’s searchable database of the more than 1,500 federal criminal cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
See you in court: On April 28, 2025, Starbuck filed a defamation suit in Delaware Superior Court against Meta for “repeatedly publish[ing] — and continu[ing] to publish — provably false and defamatory statements,” according to a press release from Dhillon Law Group, the firm that is representing Starbuck. Its clients are often conservatives making civil rights claims, and its founder, Harmeet Dhillon, recently became assistant attorney general in charge of the Civil Rights Division in the Trump administration Justice Department.
Starbuck is seeking $5 million in damages.
On April 29, Meta’s chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan issued an apology to Starbuck on X, stating: “This is unacceptable. This is clearly not how our AI should operate.”
Meta’s chatbot has since corrected the record. When NewsGuard asked Meta AI on May 7 whether Starbuck participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection, it responded, “Robby Starbuck was not at the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.” The chatbot added, “Meta’s AI chatbot falsely claimed he participated in the riot, was arrested, and charged with a misdemeanor, prompting Starbuck to file a $5 million lawsuit against the company for spreading false information about him.”
Starbuck joins a small group of plaintiffs who have turned to the courts to try to hold AI companies accountable for generating allegedly false information. While none of the courts has yet awarded damages for defamation, The Wall Street Journal reported, some suits are advancing.
In one case, a Georgia judge last year allowed a defamation case against OpenAI to continue after conservative radio host Mark Walters claimed that its ChatGPT product inaccurately tied him to an embezzlement suit. OpenAI responded in April 2025 that it warns users that its chatbot can produce inaccuracies and said Walters did not alert the company about the alleged error before initiating the suit.