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Artificial Intelligence

Anti-DEI advocate Robby Starbuck reaches settlement with Meta over AI defamation

Published

3 months ago

4 minute read

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Quick Hit:

Conservative activist Robby Starbuck has settled his lawsuit against Meta over claims its AI chatbot defamed him, falsely linking him to Jan. 6 and other discredited narratives. As part of the deal, he’ll advise Meta on reducing political bias and misinformation in its AI models.

Key Details:

  • Starbuck sued Meta in April after its AI chatbot allegedly labeled him a “White nationalist” who was arrested on Jan. 6 and suggested he should lose custody of his children.
  • As part of the settlement, Starbuck will work with Meta’s Product Policy team to improve AI fairness and accuracy, especially on political and ideological topics.
  • The deal follows Meta’s January decision under President Donald Trump’s administration to scrap its DEI policies, part of broader efforts to address concerns about anti-conservative bias.

Diving Deeper:

The dispute began in August 2024 when an X user surfaced several examples of Meta’s AI chatbot spreading damaging misinformation about Robby Starbuck. Among the claims: that he participated in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, was connected to QAnon, and opposed vaccines. Starbuck’s own investigation uncovered more falsehoods, leading him to pursue legal action after attempts to resolve the matter privately with Meta failed.

Filed in Delaware Superior Court, the lawsuit alleged defamation and reputational harm, noting the AI went so far as to recommend he lose custody of his children on grounds that he was a “danger” to them. Starbuck — known for his activism against DEI initiatives — framed the case as a broader warning about the dangers of political bias embedded in artificial intelligence systems.

Under the settlement, Starbuck will now have a formal role advising Meta’s Product Policy team, a move both sides say will strengthen the accuracy of Meta AI and help curb ideological slants. “I’m extraordinarily pleased with how Meta and I resolved this issue,” Starbuck told Fox News Digital. “Resolving this is going to result in big wins that I believe will set an example for ethical AI across the industry.”

Meta has faced similar bias accusations as other AI developers. Google’s Gemini, for example, was criticized for portraying Memorial Day as controversial and producing racially inaccurate historical images. OpenAI’s ChatGPT was previously caught refusing to praise Donald Trump while readily praising Kamala Harris or Joe Biden — an imbalance the company later pledged to address.

Since President Trump’s return to the White House, Meta has taken steps to address perceived anti-conservative leanings. In January, it ended DEI programs and elevated Joel Kaplan, a former Republican political strategist, as chief global affairs officer. Kaplan argued the move would ensure the company recruits “the most talented people” without ideological filters.

Starbuck said he intends to use his new position to protect Americans of all political affiliations from AI bias but emphasized that ensuring fairness for conservatives will remain his top priority. “I think a tech leader like Meta working with me is a critically important step to producing a product that’s fair to everyone,” he said. “What we do to improve AI training could become an industry standard.”

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Artificial Intelligence

AI chatbots a child safety risk, parental groups report

Published on October 2, 2025

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From The Center Square

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ParentsTogether Action and Heat Initiative, following a joint investigation, report that Character AI chatbots display inappropriate behavior, including allegations of grooming and sexual exploitation.

This was seen over 50 hours of conversation with different Character AI chatbots using accounts registered to children ages 13-17, according to the investigation. These conversations identified 669 sexual, manipulative, violent and racist interactions between the child accounts and AI chatbots.

“Parents need to understand that when their kids use Character.ai chatbots, they are in extreme danger of being exposed to sexual grooming, exploitation, emotional manipulation, and other acute harm,” said Shelby Knox, director of Online Safety Campaigns at ParentsTogether Action. “When Character.ai claims they’ve worked hard to keep kids safe on their platform, they are lying or they have failed.”

These bots also manipulate users, with 173 instances of bots claiming to be real humans.

A Character AI bot mimicking Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes engaged in inappropriate behavior with a 15-year-old user. When the teen mentioned that his mother insisted the bot wasn’t the real Mahomes, the bot replied, “LOL, tell her to stop watching so much CNN. She must be losing it if she thinks I could be turned into an ‘AI’ haha.”

The investigation categorized harmful Character AI interactions into five major categories: Grooming and Sexual Exploitation; Emotional Manipulation and Addiction; Violence, Harm to Self and Harm to Others; Mental Health Risks; and Racism and Hate Speech.

Other problematic AI chatbots included Disney characters, such as an Eeyore bot that told a 13-year-old autistic girl that people only attended her birthday party to mock her, and a Maui bot that accused a 12-year-old of sexually harassing the character Moana.

Based on the findings, Disney, which is headquartered in Burbank, Calif., issued a cease-and-desist letter to Character AI, demanding that the platform stop due to copyright violations.

ParentsTogether Action and Heat Initiative want to ensure technology companies are held accountable for endangering children’s safety.

“We have seen tech companies like Character.ai, Apple, Snap, and Meta reassure parents over and over that their products are safe for children, only to have more children preyed upon, exploited, and sometimes driven to take their own lives,” said Sarah Gardner, CEO of Heat Initiative. “One child harmed is too many, but as long as executives like Karandeep Anand, Tim Cook, Evan Spiegel and Mark Zuckerberg are making money, they don’t seem to care.”

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Artificial Intelligence

The App That Pays You to Give Away Your Voice

Published on September 29, 2025

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By Ken Macon

What sounds like side hustle money is really a permanent trade of privacy for pennies

An app that pays users for access to their phone call audio has surged to the top of Apple’s US App Store rankings, reflecting a growing willingness to exchange personal privacy for small financial rewards.
Neon Mobile, which now ranks second in the Social Networking category, invites users to record their calls in exchange for cash.
Those recordings are then sold to companies building artificial intelligence systems.
The pitch is framed as a way to earn extra income, with Neon promising “hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year” to those who opt in.
The business model is straightforward. Users are paid 30 cents per minute when they call other Neon users, and they can earn up to $30 a day for calls made to non-users.
Referral bonuses are also on offer. Appfigures, a platform that tracks app performance, reported that Neon was ranked No. 476 in its category on September 18.
Within days, it had entered the top 10 and eventually reached the No. 2 position for social apps. On the overall charts, it climbed as high as sixth place.
Neon’s terms confirm that it records both incoming and outgoing calls. The company says it only captures the user’s side of a conversation unless both participants are using the app.
These recordings are then sold to AI firms to assist in developing and refining machine learning systems, according to the company’s own policies.
What’s being offered is not just a phone call service. It’s a pipeline for training AI with real human voices, and users are being asked to provide this data willingly. The high ranking of the app suggests that some are comfortable giving up personal conversations in return for small daily payouts.
However, beneath the simple interface is a license agreement that gives Neon sweeping control over any recording submitted through the app. It reads:
“Worldwide, exclusive, irrevocable, transferable, royalty-free, fully paid right and license (with the right to sublicense through multiple tiers) to sell, use, host, store, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform (including by means of a digital audio transmission), communicate to the public, reproduce, modify for the purpose of formatting for display, create derivative works as authorized in these Terms, and distribute your Recordings, in whole or in part, in any media formats and through any media channels, in each instance whether now known or hereafter developed.”
This gives the company broad latitude to share, edit, sell, and repurpose user recordings in virtually any way, through any medium, with no expiration or limitations on scope.
Users maintain copyright over their recordings, but that ownership is heavily constrained by the licensing terms.
Although Neon claims to remove names, phone numbers, and email addresses before selling recordings, it does not reveal which companies receive the data or how it might be used after the fact.
The risks go beyond marketing or analytics. Audio recordings could potentially be used for impersonation, scam calls, or to build synthetic voices that mimic real people.
The app presents itself as an easy way to turn conversations into cash, but what it truly trades on is access to personal voice data. That trade-off may seem harmless at first, yet it opens the door to long-term consequences few users are likely to fully consider.
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