Anti-DEI activist and conservative political commentator Robby Starbuck has joined Meta in the hopes of getting rid of alleged biases in its AI technology.
Starbuck, 36, has been a vocal opponent of DEI in corporate America in recent years and sued the tech giant after claiming its AI tool defamed him.
He alleged the company’s AI chatbot falsely assert that he was arrested for and pled guilty to participating in the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
The two parties settled in early August and as part of that settlement, Meta is bringing Starbuck onboard to try and stop its AI from showing ‘ideological and political bias.’
In a statement announcing the hiring, Meta said that is has worked on improving the accuracy of its artificial intelligence but Starbuck will give it a bigger boosts.
‘Building on that work, Meta and Robby Starbuck will work collaboratively in the coming months to continue to find ways to address issues of ideological and political bias and minimize the risk that the model returns hallucinations in response to user queries.’
Starbuck told The Tennessean that his conservative views ‘aren’t a secret’ but he’s simply looking for Meta AI to be ‘neutral’ and ‘fact driven.’
‘It’s my goal to ensure fairness for everyone and ethical responses about everyone,’ he said.
Anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck has joined Meta to try and get rid of the biases in its artificial intelligence technology after the conservative sued the company after its AI lied about him
Starbuck went after Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, suing them for defamation after searching his name into Meta AI returned false statements, including that he participated in, was arrested for and pled guilty to participating in the January 6 , 2021 Capitol riot
‘Regardless of your politics, I want to help shape a future where you don’t have to worry about a thumb on the ideological scale. AI is going to be an increasingly large part of our lives and we all need it to be trustworthy, fair and accurate. It’s my goal to be a part of making that happen.’
Starbuck is seen as a rising star on the right after leading the charge in pushing corporations to end DEI programs.
In 2024, he predicted that within two years, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in the US and even overseas will be in the rearview mirror.
Before then, the dad-of-four, who’s pressured everyone from Ford to Lowe’s to ditch DEI, says his biggest targets are yet to come.
Those targets coincidentally included his new employers at Meta and other big tech firms — not just over their internal procedures but also for content streams that he says harm kids.
Starbuck has this year emerged as a hugely divisive character in America’s culture wars.
He once directed music videos for Snoop Dogg and Megadeth in LA, but swapped that for rural living near Nashville, Tennessee, where he tried — and failed — to win a Republican House seat in 2022.
From a farm in Franklin, he’s had greater success in posting X/Twitter videos exposing the DEI programs of top firms and getting their conservative customers to stop spending until executives scrap them.
Starbuck is seen as a rising star on the right after leading the charge to get corporations to end DEI programs
So far, Ford, Harley-Davidson, John Deere, Tractor Supply, Molson Coors, Caterpillar, and Brown-Forman, which makes Jack Daniel’s, have all folded. Starbuck lauds his ‘100 percent success rate.’
His wins echo the past backlashes against Bud Light over its tie-up with a trans TikToker and Target for its Pride range, which some consumers said was inflammatory.
Starbuck and other activists gained momentum after the US Supreme Court banned affirmative action in college admissions in 2023.
That ruling sparked a series of lawsuits and complaints against companies for discriminating against white workers.
Many companies that embraced DEI policies in the wake of the cop killing of unarmed black man George Floyd in May 2020 have stepped back from them for fear of irking conservative patrons.
‘People deserve to be able to shop without thinking they’re supporting some cause or having somebody else’s social value shoved down their throat,’ says Starbuck.
‘Companies should be neutral and stay out of politics and divisive social issues.’
He’s now planning the final stage of his anti-DEI campaign by targeting ‘wokery’ at big tech firms.
It’s a phase shift for Starbuck, as the DEI issues are more complicated, and the companies in question — from Meta to TikTok, and YouTube — are much wealthier than his past targets.
He seeks to halt not only their internal DEI systems, but also how they expose kids to violence, pornography, and posts that promote eating disorders, a negative self-image and radical gender ideology.
Starbuck’s campaigns to date have been successful as niche attacks on DEI. He may well struggle to make as much noise — and impact — when wrestling the world’s wealthiest and most powerful corporations.