Meta appoints notorious anti-LGBTQ+ conspiracy theorist Robby Starbuck as AI bias advisor

Social media conglomerate Meta has appointed right-wing, anti-LGBTQ+ conspiracy theorist Robby Starbuck to advise the company on preventing political bias in AI, after the company settled a defamation lawsuit with him.

Robby Starbuck, a former music video director turned failed congressional candidate and MAGA Republican pundit, is the face of the right’s anti-DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) movement in its self-imposed ‘War on Woke’.

Starbuck’s mission to bring “sanity back to corporate America” via intense public pressure campaigns and boycotts has seen several big name US brands like Walmart, Ford, Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniel’s, Stanley Black & Decker and John Deere – just to name a few – all roll back DEI policies.

The anti-woke campaigner brought legal action against Meta – owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – after the company’s artificial intelligence chatbot falsely stated he took part in the riot at the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021, seeking $5 million in damages.

As part of the settlement, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, Starbuck will advise Meta on how to prevent political bias in its AI.

“Since engaging on these important issues with Robby, Meta has made tremendous strides to improve the accuracy of Meta AI and mitigate ideological and political bias,” a joint statement from Meta and Starbuck reads.

It has not been revealed if Robby Starbuck was paid as part of the settlement.

Starbuck’s appointment comes six months after Meta updated its Hateful Conduct policy with a raft of controversial changes in January.

The changes saw Meta set out that it would no longer moderate “divisive” issues, like immigration and gender, and end its independent fact checking programme by moving to a community notes system similar to the one used on Elon Musk’s platform, X.

The changes to the hate speech policy received huge backlash as it now allows users to call LGBTQ+ people mentally ill, simply because of their sexuality or gender.

“We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like ‘weird’,” the loosened guidelines read.

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta, said the changes were about “restoring free expression” on Meta platforms.

Starbuck’s new role at Meta also follows US president Donald Trump signing an executive order targeting so-called “woke AI models”.

The executive order, entitled ‘Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government‘, declares that artificial intelligence companies receiving federal funding must maintain politically neutral AI models which are free of “ideological dogmas such as DEI”.

“Artificial intelligence (AI) will play a critical role in how Americans of all ages learn new skills, consume information, and navigate their daily lives. Americans will require reliable outputs from AI, but when ideological biases or social agendas are built into AI models, they can distort the quality and accuracy of the output,” the order reads.

“One of the most pervasive and destructive of these ideologies is so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI). In the AI context, DEI includes the suppression or distortion of factual information about race or sex; manipulation of racial or sexual representation in model outputs; incorporation of concepts like critical race theory, transgenderism, unconscious bias, intersectionality, and systemic racism; and discrimination on the basis of race or sex.”

It adds that DEI “displaces the commitment to truth in favor of preferred outcomes” and this poses an “existential threat to reliable AI”.

Whilst the order goes on to state the federal government “should be hesitant to regulate the functionality of AI models in the private marketplace”, in the context of federal procurement it has “the obligation not to procure models that sacrifice truthfulness and accuracy to ideological agendas”.

During a speech at an AI summit in Washington, Trump slammed what he called “woke Marxist lunacy in the AI models”, stating: “Once and for all, we are getting rid of woke. Is that OK?” 

His comments were met with rapturous applause from AI industry leaders in the audience.

“Winning this competition will be a test of our capacities unlike anything since the dawn of the space age,” Trump said of AI, adding: “We need US technology companies to be all-in for America. We want you to put America first.”

In the past, the Trump administration has made less than ethical use of AI by using the technology to generate false images and spread misinformation, including that he has support from the vast majority of Taylor Swift fans and that former president Barack Obama was arrested in front of him.