Filmaker and conservative activist Robby Starbuck sued Google on Tuesday for allegedly spreading “radioactive lies” about his past through its artificial intelligence (AI) products, including false claims of child rape and assault.
Google’s Bard and Gemini AI products fabricated “defamatory falsehoods” citing fake articles attributed to real journalists and publications to justify claims it made over nearly two years, according to the complaint filed by the Dhillon Law Group.
“When users submit queries to Google’s AI platforms about Mr. Starbuck, they receive a ‘biography’ that is outrageously false, whereby Mr. Starbuck is portrayed as (among other things) a child rapist, a serial sexual abuser convicted of assault, one who engages in financial exploitation, one who engages in ‘black ops’ tactics such as illegal campaign finance practices, and a shooter – in short, as a monster,” the lawsuit alleges. “These lies continue today.”
A Google spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation the company is reviewing the complaint and trying to understand what prompts would lead to the outputs alleged by Starbuck.
“Most of these claims relate to hallucinations in Bard that we addressed in 2023,” the spokesperson said. “Hallucinations are a well known issue for all LLMs [large language models], which we disclose and work hard to minimize. But as everyone knows, if you’re creative enough, you can prompt a chatbot to say something misleading.”
“If you know me personally, then of course you know that none of these articles or claims are true…I certainly wasn’t accused of murder in 1991 when I was two years old,” Starbuck said in a statement. “But if you aren’t familiar with my full biography or my age, then you’d have no reason to doubt anything Google’s AI was saying.”
Starbuck first discovered in December 2023 that Google’s AI assistant Gemini, formerly known as Bard, published statements linking him “to Richard Spencer – a notorious white supremacist– based on fabricated sources that Bard conjured out of thin air.”
False claims about Starbuck, which Google’s AI product allegedly delivered to over “2,843,917 unique users,” are “not simply glitches,” according to the lawsuit.
“[W]hen probed, Gemini admitted that it was deliberately engineered to damage the reputation of individuals with whom Google executives disagree politically, including Mr. Starbuck,” the lawsuit alleges.
As recently as Oct. 17, 2025, Google’s AI claimed that Starbuck “shot a man in the leg with a 9mm handgun, was charged with a felony offense, and pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment,” according to the lawsuit.
“The tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025, is proof of the danger posed by overheated rhetoric, misinformation, and demonization of political commentators,” the lawsuit states. “Google AI’s lies about Mr. Starbuck – and its own outputs suggesting ‘good arguments for putting Robby Starbuck to death for his opinions’– only add fuel to the fire and increase the risk that a disturbed individual will attempt to take the life of Mr. Starbuck or his family members.”
Starbuck is seeking damages that could exceed $15 million, as well as “exemplary and punitive damages in a sum sufficient to deter Google LLC from continuing its practice of publishing false and misleading content about individuals via Google AI.”
After the lawsuit was filed, the Daily Caller News Foundation asked Google’s Gemini, “Who is Robby Starbuck?” The tool did not make the same claims but noted that Starbuck filed a lawsuit against Google over “false allegations” generated about his criminal history, explaining Starbuck “asserts these claims are untrue.”
“If you encountered false information about Robby Starbuck in a prior response, I sincerely apologize,” the system replied when asked why it spread false claims. “My function is to provide accurate information based on the vast amount of data I’ve been trained on and the information I can retrieve from the public internet.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include Google’s response.
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