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Conservative activist Robby Starbuck secured a significant legal milestone Friday when a Delaware Superior Court judge ruled his defamation case against Google can advance toward the discovery phase. The decision allows Starbuck’s lawsuit, which seeks at least $15 million in damages, to move forward after he alleged the tech giant’s artificial intelligence systems falsely portrayed him as a “monster” to millions of users through what he characterized as “AI hallucinations.”
Judge Meghan Adams determined the allegations met the legal threshold required to proceed. “The Court views these allegations as sufficient to support a claim for emotional distress damages at this stage in the proceedings, being sufficiently well-pled to proceed to discovery and flesh out the allegations,” the judge wrote in her ruling. The decision clears the way for Starbuck to obtain internal Google documents and depose company officials.
Starbuck filed the lawsuit last October, claiming Google’s AI platforms—Bard, Gemini and Gemma—disseminated false information linking him to sexual assault, rape, harassment and child abuse allegations since 2023. According to the suit, Gemini alone displayed these falsehoods to approximately 2.8 million unique users. Starbuck said he sent multiple cease-and-desist letters to Google before pursuing legal action.
On social media, Starbuck celebrated the ruling and outlined questions he plans to pursue through discovery. “Was it directed to lie about me due to political bias, as their AI alleged? Was it a rogue programmer? A negligently released product?” he wrote on X, adding that the process would reveal “what Google knew, who knew it and why they allowed their AI products to continue spreading these horrific lies.”
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Starbuck called the decision “historic” and emphasized the broader implications. “As we enter a time when AI increasingly dominates everything around us, we must ensure that it can’t hurt people,” he said. “We must draw a line in the sand that the AI being built can’t harm humans whether it’s via defamation or future physical harm.”
Starbuck previously told Fox News Digital that Google’s alleged statements claiming he committed child rape represented a breaking point that compelled him to file suit. He also referenced concerns about misinformation following the assassination attempt on Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, noting that “some crazy person could believe this stuff.”
Google did not provide an immediate response to requests for comment regarding the court’s decision or Starbuck’s allegations.
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