Robby Starbuck speaks in an interview in New York in March. Photograph: Bess Adler/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Critics condemn Robby Starbuck, appointed in lawsuit settlement, for ‘peddling lies and pushing extremism’
A prominent anti-DEI campaigner appointed by Meta in August as an adviser on AI bias has spent the weeks since his appointment spreading disinformation about shootings, transgender people, vaccines, crime, and protests.
Robby Starbuck, 36, of Nashville, was appointed in August as an adviser by Meta – owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other tech platforms – in an August lawsuit settlement.
Since his appointment, Starbuck has baselessly claimed that individual shooters in the US were motivated by leftist ideology, described faith-based protest groups as communists, and without evidence tied Democratic lawmakers to murders.
Starbuck’s online posts have not changed in tenor since the “anti-DEI agitator” was brought into the Meta fold, and his Trump administration connections raise broader questions about the extent to which corporate America has capitulated to the Maga movement.
The Guardian repeatedlycontacted Meta for comment on Starbuck’s role, and his rhetoric online, but received no response.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Just Stop Oil are being branded “fanatics” for disruptive actions whose like hardly raised an eyebrow a decade ago
I wasn’t terribly surprised to see, in the weekend Morning Star, a letter suggesting that while the sentencingof theJust Stop Oil Five was overly harsh, they deserved punishment for their conspiracy to disrupt traffic on the M25.
The Star is, to be fair, generally quite supportive of JSO’s right to protest, while having some knee-jerk types in its readership, particularly in the crusty old tankie set. But such complaints get at the heart of an issue JSO has had for some time — they’re often really annoying even for their nominal allies.
Many of them are quite posh and can sound patronising or smug. Their targets are disruptive but less often to the wealthy and more to a cross-class cohort of art lovers, or pagans, or sports enthusiasts, or holiday makers. And motorists, of course. Roger Hallam, as their most famous face, often acts like a self-aggrandising edgelordwhose projects have a habit of getting people in trouble without much of a plan for long-term support.
It sometimes makes JSO hard to love, and it gives grouches in politics and the media an excuse to label them attention seekers, or cultists, or extremists.
But here’s the thing: for all their PR controversies, JSO aren’t actually extreme at all, and not only in comparison to, say, cops throwing their weight around on a Friday night, or any major event that gridlocks a city centre. Comparing them to similar campaigns from the 1990s or even the early 2000s, JSO are tamer than Lassie. The anti-roads movement,Animal Liberation Front, Earth First!,Reclaim The Streets, even Greenpeace — have all mounted considerably more disruptive campaigns within living memory. You can find reports on some of them in old issues of Freedom and Schnews.
In fact, a quick look through the latter’s archive for mentions of the M25 very quickly turns up this articlefrom 2012, with the Tories already in power, which notes the following action:
On Monday 16th July a Greenpeace co-ordinated swoop saw seventy-seven petrol stations within the M25 shut down, and another thirteen in Edinburgh - hitting Shell on the forecourt and in their pockets. Activists disassembled the emergency fuel shut off switches and chained the pumps together, stopping business for the day.
Twelve years ago, shutting down nearly the entire refuelling system around London and Edinburgh wasn’t considered big enough to fluster the Graun, which reported the whole thing as just another news story for the day. Shell were careful to say they respected the protesters’ views, and the police didn’t even bother to comment! My goodness what a difference a few years makes. Can you imagine the level of dribbling outrage the press would indulge in now?
This impressive gap in the treatment of disruptive protests on the same road is symptomatic of an issue touched on in a recent Freedom discussion, which has been worsening for a long time and accelerated, strangely, alongside the culture wars. While the left was accused of going woke and indulging in cancel culture, the right was becoming so pathetically unable to handle confrontation that it changed the laws to jail people for being annoying. Part of Suella Braverman’s anti-protest law(since struck down) literally gave police the power to break up protests for being “too noisy”.
And now we’re at the point where Hallam and co. are being jailed for 4-5 years each for conspiracy to disrupt the flow of traffic. But what’s worse is they’ve managed to somehow convince the public this is all a response to sudden rising environmental “fanaticism” entailing behaviour we’ve never seen before. A straight-up bald faced lie to a population who, if they are adults, should be able to personally remember examples of this not being the case which has nevertheless sunk in as truth. What a stunning propaganda victory! If the left had done it, you can bet your life the word “Orwellian” would be burning holes in printing presses across the nation.
Which brings us back to our letter writer in the Star. The left (and of course the anarchists) need to remember our history, and why it is that solidarity applies even to people we don’t get on with ideologically (or personally). We need to be much, much better at getting our heads out of our arses and fighting back against the demonisation of disruptive protest. It’s not a matter of whether we approve of JSO or Roger the Public Nuisance, or whether think their work is counterproductive in terms of public opinion.
Because not too long ago what they’ve been doing wouldn’t have been a jailable offence, or even a front page one. Not too long ago, columnists opining about disruptive protest being “anti-democratic” would have been quite rightly ridiculed for their lack of commitment to human rights. JSO’s re-designation as extremists courting much-deserved jail time is our re-designation.
Kier Starmer needs to be pressured on this from all sides. He has, after all, taken away the left’s voice in Parliament. Now he needs to hear it in the streets.
This manifesto is our manifesto – it belongs to every single person who has written to me over the last 41 years, met me at a community event or simply stopped me in the street. Meeting people, talking to people and working together to bring about a fairer society – that is what being an MP is all about.
The issues facing people in Islington are part of a much wider set of crises. There are more people living in desperate poverty than I have ever known. More rough sleepers struggling to survive. More refugees fleeing the horrors of war and climate catastrophe. We will not solve these crises unless we build a new kind of politics. Our people-powered campaign will demand a redistribution of wealth, ownership and power. For rent controls. For an end to the two-child benefits cap. For a Green New Deal. For safe routes for asylum seekers. For a fully funded, fully public NHS.
This future is no pipedream – our community is proof that a kinder world is possible. I visit community centres which are welcoming, creative places, where people can meet each other, learn, eat together, receive support when they need it, and give it when they are able to. I meet carers doing all they can to support relatives or friends, often in the most difficult circumstances. I meet members of mutual aid groups who are building a new economy, one act of solidarity at a time. If we applied these basic principles across the board, we would create a society that cares for each other and cares for all.
When I vote in Parliament, I do not vote alone. I vote with my community – and this campaign is bringing together people of all ages, faiths and backgrounds in pursuit of a better world. We are offering people something very precious: hope.
Join us at www.votecorbyn.com to prove that when we come together to fight for a better society for everyone, we can win.
CONTENTS
ACTION ON THE COST OF LIVING End the energy and water rip-off Fair pay for Islington workers Abolish the two-child benefit cap Universal basic income Wealth tax
HOUSING IS A HUMAN RIGHT Security for renters Build social housing Housing insulation Leasehold reform Cladding justice
DEFEND OUR NHS End privatisation Support our doctors and nurses Mental health A National Care Service Reproductive health
A GREENER ISLINGTON A Green New Deal Protect our parks Save our buses Walking and cycling Animal welfare
EDUCATION FOR ALL Save our schools Education is not a commodity Lifelong learning Update our curriculum
A SAFER ISLINGTON A public health approach Tackling hate crime and extremism A fairer criminal justice system
HUMAN RIGHTS ARE UNIVERSAL Peace Reparations Refugees are welcome here Migrant justice
OUR DEMOCRACY The right to protest The right to strike Decentralisation Local public ownership Media and sport
Several experts fear the UK government’s new definition of extremism targets Muslim groups [File: Hannah McKay/Reuters]
Experts say a new definition disproportionately targets groups that advocate for Muslims’ civil rights.
The United Kingdom government’s new definition of “extremism”, touted as a bid to tackle rising Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in the aftermath of Israel’s war on Gaza, has ignited fierce debate across the political spectrum, with critics on all sides claiming it will erode freedom of speech and civil liberties.
Communities Secretary Michael Gove last month named several UK-based far-right organisations, including the neo-Nazi British National Socialist Movement and the Patriotic Alternative, which will be held “to account to assess if they meet our definition of extremism and [we] will take action as appropriate”.
Amid heightened domestic tensions since October 7, he also named several prominent groups advocating for Muslims’ civil rights, including the Muslim Council of Britain, the Muslim Association of Britain – which he described as the UK affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, Cage, and Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND).
“The fact that there are immediately Muslim organisations who are labelled as [‘extremist’] tells you exactly what this piece of legislation is intended for,” said Imran Khan QC, the British lawyer who rose to prominence representing the family of Stephen Lawrence, whose racist murder in 1993 exposed institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police.
Organisations deemed “extreme” under the new definition will be blacklisted, made ineligible for government funding, and they will be banned from meeting with ministers.
Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Michael Gove speaking during the Scottish Conservative party conference at the Event Complex Aberdeen, March 2, 2024
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The left cannot confine ourselves to condemning what the government does. We need strategies to undo it. This applies to the toxic new definition of extremism announced by Michael Gove last week, which could have catastrophic long-term consequences.
The new definition — and its associated practice, the labelling of certain organisations as extremist by ministerial decree — must not be allowed to bed in. We need mass refusal to accept it, declarations by devolved and local government, trade unions, charities and campaigns that we wholly reject it.
The joint statement by key organisers of the mass street movement for Gaza that Gove’s “redefinition of extremism … is in reality an assault on core democratic freedoms” is the right approach.
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Our defence must be to go on the attack against the extremism definition, to campaign publicly for its reversal and to sign up every organisation that cares for its democratic image to officially oppose it.
The next government should inherit a policy that is already utterly discredited and unworkable because its right to define extremists is universally rejected.
