LOS ANGELES—Robert B. Carey, lead plaintiff attorney in a proposed federal class action against the parent company of OnlyFans.com and other defendants, told a judge last week that he should be the only one sanctioned for the use of generative artificial intelligence that resulted in false and incorrect information in official filings.
Carey is an Arizona-based partner at the law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, which leads the proposed class action against Fenix International Limited and a class of so-called "chatter" agencies that claims the companies engaged in civil fraud and racketeering. This claim stems from an effort made by Carey when he set out to recruit plaintiffs who felt as if they were fraudulently misled to believe that they were speaking to OnlyFans content creators but were actually talking to "chatters."
A widespread practice among adult content creators with large followings is to hire teams to impersonate them, aiming to keep up with users and maximize revenue generation. These are "chatters." Carey recruited a few plaintiffs through his "Save the Fans" campaign, which was advertised across social media websites such as X.
When Carey and his colleagues filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, they made strong claims against OnlyFans as being a corrupt organization for allowing such a practice, and thereby placing the plaintiffs in potentially compromising situations. As AVN reported most recently about the case that was filed in 2024, attorneys representing Fenix and its affiliate companies noted that Carey and his colleagues used false and/or incorrect artificial intelligence (AI) hallucinations.
"Another important consideration is that Mr. Carey immediately admitted to the court his part in the errors, moved to correct the errors, apologized and expressed regret to the court and opposing counsel, and he is taking steps to ensure that these errors do not happen again," reads the legal filing made by Hagens Berman.
AVN reported that the federal judge on the case has ordered Carey and his fellow attorneys to appear before him on Sept. 25 to determine if the AI hallucinations that the attorneys for OnlyFans detected merit sanctions against the plaintiffs, the counsel, or the class itself.
The OnlyFans attorneys maintain that the plaintiffs should not be permitted to refile updated and corrected filings. They also maintain that the case should be dismissed.
