Reddit has filed a major lawsuit against AI company Anthropic, accusing it of using Reddit content without permission to train its AI models, including its popular Claude chatbot.
What’s the Issue?
Reddit says Anthropic has been scraping huge amounts of user content—like posts and comments—from the platform for years to train Claude AI. But according to Reddit’s user agreement, no one is allowed to use Reddit data for commercial purposes without a written agreement.
Reddit claims Anthropic ignored this rule and never made a licensing deal, unlike other AI companies like Google and OpenAI, which do have official agreements with Reddit.
Why Is This a Big Deal?
Anthropic has built a reputation as an “ethical” AI company, promoting itself as trustworthy and responsible. But Reddit is calling that image fake, saying their actions show the opposite.
For example:
- Anthropic claimed in July 2024 that it had stopped its bots from crawling Reddit.
- However, Reddit’s lawsuit says their system still caught over 100,000 attempts by Anthropic bots trying to access Reddit afterward.
What About User Privacy?
Reddit is also worried about user privacy. Normally, when a user deletes a comment or post, Reddit works with partners (like Google and OpenAI) to make sure that content is also deleted from AI training data.
But Anthropic, without a deal in place, doesn’t follow that rule. If you deleted a post from Reddit, Claude might still have it “baked into” its training data. That means your deleted content might still affect how the AI behaves—even if you tried to erase it.
The lawsuit even includes a screenshot showing Claude admitting it cannot tell if a Reddit post it was trained on was later deleted.
What Is Reddit Asking For?
Reddit wants several things from the court:
- Stop Anthropic from using any Reddit data immediately.
- Block Claude AI from being sold or licensed if Reddit data was used in its training.
- Ask for damages due to increased server load and lost revenue from not having a deal.
If Reddit wins, it could mean Claude might be removed from the market, or at least lose access to a big part of its training.
Why This Case Matters
This lawsuit is important for the entire tech industry. It raises a key question:
“Just because something is public on the internet, does that mean anyone can use it for profit?”
Reddit says no, and if the court agrees, it could change how all AI companies train their models in the future.