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Title: Reddit is suing Anthropic for allegedly scraping its data without
permission

Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2025 19:03:20 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/ai/reddit-is-suing-a...

Reddit had filed a lawsuit against Anthropic, alleging that the AI company
behind the Claude chatbot has been using its data for years without
permission. The lawsuit comes after Reedit has increasingly taken a hardline
stance against scrapers and companies that use its data to train AI models.

In their filing, Reddit alleges that Anthropic was training its Claude
chatbot on Reddit data as early as December 2021. The lawsuit also includes a
screenshot in which Claude seems to acknowledge it was trained on Reddit
data. In a statement to Engadget, a Reddit spokesperson said the lawsuit was
the company's "final option to force Anthropic to stop its unlawful
practices" after repeated warnings.

"We believe in the Open InternetΓÇöthat does not give Anthropic the right to
scrape Reddit content unlawfully, exploit it for billions of dollars in
profit, and disregard the rights and privacy of our users," the spokesperson
said. "In clear violation of RedditΓÇÖs terms and despite repeated requests
to stop, Anthropic has been caught accessing or attempting to access Reddit
content via automated bots at least 100,000 times. This isnΓÇÖt a
misunderstanding, itΓÇÖs a sustained effort to extract value from Reddit
while ignoring legal and ethical boundaries."

Reddit's vast archive of online discussions has become a particularly
valuable commodity for the company as generative AI companies race to train
new models. The company has struck lucrative licensing deals with companies
like Google and OpenAI for access to its data. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has
previously called out Anthropic (along with other AI firms) for scraping
Reddit. Last year, the company took steps to limit automated scraping and
warned AI companies that they would need to pay up.

In their lawsuit, Reddit says that "Anthropic refused to engage" in
discussions about licensing. "Unlike its competitors, Anthropic has refused
to agree to respect Reddit usersΓÇÖ basic privacy rights, including removing
deleted posts from its systems," it says. "This case is about the two faces
of Anthropic: the public face that attempts to ingratiate itself into the
consumerΓÇÖs consciousness with claims of righteousness and respect for
boundaries and the law, and the private face that ignores any rules that
interfere with its attempts to further line its pockets."

In a statement, a spokesperson for Anthropic said, ΓÇ£we disagree with
Reddit's claims and will defend ourselves vigorously."

Update, June 4, 2025 12:03 PM ET: This post was updated to include a
statement from Anthropic.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/ai/reddit-is-suing-a...
its-data-without-permission-185833267.html?src=rss

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