Social media platform Reddit sued the artificial intelligence company Anthropic for illegally "scraping" the comments of Reddit users to train its chatbot Claude. Reddit claims that Anthropic has used automated bots to access Reddit's content despite being asked not to do so, and intentionally trained on the personal data of Reddit users without ever requesting their consent.
The lawsuit also claims that Anthropic ignored multiple requests to stop and refused to sign a licensing agreement, even as it accessed Reddit’s site more than 100,000 times.
“AI companies should not be allowed to scrape information and content from people without clear limitations on how they can use that data,” said Ben Lee, Reddit’s chief legal officer. He added that licensing agreements offer better protection for users, including the right to delete content and safeguards against spam.
Reddit also criticized Anthropic’s public image as an AI “white knight,” saying the company “refuses to respect Reddit’s guardrails” and instead “enriched itself to the tune of tens of billions of dollars” using unlicensed user content.
Interestingly, this case does not accuse Anthropic of copyright infringement—unlike other recent lawsuits involving AI models. Instead, Reddit’s case focuses on breach of terms of service and unfair competition.
Reddit, which now has over 100 million daily users, has signed licensing deals with other major tech companies like Google and OpenAI. These deals not only helped Reddit protect its content but also boosted the company’s financial position ahead of its stock market debut last year.
Anthropic said in a statement that it disagreed with Reddit's claims "and will defend itself vigorously.
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