Reddit has taken legal action against AI startup Anthropic, accusing the company of unlawfully scraping content from its platform to train the Claude AI chatbot, despite public promises to avoid such practices. The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco, marks a major escalation in the ongoing battle over
Reddit has filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, accusing it of scraping vast amounts of user-generated content from the platform to train its AI models without permission.
The lawsuit, lodged in San Francisco Superior Court on Wednesday, alleges that Anthropic used Reddit content to train its Claude chatbot, even after publicly stating last July that it had blocked its bots from accessing Reddit’s servers. The company, backed by tech giants Amazon and Alphabet (Google’s parent company), is now facing claims of violating Reddit’s user policy and unjustly enriching itself "to the tune of tens of billions of dollars."
“We believe in an open internet,” said Reddit Chief Legal Officer Ben Lee. “But AI companies need clear limitations on how they use content they scrape.”
According to the complaint, Anthropic's bots accessed—or attempted to access—Reddit content more than 100,000 times, despite repeated requests to enter into a licensing agreement. Reddit highlighted that unlike Google and OpenAI, Anthropic has refused to respect platform guardrails or formalize content usage.
Reddit further pointed to statements from Anthropic’s Claude chatbot, which reportedly admitted it had been trained on "at least some Reddit data" and was unsure whether that data had since been deleted.
In a statement, Anthropic responded:
“We disagree with Reddit’s claims and will defend ourselves vigorously.”
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, restitution, and a court order preventing Anthropic from using Reddit content for commercial purposes.
The case marks the latest flashpoint in a broader debate over how AI companies gather training data—often from publicly available platforms—without compensating content creators.
Anthropic launched its latest models, Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4, on May 22. The company’s annualized revenue has reportedly surged to $3 billion, according to sources familiar with its financials.
Both Reddit and Anthropic are based in San Francisco, separated by less than a mile—but the growing tension between social platforms and AI developers is drawing global attention to the legal and ethical boundaries of data use in the AI era.
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Dozens of people were killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Tuesday, Lebanese officials said, straining a fragile ceasefire agreed between the countries in April. The attacks came as Iran accused the U.S. of violating a separate ceasefire with strikes near the Strait of Hormuz.
Tajikistan is hosting the Fourth International Conference on the International Decade for Action “Water for Sustainable Development” from 25 to 28 May in Dushanbe, bringing together thousands of participants from governments, international organisations and financial institutions.
Canada and the Bahamas announced on Tuesday that they will temporarily restrict entry for residents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and South Sudan following an Ebola outbreak in the region.
Latvia is strengthening its anti-drone capabilities along its borders with Russia and Moscow-allied Belarus after several drones entered the NATO member’s airspace, according to a senior military official.
Start your day informed with the AnewZ Morning Brief. Here are the top stories for 26 May, covering the latest developments you need to know.
The World Health Organization warned on Monday that the fast-moving Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda was outpacing response efforts, with 220 suspected deaths reported so far.
Iran has called Monday's U.S. strikes on it 'a gross violation' of their ceasefire. The U.S. military said it carried out defensive strikes in southern Iran after boats were seen laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, the U.S. says a peace deal may require several more days.
Shortly after nine o’clock on Tuesday morning (26 May), a sleek white train eased into Tbilisi’s central railway station, a couple of minutes behind schedule, carrying passengers from Baku for the first time since 2020.
The new AnewZ documentary, TARGET: Yerevan, builds its explosive case on exclusive, secret recordings originally published by Minval Politika.
Latvia is strengthening its anti-drone capabilities along its borders with Russia and Moscow-allied Belarus after several drones entered the NATO member’s airspace, according to a senior military official.
NASA has revealed the next phase of its plan to build a permanent base on the Moon, outlining the vehicles, robotic landers and hopping drones it intends to send as part of the project.
Britain and Poland are set to sign a new defence and security treaty on Wednesday (27 May), deepening cooperation between the two NATO allies as European governments respond to what they describe as a growing range of hostile threats across the continent.
Chinese investigators have uncovered hidden tunnels, missing worker trackers and fake underground walls during an initial investigation into the country’s deadliest mining disaster in more than 15 years.
Europe continues to swelter in a record-breaking heatwave, with France recording its hottest day in May and Britain breaking a temperature record for the second time in 24 hours.
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