Reddit Accused AI Startup Anthropic of ‘Stealing’ its Data

Reddit, a renowned platform for seeking genuine pieces of advice, anonymous suggestions, is widely used among users, especially the young ones. But, do you know that it has recently sued an AI startup, Anthropic, which was stealing its data from social media platforms to guide their AI models. And they did this after publicly promising that they wouldn’t.

Summary:

1. Reddit, a popular platform for seeking genuine advice, has filed a complaint against AI startup Anthropic for allegedly stealing its data from social media platforms to guide its AI models.

2. It also claims that Anthropic’s bots were accessing or attempting to access Reddit content over 100,000 times, reducing the company’s proposed position as an AI “white knight” dedicated to trust and honesty.

3. The lawsuit demands financial compensation, severe penalties, and a court order prohibiting Anthropic from using Reddit content for commercial reasons.

Reddit, a renowned platform for seeking genuine pieces of advice, anonymous suggestions, is widely used among users, especially the young ones. But, do you know that it has recently sued an AI startup, Anthropic, which was stealing its data from social media platforms to guide their AI models. And they did this after publicly promising that they wouldn’t.

Based on this latest startup news, a complaint has been filed against the San Francisco Superior Court in the recent battle among AI companies, claiming illegal use of third-party data. However, Anthropic backers include Amazon.com and Google Parent Alphabet.

A representative for Anthropic said, “We disagree with Reddit’s claims and will defend ourselves strongly.”

Why Reddit Accused AI Startup Anthropic?

According to the complaint, the AI startup Anthropic has refused to engage in a licensing agreement even when it trains its Claude chatbot on Reddit content, despite claiming in July that it had prohibited its bots from accessing the platform.

According to Reddit, Claude admitted that it was “trained on at least some Reddit data” and had no idea whether that content had been destroyed.

It also claimed that the bots of Anthropic were accessing or attempting to access Reddit content over 100,000 times, reducing the company’s proposed position as an AI “white knight” dedicated to trust and honesty.

“Anthropic refuses to respect Reddit’s restrictions and enter into a license agreement,” unlike Google and OpenAI, according to this latest startup news.

In a statement, Reddit Chief Legal Officer Ben Lee added that “we believe in an open internet,” but AI businesses must have “clear limitations” on how they are doing data scraping. Reddit and AI startup Anthropic are situated in San Francisco, just a 10-minute walk apart.

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The lawsuit demands financial compensation and severe penalties, as well as a court order that prohibits Anthropic from utilising Reddit content for commercial reasons.

On May 22, Anthropic launched its newest Claude models, Opus 4 and Sonnet 4. Last week, two persons acquainted with the subject indicated that total annualised income was close to $3 billion.

Notably, Reddit has signed agreements with other AI model providers, such as OpenAI and Google, that allow these businesses to train AI models on Reddit data and have the site’s postings appear in their respective AI chatbot responses. However, according to the filings, Reddit requires OpenAI and Google to follow specific agreements that protect its users’ interests and privacy.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, owns an 8.7% investment in Reddit, making him the third-largest investor, and previously served on the company’s board of directors.

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Reddit states in the complaint that it spoke with Anthropic and made it apparent that the AI startup lacked permission for data scraping or to utilize Reddit’s information. However, Reddit claims Anthropic “refused to engage.”

Reddit alleges in its complaint that scraper bots of AI startup Anthropic broke the social network’s robots.txt files, a standard that instructs automated systems not to crawl webpages. The online community platform claims that although Anthropic claimed to stop crawling Reddit in 2024, their bots continued to scrape data scraping the platform more than 100,000 times.

Reddit is requesting that Anthropic pay compensatory damages as well as restitution for the money earned by scraping Reddit’s information. Reddit also seeks a court order to prevent Anthropic from attempting to use Reddit’s content.

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