Reddit filed a lawsuit against AI firm Anthropic on Wednesday, alleging that the $61.5 billion AI start-up used its platform to train AI models without authorisation.
In a 42-page complaint filed in a Northern California court, Reddit claimed that Anthropic breached its user agreement by utilising the site’s data for commercial purposes.
Reddit’s lawsuit positions it as the first major tech company to formally challenge an AI model provider over its training data practices, joining numerous publishers who have sued tech companies for similar reasons.
The Complaint
According to the complaint, Anthropic has refused to enter into a licensing agreement even as it trains its Claude chatbot on Reddit content, while claiming in July that it had banned its bots from accessing the platform.
Reddit alleges that Anthropic’s Claude chatbot admitted it was “trained on at least some Reddit data” but was unable to confirm whether that content had been deleted.
Reddit’s chief legal officer, Ben Lee, told TechCrunch in a statement, “We will not tolerate profit-seeking entities like Anthropic commercially exploiting Reddit content for billions of dollars without any return for redditors or respect for their privacy.”
According to the lawsuit, Reddit notified Anthropic that it lacked permission to scrape or use Reddit’s content. However, Reddit claims Anthropic “refused to engage” with them.
Reddit alleges in its complaint that Anthropic’s scraper bots ignored the platform’s robots.txt files, a standard protocol instructing automated systems not to crawl web pages. The social media platform further claims that, despite Anthropic’s assertion in 2024 that it had ceased crawling Reddit, its bots continued to scrape the platform over 100,000 times.
“We disagree with Reddit’s claims and will defend ourselves vigorously,” an Anthropic spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Reddit has entered into agreements with AI model providers like OpenAI and Google, permitting them to train AI models on Reddit data and display Reddit posts in their AI chatbot responses. According to the lawsuit, Reddit mandates that OpenAI and Google adhere to specific agreements designed to safeguard its users’ interests and privacy.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, holds an 8.7 % stake in Reddit, making him the third-largest shareholder and previously served on the company’s board of directors.
