Reddit is suing AI startup Anthropic for scraping its user data without permission. The social media giant says Anthropic "engaged in unlawful and unfair business acts" by sucking up content from subreddits to train its AI models.
The lawsuit targets Anthropic’s “commercial exploitation of data which they don’t own,” according to legal experts. Reddit claims this data-harvesting messes with its contracts with users and cuts into its business.
Reddit has deals licensing its data to OpenAI and Google, but alleges Anthropic bypassed any agreement. The company is focusing on unfair business practices rather than copyright law, highlighting new legal ground in AI data use. 
CEO Steve Huffman stressed the need to charge for commercial use of Reddit’s data on The Best One Yet podcast.
"Commercial use requires commercial terms," Huffman said. "When you use something — content or data or some resource — in business, you pay for it."
Anthropic pushed back, telling CNBC it "disagrees with Reddit’s claims and will defend ourselves vigorously."
The fight comes amid fears AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Google Gemini eating into Reddit’s user base. Huffman argues Reddit’s unique conversations help it stay relevant against “annotated sterile answers from AI.”
Reddit isn’t just on defense. It rolled out Reddit Answers AI in December, built with OpenAI and Google tech. This bot draws answers solely from Reddit chats and links back to original posts. Over 1 million users try it weekly.
"There will always be a need, a desire for people to talk to people about stuff," Huffman said.
Investor interest remains solid because Reddit’s user intent data is attractive for ads. Seaport’s Aaron Kessler said Reddit signals stronger consumer intent than platforms like Facebook.
Watch Reddit sue Anthropic over wrongful data use:
