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Anthropic presses OpenAI for records on removing deleted Reddit posts from trained models
Anthropic asked a San Francisco court to make OpenAI answer 25 subpoena requests, among them its records on deleted Reddit posts. The motion is set for a November 12 hearing on whether OpenAI must produce its deletion logs and its records on removing posts from trained models.
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What happened
- Request 32 asks OpenAI for records on whether Reddit content can be removed or suppressed from models that have already been trained.
- Alongside production following a protective order, the motion asks the court to sanction OpenAI.
- OpenAI's September 9 letter said material available from Reddit should be sought from Reddit first, asked for narrower scope, and said it remained open to reasonable production.
- Requests 9 to 12 reach back before OpenAI's first Reddit license, seeking records on Pushshift, Common Crawl, authorization analyses and data volume.
- RuntimeWire, which inspected the filings, says they leave open whether OpenAI failed to delete content, and what its models are able to keep or reproduce.
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Why it matters
- decision A licensee bound by deletion terms now has a filed example of what a litigant asks for: Compliance API docs, deletion-event logs, propagation evidence, failure records and complaints.
- exposure If request 32 is granted, OpenAI would have to put its own position on removing licensed posts from trained models into a suit between Reddit and Anthropic.
- contradiction Anthropic's claim that OpenAI never assessed the burden rests partly on Anthropic's own account of an August 5 call, which the court must weigh against OpenAI's letters without a transcript.
- precedent Anthropic's defense tests Reddit's deletion guarantees through its licensee's records, so licensees of user-generated data can be subpoenaed into a licensor's dispute with another company.
Read in order, requests 28 to 31 trace one Reddit deletion event through OpenAI's systems [6][7][8][9]. Number 28 starts at intake: OpenAI's implementation of Reddit's Compliance API, its operational documentation, and deletion-event logs or summaries [6]. Number 29 asks where the event went next. It seeks evidence of deletion or suppression across systems, datasets, products and customer-facing outputs [7]. The third covers what broke along the way, meaning failures, outages, delays, backlogs and technical limitations [8]. The fourth asks for third-party complaints or demands about failures to delete Reddit content [9].
I think request 32 is the one licensees should read closely. The four before it ask about logs, datasets and backlogs [6][7][8]. Request 32 puts the same question to a model whose training is already finished [10].
Anthropic wants all five for its defense. It argues that Reddit's privacy and interference claims depend on whether the guardrails Reddit imposes on licensed AI companies actually operate as Reddit describes [11]. According to RuntimeWire, the requests would test that argument against the conduct and capabilities of Reddit's named licensee, OpenAI [12]. The publication calls that an interpretation of Anthropic's defense, not a finding that OpenAI broke a deletion requirement [12].
Anthropic alleges OpenAI has produced no documents and has not investigated the actual burden of responding [14]. OpenAI's July 22 objections cite relevance, burden, time scope, confidentiality and trade secrets. For some requests they also cite privilege or the availability of documents from Reddit [17].
The middle of September went to letters about whether Anthropic could have more time to file a motion [19][20]. OpenAI declined on September 14, saying Anthropic had not answered its questions [19]. Anthropic's September 16 letter set aside requests 3 to 6, 8, 18 and 24 to 26 and asked for until December 9 to move to compel [18]. That is nine of the subpoena's 34 requests, leaving the 25 in the motion [1]. On September 18 OpenAI said Anthropic had merely postponed some requests without narrowing the rest [20]. It refused the extension again and said it would respond appropriately to a motion [20]. Anthropic filed on September 21 [1].
RuntimeWire writes that the requests "could clarify how Reddit's deletion requirements apply to licensed AI data after it enters training datasets or models" [21]. The November 12 hearing is on a motion to compel, so it decides what OpenAI must hand over [1][3]. In my view, any reading of how a deletion clause works inside a trained model would come later, from whatever is produced. The docket RuntimeWire inspected on October 4 showed no ruling [5].
What to watch
- The November 12 ruling on whether OpenAI must produce records under requests 28 to 32, and whether the court grants Anthropic's sanctions request.
- Whether a protective order is entered, since the motion seeks production only after one and OpenAI's objections cite confidentiality and trade secrets.
- If production is ordered, whether OpenAI's answer to request 32 says Reddit content can be removed or suppressed from models already trained.