--- title: "Claude Leak Shows That Anthropic Is Tracking Users’ Vulgar Language and Deems Them “Negative”" description: "AI company Anthropic [suffered a massive leak]() of the source code to its Claude Code AI assistant earlier this week, triggering a panicked game of cat and mouse as company representatives sent out [copyright takedown requests]() targeting thousands of copies…" date: "2026-04-04" modified: "2026-04-04" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/claude-leak-anthropic-tracking-vulgar-language" categories: - "Anthropic" - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Ethics" --- # Claude Leak Shows That Anthropic Is Tracking Users’ Vulgar Language and Deems Them “Negative” ![Code snippets also found that Anthropic is actively tracking how often users are using vulgar language and changes in their mood.]() *Getty / Futurism* AI company Anthropic [suffered a massive leak]() of the source code to its Claude Code AI assistant earlier this week, triggering a panicked game of cat and mouse as company representatives sent out [copyright takedown requests]() targeting thousands of copies of its pilfered work. The code allowed tinkerers to reverse engineer aspects of the blockbuster chatbot, highlighting concerns that the leak could give Anthropic's competitors a major leg up. The leak also gave eyebrow-raising clues into upcoming or experimental efforts, including [unreleased AI models]() and a "[Tamagotchi"-like feature](), called "buddy," that "sits beside your input box and reacts to your coding." Perhaps the strangest yet: code snippets also showed that Anthropic is actively tracking how often users are using vulgar language. "Claude Code has a regex that detects wtf,' "ffs", "piece of s\*\*\*", "f\*\*\* you", "this sucks" etc." [tweeted]() developer Rahat Chowdhury. "It doesn't change behavior... it just silently logs is\_negative: true to analytics." "Anthropic is tracking how often you rage at your AI," he added. "Do with this information what you will." "This is one of the signals we use to figure out if people are having a good experience," Claude Code creator Boris Cherny [replied](). "We put it on a dashboard and call it the 'f\*\*\*s' chart." Chowdhury [also found]() that "there is a full mood classification for their insights but its employee only." "When an Anthropic employee gets frustrated, it pops up a prompt asking them to share their transcript, basically 'hey you seem upset, wanna file a bug report?'" he wrote. Beyond giving us a fascinating insight into how Anthropic has been building its blockbuster assistant, Cherny has been on a tear on social media, trying to pick up the pieces following his employer's embarrassing blunder. "It was human error," he insisted in a [Wednesday tweet](). "Our deploy process has a few manual steps, and we didn’t do one of the steps correctly. We have landed a few improvements and are digging in to add more sanity checks." Cherny also insisted that more AI was the answer to ensure such a leak won't happen again. "Like with any other incident, the counter-intuitive answer is to solve the problem by finding ways to go faster, rather than introducing more process," he wrote. "In this case more automation and \[C\]laude checking the results." The developer also clarified that "[no one was fired]()" following the leak, calling it "an honest mistake." But now that the cat is out of the bag, developers continue to pore over the wealth of data. Student developer Sigrid Jin's recreated source code repository on GitHub — dubbed "[Claw Code]()," in a reference to the open-source AI agent OpenClaw — has been forked, or essentially copied, almost 100,000 times. He [told *Business Insider*]() that the debacle could result in greater democratization of these kinds of tools. "Non-technical people are using these agents to build real things," Jin said. "We are talking about cardiologists making patient care apps and lawyers automating permit approvals." "It has turned into a massive sharing party," he added. **More on the leak:** [*Leaked Claude Code Shows Anthropic Building Mysterious “Tamagotchi” Feature Into It*]() ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()