Anthropic updates its usage policy, prohibiting sustained mistreatment of Claude

Anthropic updated its usage policy for the first time in over a year, adding a prohibition on "persistent and unnecessary abuse or cruelty" toward Claude, and listing ending the conversation as the primary enforcement method. The policy states that this clause applies only to extreme cases where users repeatedly mistreat the model without clear purpose, and does not cover common user dissatisfaction, dissenting opinions, dark creative themes, or model testing and research. Anthropic also consolidated several previously scattered restrictions into a ban on deceptive commercial or political propaganda, prohibiting hiding the entities behind information through fake accounts or posts, amplifying content, and deceiving voters, impersonating candidates, interfering with elections, and suppressing voting. The new policy also explicitly prohibits using Claude to track people without consent, to determine or recommend targets of investigation and arrest in law enforcement and criminal justice, and to build or improve surveillance tools; weapons-related bans were extended to software and components that make weapons function, including equipping drones and other autonomous vehicles with weapons. For cases involving hardware connected to autonomous physical actions that could cause harm, the policy requires that a qualified operator be able to observe and, if necessary, stop the device.