As the newly crowned most valuable startup in the world and the maker of what are widely considered to be the most capable AI systems, Anthropic has a delicate line to tow as it comes of age under an administration known for picking fights both at home and abroad. If it wants to keep releasing industry-leading AI models, it’ll have to do so—at least for the time being—on the federal government’s own terms. That apparently includes keeping a wary eye out for Chinese abuses, even if that has to be implemented through inconspicuous spyware. Earlier this week, complaints started surfacing on Reddit about a mechanism embedded within Claude Code, which appeared to covertly flag users based in China (or with ties to Chinese AI labs) by detecting telltale signs like timezone and the use of proxy URLs. One Redditor made the case that by surreptitiously keeping tabs on Chinese users, Anthropic could ultimately use its spyware towards more malicious ends. “Today it’s a timezone check,” the Redditor wrote. “Tomorrow, it could be system sabotage or data exfiltration.” Anthropic’s response to this was basically: oopsie-daisy! In an X post on Tuesday night, Thariq Shihipar, a member of Anthropic’s technical staff working on Claude Code, said the spyware was “an experiment we launched in March that was meant to prevent account abuse from unauthorized resellers and protect against distillation,” that the company had “been meaning to take [the spyware] down for a while,” and that it “should be fully rolled back” in the redeployment of Fable 5, which arrived Tuesday. Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to a request to share more details around the timeline and purpose of the program.